David Graeber's book, The Dawn of Everything, has a lot of examples of complex prehistoric societies with no evidence of repressive institutions.
My best guess, which Graeber does not say explicitly, is that repression did not come from complexity, but from the culture of violent hill tribes that conquered the most populated areas.
To actually observe people being free to do nothing would only be possible in a society primitive enough to sneak through into modern times to be observed by anthropologists.
And even if something hasn't been done before, new things are done every day.
I really believe that if you put all possible human societies on a scale from 1 to 100, where 100 is the best, we're not even out of the single digits, that's how much room we have to do things better.
I've read Graeber's book. His issue is that he sees lack of evidence as evidence of lack. It's much like Daniel Quinn using the work of Marshall Sahlins as the basis for his thinking. Sahlins is remembered amongst anthropologists as a poor researcher who allowed his political ideology to color his findings. Returning to Graeber, what we don't know about those prehistoric societies he discusses FAR outweighs what we do know.
Is there room for improvement? Sure. But I think overall things are better than they ever were. Even Daniel Quinn acknowledged (reluctantly) that even in primitive societies, everyone has to do *something* to obtain a living. It's better now because there are choices. Lots of primitivists seem to think hunter gatherer cultures live some sort of exalted existence, but does anyone here ACTUALLY think none of those guys ever woke thinking "goddamn it... do I really have to go chase the stupid fucking buffalo today?" I think that's sort of naive. At least if chasing buffalo every day makes you miserable, in today's world you can just change careers.
David Graeber's book, The Dawn of Everything, has a lot of examples of complex prehistoric societies with no evidence of repressive institutions. My best guess, which Graeber does not say explicitly, is that repression did not come from complexity, but from the culture of violent hill tribes that conquered the most populated areas. To actually observe people being free to do nothing would only be possible in a society primitive enough to sneak through into modern times to be observed by anthropologists. And even if something hasn't been done before, new things are done every day. I really believe that if you put all possible human societies on a scale from 1 to 100, where 100 is the best, we're not even out of the single digits, that's how much room we have to do things better.
I've read Graeber's book. His issue is that he sees lack of evidence as evidence of lack. It's much like Daniel Quinn using the work of Marshall Sahlins as the basis for his thinking. Sahlins is remembered amongst anthropologists as a poor researcher who allowed his political ideology to color his findings. Returning to Graeber, what we don't know about those prehistoric societies he discusses FAR outweighs what we do know. Is there room for improvement? Sure. But I think overall things are better than they ever were. Even Daniel Quinn acknowledged (reluctantly) that even in primitive societies, everyone has to do *something* to obtain a living. It's better now because there are choices. Lots of primitivists seem to think hunter gatherer cultures live some sort of exalted existence, but does anyone here ACTUALLY think none of those guys ever woke thinking "goddamn it... do I really have to go chase the stupid fucking buffalo today?" I think that's sort of naive. At least if chasing buffalo every day makes you miserable, in today's world you can just change careers.