"the members of hunter-gatherer societies are smart enough to have developed and regularly deploy a series of clever political strategies in order to prevent bullies and aggrandizers from accumulating power over them. Furthermore, these tactics are known and adopted by every member of the society in support of this goal."
Maybe you know James C. Scott, who has written extensively on this topic in his book The Art of Not Being Governed - An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. Scott describes a simple but effective strategy employed by the Lisu hill people, who just murder overly ambitious village headmen in their sleep (without prevolious warning). This is a really simple and really effective way to make sure you don't devolve into some kind of tyranny. Certain personality types are thus discouraged from taking the office, and it's a safe way to ensure a certain baseline level of egalitarianism.
It works only in smaller societies, though. Large-scale impersonal societies make this kind of social control mechanism virtually impossible. I would really like to murder Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk in their sleep - if they would live in a palm-thatched hut in my village! They don't, so I can't.
And that's where we arrive at the main dilemma. You wrote that Big History supposes that "hierarchy and oppression are simply the inevitable outcome of living in large-scale complex societies, and that this is a trivial price to pay for material prosperity and the suppression of interpersonal violence."
I agree partially, in that hierarchy and oppression really are the result of living in impersonal, large societies - but to me there's nothing inevitable about large-scale societies (and obviously, it is definitely not *worth it*!!! All material prosperity in the world can't compensate me for living in an unequal society). Such societies are, evolutionary speaking, a rather short-lived phenomenon. After a few millennia of civilizations, the end of this type of social organization has now arrived, since the stable climate that made agriculture, cities and the sedentary lifestyle possible is now officially over.
So I think that egalitarian social organizations come naturally in smaller societies, and become exponentially more difficult as a society grows (in population, density, total area, complexity, and technological sophistication).
Really good essay, again!
I completely agree with the following:
"the members of hunter-gatherer societies are smart enough to have developed and regularly deploy a series of clever political strategies in order to prevent bullies and aggrandizers from accumulating power over them. Furthermore, these tactics are known and adopted by every member of the society in support of this goal."
Maybe you know James C. Scott, who has written extensively on this topic in his book The Art of Not Being Governed - An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. Scott describes a simple but effective strategy employed by the Lisu hill people, who just murder overly ambitious village headmen in their sleep (without prevolious warning). This is a really simple and really effective way to make sure you don't devolve into some kind of tyranny. Certain personality types are thus discouraged from taking the office, and it's a safe way to ensure a certain baseline level of egalitarianism.
It works only in smaller societies, though. Large-scale impersonal societies make this kind of social control mechanism virtually impossible. I would really like to murder Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk in their sleep - if they would live in a palm-thatched hut in my village! They don't, so I can't.
And that's where we arrive at the main dilemma. You wrote that Big History supposes that "hierarchy and oppression are simply the inevitable outcome of living in large-scale complex societies, and that this is a trivial price to pay for material prosperity and the suppression of interpersonal violence."
I agree partially, in that hierarchy and oppression really are the result of living in impersonal, large societies - but to me there's nothing inevitable about large-scale societies (and obviously, it is definitely not *worth it*!!! All material prosperity in the world can't compensate me for living in an unequal society). Such societies are, evolutionary speaking, a rather short-lived phenomenon. After a few millennia of civilizations, the end of this type of social organization has now arrived, since the stable climate that made agriculture, cities and the sedentary lifestyle possible is now officially over.
So I think that egalitarian social organizations come naturally in smaller societies, and become exponentially more difficult as a society grows (in population, density, total area, complexity, and technological sophistication).