Your thinking of written history, almost all of which was written by slavers and lords to justify them doing nothing and getting all the stuff.
The vast majority of human existence, from when we first diverged from apes until the agricultural revolutions, was organized around anarchic tribes and clans where they shared there resources and the leader “ruled” at the discretion of the tribe.
These were not benign, cooperative social structures. They were tiny dictatorships. The leader controlled the “discretion of the tribe” by eliminating dissent. The controlling principle of their social structure was “might makes right”.
Other words for the broad concept you are describing are “harem” and “cult”.
That sort of tyranny won’t last long because there is no real method to monopolize violence before the agricultural revolution.
A tyrant could rule over a village by taking all the surplus, buying weapons and armor for him and his goons, and spending all their time training and specializing in violence to the point where there small group could easily threaten the remaining men in the village to work for them.
Before agriculture there was no surplus, no specialization and no advanced weapons and armor. So the difference between men matters far less and it becomes a numbers game. If one guy tries to monopolize the women and resources of the tribe then the rest of the men would rebel and easily take him and his goons.
Also pre agricultural society was nomadic, so if a tyranny ever came the oppressed could just leave.
If all the other men leave, or the tyrant kills the dissenters, then that leaves them vulnerable to attacks from other tribes. So naturally these tribes filled with strife and tyranny would die out while tribes that were able to keep consensus and coherence among the men would prevail.
Thus the leader in Hunter gatherer society ruled at the discretion of the tribe. If he deviated from the will of majority the threat of rebellion would loom over his head.
This is also why we saw a loosening of hierarchies after the invention of the gun and the loss of the importance of violence specialization and the increase in the importance of man power.
That sort of tyranny is the defining characteristic of these primitive, tribal social structures.
If one guy tries to monopolize the women and resources of the tribe then the rest of the men would rebel and easily take him and his goons.
Gorillas, elephant seals, wolves… If you look hard enough, you can find similar social structure even in invertebrates. If the tyrant is ever overthrown, he is always replaced by those overthrowing him, and the tyranny continues. This structure was successful because a tribe’s tyrant was a bigger threat to neighboring tribes than his own.
Also pre agricultural society was nomadic, so if a tyranny ever came the oppressed could just leave.
What really happened was that the departing group posed a competitive threat to those who remained, so they group collectively turned on the rebels. If a rebellion was ever actually successful, it quickly established the same structure with new players.
Before agriculture there was no surplus,
Tyranny thrives with surplus, scarcity, or anything in between.
So naturally these tribes filled with strife and tyranny would die out while tribes that were able to keep consensus and coherence among the men would prevail.
The lesson that arises from this is submission. Submit to the tyrant of your tribe, or the tyrants of other tribes will be coming for you. If any in your tribe would turn against your tyrant, you owe a duty to your tyrant to eliminate them, and come to your tyrant’s aid. Your tribe will die out, unless you keep consensus and coherence in support of your own tyrant. You become a supporting member of the tyranny long before you ever pick up a shovel or hoe. The pinnacle of anarchy is submission to the nearest tyrant.
That sort of tyranny is the defining characteristic of these primitive, tribal social structures.
This seems like you’re projecting your views on hierarchies and domination, being raised in a highly hierarchical, individualistic and competitive society under capitalism, into the past. The sort of tyranny you see in class based societies is not seen in Hunter gatherer society.
Hunter-gatherers tend to have an egalitarian social ethos,[26][27] although settled hunter-gatherers (for example, those inhabiting the Northwest Coast of North America and the Calusa in Florida) are an exception to this rule.[28][29][30] For example, the San people or “Bushmen” of southern Africa have social customs that strongly discourage hoarding and displays of authority, and encourage economic equality via sharing of food and material goods.[31] Karl Marx defined this socio-economic system as primitive communism.[32]
The egalitarianism typical of human hunters and gatherers is never total but is striking when viewed in an evolutionary context. One of humanity’s two closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, are anything but egalitarian, forming themselves into hierarchies that are often dominated by an alpha male. So great is the contrast with human hunter-gatherers that it is widely argued by paleoanthropologists that resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving the evolutionary emergence of human consciousness, language, kinship and social organization.[33][34][35][36]
Most anthropologists believe that hunter-gatherers do not have permanent leaders; instead, the person taking the initiative at any one time depends on the task being performed.[37][38][39]
Capitalism wants us to think domination is natural so that we’ll weigh the grand tyranny of the capitalist state to the petty tyranny of tribal rule and choose it. So they’ll downplay the tyranny of the state and wholly fabricate the tyranny of tribal societies to manufacture consent.
They don’t want us to think anarchy/communism is possible, much less the natural state of man before agriculture.
The sort of tyranny you see in class based societies is not seen in Hunter gatherer society.
We can see this sort of tyranny evolved not just in humans, but in a wide variety of species. What makes humanity special in this regard? Why do you think our evolutionary ancestors were immune to these sorts of behaviors?
have social customs that strongly discourage hoarding and displays of authority, and encourage economic equality via sharing of food and material goods
The sharing of food and material goods does not imply a lack of tyrannical behavior. A focus on the “carrots” does not justify ignoring the “sticks”.
What do other species evolutionary tracks have to do with ours? Legs have evolved in a wide variety of species, but many species don’t have them, including some like snakes and whales that have ancestors with legs. These species were formed by evolutionary pressures that made that trait detrimental. Above is a summary of how tyranny is detrimental in a nomadic hunter gatherer society.
Along with the disadvantages one of the key advantages of tyranny, intra group conflict resolution, is less of a draw as we have other ways of resolving conflicts, namely speech which no other species has to the same degree. Resolving conflicts with talking is way less costly to the group then resolving with violence, so a tribe that resolves there conflicts with words is going to be in better shape then one constantly fighting and injuring each other.
The sharing of food and material goods does not imply a lack of tyrannical behavior.
What is this tyrannical behavior then, and what’s it in service of? Tyranny takes a lot of effort and risk to maintain, so why do it? Your not getting more resources, your not getting prestige through displays of authority.
Early communalism existed for far longer. I don’t agree with people associating anarchism with it, as anarchism today implies current levels of productive forces and thus a new organization of humanity fundamentally different from early communalism, but they are correct that the bulk of human existence has been without a state and without classes.
The vast majority of human existence: slavery and feudalism
Your thinking of written history, almost all of which was written by slavers and lords to justify them doing nothing and getting all the stuff.
The vast majority of human existence, from when we first diverged from apes until the agricultural revolutions, was organized around anarchic tribes and clans where they shared there resources and the leader “ruled” at the discretion of the tribe.
These were not benign, cooperative social structures. They were tiny dictatorships. The leader controlled the “discretion of the tribe” by eliminating dissent. The controlling principle of their social structure was “might makes right”.
Other words for the broad concept you are describing are “harem” and “cult”.
That sort of tyranny won’t last long because there is no real method to monopolize violence before the agricultural revolution.
A tyrant could rule over a village by taking all the surplus, buying weapons and armor for him and his goons, and spending all their time training and specializing in violence to the point where there small group could easily threaten the remaining men in the village to work for them.
Before agriculture there was no surplus, no specialization and no advanced weapons and armor. So the difference between men matters far less and it becomes a numbers game. If one guy tries to monopolize the women and resources of the tribe then the rest of the men would rebel and easily take him and his goons.
Also pre agricultural society was nomadic, so if a tyranny ever came the oppressed could just leave.
If all the other men leave, or the tyrant kills the dissenters, then that leaves them vulnerable to attacks from other tribes. So naturally these tribes filled with strife and tyranny would die out while tribes that were able to keep consensus and coherence among the men would prevail.
Thus the leader in Hunter gatherer society ruled at the discretion of the tribe. If he deviated from the will of majority the threat of rebellion would loom over his head.
This is also why we saw a loosening of hierarchies after the invention of the gun and the loss of the importance of violence specialization and the increase in the importance of man power.
That sort of tyranny is the defining characteristic of these primitive, tribal social structures.
Gorillas, elephant seals, wolves… If you look hard enough, you can find similar social structure even in invertebrates. If the tyrant is ever overthrown, he is always replaced by those overthrowing him, and the tyranny continues. This structure was successful because a tribe’s tyrant was a bigger threat to neighboring tribes than his own.
What really happened was that the departing group posed a competitive threat to those who remained, so they group collectively turned on the rebels. If a rebellion was ever actually successful, it quickly established the same structure with new players.
Tyranny thrives with surplus, scarcity, or anything in between.
The lesson that arises from this is submission. Submit to the tyrant of your tribe, or the tyrants of other tribes will be coming for you. If any in your tribe would turn against your tyrant, you owe a duty to your tyrant to eliminate them, and come to your tyrant’s aid. Your tribe will die out, unless you keep consensus and coherence in support of your own tyrant. You become a supporting member of the tyranny long before you ever pick up a shovel or hoe. The pinnacle of anarchy is submission to the nearest tyrant.
This seems like you’re projecting your views on hierarchies and domination, being raised in a highly hierarchical, individualistic and competitive society under capitalism, into the past. The sort of tyranny you see in class based societies is not seen in Hunter gatherer society.
I’m just going to copy paste the society section from the Wikipedia page on hunter gatherers as it refutes a lot of what you’re saying:
Capitalism wants us to think domination is natural so that we’ll weigh the grand tyranny of the capitalist state to the petty tyranny of tribal rule and choose it. So they’ll downplay the tyranny of the state and wholly fabricate the tyranny of tribal societies to manufacture consent.
They don’t want us to think anarchy/communism is possible, much less the natural state of man before agriculture.
We can see this sort of tyranny evolved not just in humans, but in a wide variety of species. What makes humanity special in this regard? Why do you think our evolutionary ancestors were immune to these sorts of behaviors?
The sharing of food and material goods does not imply a lack of tyrannical behavior. A focus on the “carrots” does not justify ignoring the “sticks”.
What do other species evolutionary tracks have to do with ours? Legs have evolved in a wide variety of species, but many species don’t have them, including some like snakes and whales that have ancestors with legs. These species were formed by evolutionary pressures that made that trait detrimental. Above is a summary of how tyranny is detrimental in a nomadic hunter gatherer society.
Along with the disadvantages one of the key advantages of tyranny, intra group conflict resolution, is less of a draw as we have other ways of resolving conflicts, namely speech which no other species has to the same degree. Resolving conflicts with talking is way less costly to the group then resolving with violence, so a tribe that resolves there conflicts with words is going to be in better shape then one constantly fighting and injuring each other.
What is this tyrannical behavior then, and what’s it in service of? Tyranny takes a lot of effort and risk to maintain, so why do it? Your not getting more resources, your not getting prestige through displays of authority.
Your not going to get a harem, polygyny was rare in Hunter gatherer civilizations and even the guys with multiple wives usually only had 2 wives. . Extreme polygyny and harems don’t show up until agriculture as shown by the bottleneck in y chromosomes
So please provide some sort of ethnographic case study showing this tribal tyranny you speak of.
Show me your proof, liberal. And no… reruns of The Walking Dead doesn’t count.
That shit happened after agriculture.
agrarianism isn’t universal, and humans who eschewed it are just as capable as people who embraced it. it’s not before or after.
You young earth creationists get wilder all the time. Now the Earth is younger than bronze?
Early communalism existed for far longer. I don’t agree with people associating anarchism with it, as anarchism today implies current levels of productive forces and thus a new organization of humanity fundamentally different from early communalism, but they are correct that the bulk of human existence has been without a state and without classes.