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Title: People Without Government
Author: Harold Barclay
Date: September 1, 1996 revised edition
Language: en
Topics: anthropology, the state, state, anarchism, history
Source: Retrieved on 2019-06-11 from https://anarchyinaction.org/index.php?title=People_Without_Government:_An_Anthropology_of_Anarchy][anarchyinaction.org]] and [[https://aaaaarg.fail/thing/51c5856f6c3a0e090cf20c00

Harold Barclay

People Without Government

Preface by Alex Comfort

Anarchism is that political philosophy which advocates the maximization

of individual responsibility and the reduction of concentrated power —

regal, dictatorial, parliamentary: the institutions which go loosely by

the name of “government” — to a vanishing minimum. It has no connection

with bomb-throwing radicals: it has, in fact, been a point of view which

has attracted biologists, such as Kropotkin, the founder of ecology, and

anthropologists. To advocate it one must practise considerable

self-abnegation, because the type of community it envisages cannot, for

obvious reasons, be prescribed. One cannot say with Colonel Blimp

“Dammit, if the blighters won’t be democratic we must make ‘em” . It is

the blighters themselves who have to choose.

In this book Harold Barclay gives a scholarly account of a number of

societies which do not accept the idea of Authority as natural — in

fact, it does not occur to them. The documentation is fascinating, and

it has its uses as an answer to the mythologies of “primitive man” which

have propped up conventional political theories from the XVII century

on.

The question which must occur to most readers, however, is one of

relevance — rightly, in view of the contemporary excesses of

“sociobiology” and the currency of theories based on white rats and

Trobriand Islanders. Pygmies and Eskimos neither organise railroads nor

operate social services: modern emulators like Makhno and Durruti, or

the kids who organise free communes, look quixotic. The serious man’s

problem with the anarchist wish to be rid of government is not, I think,

that he quarrels with the idea that governments today represent little

beside psychopathology, or that politics as we practise it is the art of

preventing the possible. His doubts arise from the complexity of

society, which looks irreversible, and the need for forward planning: in

fact, the charge-sheet of many modern governments is concerned not only

with the abuses they commit, but with their culpable failure to plan. In

the past, the excesses of power were offset by its ability to provide

coordination one put up with the psychopathology of King Henry VIII

because a strong king was manifestly preferable to multiple local war

lords. But with the growth of a technologically sophisticated public it

has become plainer and plainer that today teleonomic, or purposive,

planning has become almost wholly divorced from government. It is

conducted by experts, while authority devotes itself to play-therapy.

Some scientists, who find warnings ignored and resources squandered on

pyramids, Maginot Lines and Five Year Plans unrelated to reality, talk

about the day when computers will do the planning. Unfortunately, if

they did, the playtherapy group would programme them.

Faced with this, the “serious man” withdraws into anti-politicism, or,

in America, populism (which substitutes free enterprise and the Devil

take the hindmost for the anarchist recipes of mutual aid and direct

action) . He would be quite willing to learn from the Inuit and Pygmies

if one could convince him that their forms of organisation had any

lessons one could apply to a modern, complex community.

I think they have. The challenge “go run a modern state like a pygmy

village and see what happens” misses the rather unusual cast of mind

which anarchists seek to impart. Unlike Marxism or democratic

capitalism, which are institutionalised theories, the rejection of

authority as a social tool is an attitude, not a programme. Once adopted

it patterns the kind of solutions which we are disposed to accept. Nor

in order to be an anarchist ·does one need to wait until society shares

the same attitude. Anarchists do not plan revolutions but when they

become numerous, and the type of thinking which underlies the social

organisation of the small groups Harold Barclay describes becomes

common, the thinkers constitute active, unbiddable and exemplary lumps

in the general porridge of society. If numerous enough, they begin to

affect the types of choices which societies make. Mutual aid begins to

constitute a serious alternative to administrative services, general

dissatisfaction begins to turn to civil disobedience. If “revolution”

occurs in consequence it is in the form of an assault by alarmed

authority, loath to see its kingdom fail , on the increasingly

ungovernable public, in other words counterrevolution . The growing

awareness is threatened by inertia, by cooption, and by the set

non-Pygmy habit of mind which comes from centuries in which our

political muscles have atrophied.

Nor, in order to influence the course of society, do anarchistminded

thinkers have to be wholly successful any more than the Chartists were

successful. The Chartists did not secure a single demand of the Charter,

but they reformed the parliamentary process. The surviving government of

a state whose citizens thought and acted anarchistically would be an

Irish democracy — one where the head of authority is held under water

whenever it steps out of line. Poland, at the time of writing, may be

headed in that direction. And indeed not only anarchist thinking, but

even anarchist techniques, such as unanimity instead of a majority vote,

are getting incorporated into such places as unions and protest

movements which a few years ago would have used parliamentary procedure

as a matter of course.

My own view is that anarchism is an attitude, not a programme: that

attitude has enzymatic effects on the society in which it is widespread

leading quite possibly to an adhocracy, an illogical compromise between

Simon Pure anarchism and some of the old apparatus, rather as republican

sentiment has been transmuted into a constitutionalism which illogically

retains a monarch as a kind of blocking piece, to restrict the excesses

of elected representatives. There are probably instances where

decision-making has to be concentrated, provided the hot breath of the

public is on the neck of the decision-maker. One would not now agree

with the protoanarchist Godwin that it is a betrayal of liberty to play

in an orchestra if it has a conductor. Where Barclay’s anthropological

accounts are important is not as blueprints for complex societies, but

as expositions of the attitudes of humans who have found no need of

Authority. Faced with other environments, these attitudes will lead to

new social structures, since man is an adaptive thinker, but as

attitudes they are not time or place-determined. We are likely in our

time to see many local and neighbourhood exercises whose form is

classically anarchist, plus a growing tide of protest, some principled,

some merely exasperated, in which anarchist modes of action and thought

may be embodied. A society in which protest is fully effective has no

need of a set revolution, and such a society, whether triggered by

Marxist stupidity and dogmatism or Fri world military psychopathology,

is an attainable goal. Studies such as these have accordingly more than

academic importance.

Introduction

Anarchy is most often equated with chaos or seen as some crackpot scheme

advanced only by bomb-throwing, wild-eyed maniacs. Certainly it is an

idea which has not been taken seriously by most. Although in recent

years there has been a slight increase in appreciation of anarchist

theory, to the extent that a greater number now consider it worthy of

mention in serious discussion, it remains largely ignored. The

anthropologically demonstrated fact that anarchy is possible is

frequently overlooked.

Over the past several generations, anthropologists, through their

ethnographic research, have documented innumerable stateless and

governmentless societies throughout the world and throughout time. And

even the devotees of Marx point to these as indicators of some earlier

stateless stage of human cultural evolution. Nevertheless there is some

considerable reluctance to define these societies as anarchies. Even

amongst anthropologists there are those so imbued with their own

cultural traditions that they will go to any lengths to avoid

recognising these systems for what they are. Because they believe social

order can exist only where there is government and law, they stretch the

meanings of these terms to cover what is clearly not government at all.

In an anthropology textbook, Hammond has written[1]: “Even when the

population is large, relatively dense, and somewhat diversified, the

absence of government does not necessarily imply the presence of

anarchy” (239). Hoebel, who later changed his mind, has so defined law

and the state, and so interpreted the data of numerous cultures, asto

make every society a state with law (1958, 467ff) . And earlier, both

Clark Wissler and George Murdock included a ‘government’ as a

‘universal’ of culture (Wissler, 1923; Murdock, 1945).

Other anthropologists readily recognise the widespread existence of

staeless societies, some even call them ‘functioning anarchies’. They

see the need to demonstrate the existence of such societies as a task

long since accomplished and believe we should move on to more important

problems. However, it has been my experience in more than 30 years of

teaching anthropology that, among students, about the most firmly held

myth is the one that no society can exist without government — and its

corollary that every society must have a head. If modern day students

have given up the religion of the church, they have not budged from the

religion of nationalism and statism. It is the latter which affords the

source of unity — the cementing element — in contempoary ‘pluralistic’

society. Thus, the myth of the necessity of the state and of government

is decisive for that unity, as decisive as belief in God was for the

unity of Medieval society. In the universities, political ‘science’

departments are the chief centres for the promulgation of this myth.

One task of this book, then, is to present examples of anarchy. Thereby

we will demonstrate that there are human societies which fit the

criteria of anarchy and should be recognised for what they are.

There are also other reasons for this book. I will be suggesting that

anarchy is by no means unusual; that it is a perfectly common form of

polity or political organisation. Not only is it common, but it is

probably the oldest type of polity and one which has characterised most

of human history.

In the course of this presentation, attention will be given to the kinds

of social, economic, technological and ecological contexts which appear

to be conducive to anarchic systems. We must consider the oft-made

proposition that if anarchies or governmentless, stateless societies

exist, they could do so only in the most simple form of human culture

and in the smallest type of grouping.

An important aim of this book is to give some idea of what anarchy in

practice is like. In this we must consider the various ways in which

order is maintained within anarchy. This in turn is related to the more

general problem of the dynamic interplay between freedom and authority

which characterises human society. In connection with this we must

observe how anarchy can, and does on occasion, appear to degenerate into

despotism, a process which also entails a consideration of the origins

of the state. In general,then, we will try to address the question: is

there anything to be learned from these anarchic polities?

Perhaps, finally, this essay will provide a critique of anarchist theory

and contribute, therefore, to an improved understanding of the problems

of freedom in society.

There are similarities between what is proposed for this investigation

and some of the works of Kropotkin, namely, his The State: Its Historic

Role and Mutual A id. These works were a factor in my decision to enter

the field of anthropology and also stimulated my writing of this book. I

would like to think that this book adds to, and improves upon,

Kropotkin’s pioneering investigations in this subject.

I. On the Nature of Anarchy

On anarchy and anarchism

Our first task must be to clarify the meaning of anarchy in relation to

a variety of different terms. Let us begin by considering anarchy and

anarchism. These must be distinguished from one another, just as one

distinguishes ‘primitive communism’ from Marxian communism. The latter

is an elaborate sociological system, a philosophy of history and an idea

for a future condition of society in which property is held in common.

‘Primitive communism’ refers to a type of economy, presumably found

among ‘archaic’ or ‘primitive’ peoples, in which property is held in

common. By property is to be understood the crucial resources and means

of production of wealth. In fact, what is communally held in such

societies is invariably land; tools, livestock, and many other kinds of

resources ( eg, fishing sites) are individually owned. In any case,

Marxist theory does not identify primitive communism with the intended

Marxist communism. One might say that implicitly it is held that the

historical process involves a grand cycle where humans commence with

primitive communism and ultimately return to communism at a higher level

— which is somewhat reminiscent of the progressive-cyclic theory of

Giambattista Vico. As we distinguish between the two communisms, so we

must also distinguish between anarchy and anarchism. Anarchy is the

condition of society in which there is no ruler; government is absent.

It is also most clearly associated with those societies which have been

called ‘archaic’ and ‘primitive’, among other pejorative adjectives.

Anarchism is the social political theory; developed in 19^(th) century

Europe, which incorporates the idea of anarchy, but does so as part of,

and as a result of, a broader, self-conscious theory of values which

makes human freedom and individuality paramount. Thus, in anarchist

theory, the first premise is something which Josiah Warren called the

sovereignty of the individual and from this it follows that government

and state are oppressive of individual freedom and should be abolished.

But, at the same time, the anarchist looks to the abolition of other

institutions similarly interpreted as oppressive: the Church, the

patriarchal family and any system which appears to enshrine ‘irrational’

authority. Anarchist theory is egalitarian and antihierarchical, as well

as being decentralist. Discrimination based on ‘race, colour, or creed’

or sex are always anathema. Anarchists were probably the first advocates

of women’s liberation. In place of the old system, anarchist theory

advocates self regulation and voluntary co-operation. Social relations

are to be carried out through free contractual agreements of mutual or

equal benefit to all parties involved. For Proudhon ‘mutualism’ was a

basic cornerstone of anarchy. His mutualist conception has an

interesting similarity and concordance with the contemporary

anthropological theory of Mauss and Levi-Strauss, since mutualism may be

readily seen as reciprocity. To Levi-Strauss, reciprocity as a mutual

exchange is the fundamental structural principle of . society; it is a

kind of ‘category of thought’, so fundamental as to be imbedded in the

human mind. Pierre Clastres, following in the tradition of Levi-Strauss,

argues that ‘coercive power’, that is, both state and government, are

unreciprocal since a ruler receives more than a subject, so upsetting

the balance of equity. Therefore, state and government are in opposition

to the basic principles of social life: society is against the state. In

the final chapter I shall return to Clastres’ thesis and the general

subject of reciprocity and the emergence of coercive power. Here I only

wish to indicate that anarchist theory and anthropological theory do

impinge upon one another.

In addition to mutualism, Proudhon and Bakunin, among others, also

stressed the idea of federalism, designed to facilitate relations

between increasingly larger and more widespread groups of people. The

initial building blocks of the federalist plan are the local, ‘face to

face’ groups, either of neighbours or persons with common occupational

interests — in any case they have a common mutual interest in working

with each other for one or more ends. Such groups form and concern

themselves with achieving their specified goals. In order to facilitate

these ends they ‘federate’ with other similar groups to form a regional

federation and in turn regional federations join with others to form yet

a broader I federation. In each case the power invested in the organised

group decreases as one ascends the different levels of integration. As

Bakunin and others said, the system was to be ‘built from the bottom up

and not from the top down’. Each member of a federation has a right to

withdraw if in disagreement with the majority’s proposed action. It is

interesting to note here the similarity between anarchist federalism and

the segmentary lineage system characteristic of many anarchic polities,

especially in Africa. In both cases the sum is composed of segments and

each segment of sub segments and so on. In both cases the most effective

authority is in the smallest unit, decreasing directly as one ascends to

broader levels of integration, so that at the ‘top’, the ultimate

federation has little influence whatsoever. In both cases, as well, we

have a technique for establishing a broad network which draws

innumerable small groups into 1’! large integrated whole. One major

contrast between the two systems, however, is that federalism is based

upon the co-operation between groups — the principle of mutualism or

reciprocity — while for segmentary lineages the operative principle is

opposition or conflict between groups of the same level. Anarchist

federalism should not be confused with the kind of ‘confederacy’

advocated by such men as John Calhoun and other early 19^(th) century

American political thinkers. Anarchists would be sympathetic to such a

view only in that it proposes to strip central government of most of its

authority, permitting member states to withdraw from the system if they

see fit. However, from an anarchist point of view, Calhoun and his

sympathisers were inconsistent, in that they· were primarily concerned

about maximizing the power of the several states within the Union. Had

they been interested in the freedom of the individual unit members, they

would also have recognised the legitimate right of the counties to

withdraw from states, of towns to withdraw from counties and of

individuals to withdraw .from towns.[2]

Anarchism is in sum a complex theoretical orientation. It should not,

however, be seen in any sense as a single monolithic conception, or a

grand theoretical system to be compared, say, with Marxism. Anarchism,

on the contrary, entails several related, but often distinct, points of

view. And no anarchist theoretician has ever presented an integrated

theoretical system. Yet all anarchist theory shares a common concern for

the individual and freedom, opposition to the state and a desire to

establish a system of voluntary co-operation. It is obvious that the

sort of society envisioned by anarchists does not exist and, except for

a few isolated and short lived attempts, has never existed.

Nevertheless, we do have numerous examples of anarchy — societies

without government and without the state.

Just as Marxist communists might not be thoroughly pleased with a

functioning ‘primitive communism’ , so we cannot expect anarchists to

approve extant anarchic polities. It is obvious that many would be

horrified by some of their characteristics. While these societies lack

government, as we shall see, patriarchy often prevails; a kind of

gerontocracy or domination by the old men is not uncommon; religious

sanctions are rampant; children are invariably in a ‘second class’

position; women are rarely treated in any way equal to men. Indeed,

there are invariably strong pressures to conform to group traditions.

But since they are highly decentralised, lacking government and the

state, they do exemplify anarchy. And thus we must look at such systems

as examples of the application of anarchy.

It may be argued that to employ the term ‘anarchy’ for a major group of

human societies is ethnocentric and confuses ideology with social

classification. It is to take a highly emotionally charged word, one

with a very clear ideological connotation, identified with Euro-American

cultural traditions, and to apply it cross-culturally when those in the

other cultures would clearly lack the ideology and values of the

anarchist. Thus, not only is the word distorted, but so also is the

meaning of those cultures.

But if this is true of the word ‘anarchy’, it applies equally to the use

of such words as ‘democratic’, ‘government’ , ‘law’ , ‘capitalist’ ,

‘communist’ and a host of others employed daily by social scientists,

yet derived from ordinary speech. Social science is full of terms in

common usage which are applied to social contexts in other cultures.

There are certainly dangers to such a procedure. It is easy to carry

extraneous ideological baggage along with the term. On the other hand,

if we cannot at all make such crosscultural transfers, we are left with

a proliferation of neologisms which become pure jargonese, enhancing

obfuscation rather than clarification. There are, after all, types of

social phenomena which occur throughout the world. Scientific

understanding is not furthered by a kind of radical phenomenology which

makes every cultural item, every individual perception, unique. I

believe many anthropologists, in their own projection of personal and

cultural values, have obstinately refused to apply the one truly

clarifying term to those numerous societies which are without government

and are, therefore, anarchies.

Social order and authority

One of the universal characteristics of mankind, or of any species for

that matter, is that it survives and thrives in the context of some kind

of order. That is, humans have peace of mind where behaviour and events

are on the whole predictable. We are animals of habit or animals of

custom — traditionalists. Behaviour in human societies is, therefore,

stanardised and deviations are punished. A society by definition has

order and structure and operates with regularised, relatively fixed

modes of behaviour. The term ‘society’ implies that the component

members are operating according to some ‘rules of the game’. Such rules

can be extremely vague and open to conflicting interpretations, or they

may be very specific and explicit. In any case, there are guidelines

without which we would be lost in a sea of anomie. Part of the problem

of the modem world is that many of these guildelines have become so

ambiguous that the level of general anxiety of the population increases.

It is clear that where there is no structure, there is no order and

there is no society. And, as the first lesson in any anthropology or

sociology course points out, humans without society are not human. But

another part of that first lesson is that there is an immense amount of

variation within human society, including the amount and kind of

structure and order.

Having said this, let me add ·that humankind often seeks a holiday from

routine and structure. Max Gluckman pointed to what he called ‘rituals

of rebellion’, which are periods in which the populace is expected to

behave — within limits — in a manner counter to normal expectation. Thus

there is the ‘Mardi Gras’, which is a traditional relaxing of behaviour

before the commencement of the exacting observations of the Lenten

season. We have Hallowe’en as a traditional time when children are

.permitted a short expression of rebellion against the adult community.

Victor Turner has suggested that there are two countercurrents in a

society: one of structure and the other of communitas or antistructure.

The latter expresses the spontaneous, the unplanned and the ecstatic, as

a kind of reaction to the usual, predictable and structured. This in a

way parallels Proudhon’s view that authority and liberty operate as

antinornies within any society, each acting so as to delimit the other,

In terms of these polarities, anarchism as a social theory is allied

with communitas and liberty. Like Thoreau, anarchists are critical of

those elements within a culture which become so engrained as to be

stultifying and superficial or empty rituals. They look with favour on

the new and the untried. Perhaps Nietzsche’s call to live dangerously

has some relevance here.

On occasion, the anarchist sympathy for communitas has appeared to go to

extremes. Thus Hippies, in their rejection of modern structures,

sometimes reject every form of structure so as to enshrine dirt — the

ultimate of disorder. But while, of all social theories, anarchism has

more sympathy for communitas, it is still not opposed to structure, to

order or to society. Indeed, Proudhon once wrote that liberty is the

mother of order not the daughter. The issue for anarchists is not

whether there should be structure or order, but what kind there should

be and what its sources ought to be. The individual or group which has

sufficient liberty to be self-regulating will have the highest degree of

order; the imposition of order from above and outside induces resentment

and rebellion where it does not encourage childlike dependence and

impotence, and so becomes a force for disorder.

The relation of anarchy to power, authority, politics and political

organisation is another misunderstood area. In human groups some

manoeuvring for power characterises the relationship between individual

members. The intensity and emphasis on the contest varies from one

culture to another and from one individual to another. The cultural

values of the Pygmies to be discussed and also of such Pueblo Indian

groups as the Zuni and Hopi, play down attempts by individuals to stand

in the forefront, although one cannot say that the desire to influence

others is absent. And within every culture there is variation. Some

people strive more than others; a few even opt out. Nevertheless, the

contest for power manifests itself in some fashion within each human

group. Power means the ability to get others to do what you want them to

do. Thus, someone who convinces ten others to follow orders has more

power than someone who is able to get only one to obey. But this depends

on all other things being equal, since, for example, someone who

controls the one individual who knows how to use a nuclear detonating

device can have more power than someone who controls the behaviour of a

million ordinary men and women. Power means influence — convincing

others by logical argument, by the prestige of one’s status or rank, by

money or bribe. Or it means implied or overt threat of injury — either

by physical or psychological means — and the ability to carry it out.

The contest for power is an important dynamic force in the social group

— a major mechanism by which the group undergoes change over time. The

‘push and pull’ of members not only causes ‘palace revolutions’, that

is, shifts in the personnel of the less powerful and the more powerful,

but leads as well to changes in rules and values.

Ralf Dahrendorf, a German sociologist who is certainly no anarchist,

presents a thesis in a way amenable to anarchist thought, particularly

as an answer to Marx. Dahrendorf suggests that the conflict for power is

central in a society; Marx was primarily concerned with one feature of

the power complex, namely, economic power. This emphasis has meant that

those who follow Marx devalue the non-economic dimensions of power.

Consequently, we find the world full of peoples’ democracies in which

the oppression of ordinary people is no less than it was before the

‘revolution’. Marxism in practice has tended to transfer the forces of

power from the capitalist to the professional bureaucrat and military

officer, primarily because it does not see that the central problem is

the problem of power itself. The anarchist insists upon addressing this

larger issue.

Neither anarchy nor anarchist theory deny power; on the contrary, in

anarchist theory this is a central issue for all human societies and the

limiting of power is a constant concern. Bakunin recognised the great

human drive for power ( Maximoff, 248ff ) . Anarchy is, after all, the

condition in which there is the maximum diffusion of power, so that

ideally it is equally distributed — in contrast to other political

theories, such as Marxism, in which power is transferred from one social

group ( class ) to another. It is, of course, true that much anarchist

thinking regarding power has been muddled by ‘utopian’ dreaming of the

ideal society where no-one infringes on anyone else. Godwin and

Kropotkin, for example, believed that in the course of time the human

race would evolve towards a condition where all were good to their

fellows and did not try to take advantage. But other anarchists are not

such optimists about human nature; if they were they would not be so

worried about the uses and abuses of power.

Max Weber stressed the difference between power and authority. In any

society, individual members recognise certain others as having authority

within specified realms. Thus, in modern society, members accept as

legitimate the right of certain individuals to carry and, where

‘necessary’, to employ firearms, in order to apprehend suspected law

breakers. These policemen invariably wear special dress. Members of this

society do not recognise as legitimate the use of force by others, such

as gangsters. In both cases coercive force is· employed. In the first

the power is authority since it is seen as legitimate and right; but the

second is not authority; it is the illegitimate use of power. Something

of this kind of distinction can be identified in all societies. Yet a

significant modification of Weber’s terminology is in order. Most

Canadians would eagerly subscribe to the notion that the power of the

Ottawa government is legitimate, but some would only acquiesce to that

power. The several generations of colonial rule of the Dutch in

Indonesia, for example, commenced as a pure case of the imposition of

brute and raw force. But with the passage of time it acquired a certain

‘legitimation’ , so that the power became authority in Weber’s terms.

But it becomes legitimate power because the Indonesians learned to

acquiesce: they grew accustomed to the situation and tacitly accepted

it. Raymond Firth has noted that power acquires some kind of support

from the governed either because of “routine apathy, inability to

conceive of an alternative or acceptance of certain values regarded as

unconditional” (123). Most authority commences as the raw power of the

gangster and evolves into the ‘legitimate’ authority of tacit

acquiescence. This is certainly the history of the nation state. Fried

observes that legitimacy is the means by which ideology is blended with

power. The function of legitimacy is “to explain and justify the

existence of concentrated social power wielded by a portion of the

community and to offer similar support to specific social orders, that

is, specific ways of apportioning and directing the flow of social

power” (Fried, 26).

No philosopher or social theorist accepts the legitimacy of ‘raw’ use of

power and none rejects totally and completely any and all kinds of

authority. Even the anarchist recognises that there is a place for

legitimate authority. An anarchist conception of legitimate authority

was long ago intimated by Proudhon: “ ... if man is born a sociable

being, the authority of his father over him ceases on the day when his

mind being formed and his education finished, he becomes the associate

of his father... “ (n.d. ,264) . Later Bakunin wrote: “We recognise

then, the absolute authority of science ... Outside of this only

legitimate authority, legitimate because it is rational and is in

harmony with human liberty, we declare all other authorities false,

arbitrary and fatal “ (Maximoff, 254).

Paul Goodman in Drawing the Line writes of natural coercion in which the

infant is dependent upon his mother or the student upon the teacher —

cases in which teaching is involved with the intent of increasing the

independence of the one to attain the level of the other (1946) . I

don’t know whether Fromm ever read Proudhon, Bakunin or the early

Goodman, but certainly his view of the nature of authority closely

parallels and further explicates that of his anarchist predecessors.

Fromm distinguishes, as does Bakunin, between ‘rational’ and

‘irrational’ authority. Rational authority has its source in competence;

it requires constant scrutiny and criticism and is always temporary. It

is based upon the equality of the authority and the subject “which

differ only with respect to the degree of knowledge or skill in a

particular field” . “The source of irrational authority, on the other

hand, is always power over \ people” — either physical or mental power

(9). Stanley Milgram has said that people appear to believe that those

in positions of authority, including politicians, are the most

knowledgeable. But perhaps this is only wishful thinking in an attempt

to justify their authorities. People delude themselves into thinking

that through the electoral process they put those in office who are

intellectually superior.

Modern society has many in authority who have earned rationally the

right to authority, but it has many whose claim to authority is

irrational and they are our politicians, judges and policemen. These the

anarchist rejects, accepting only rational authority. Anarchists·

recognise that there are specialists, that is, authorities in various

realms, who are accepted as such because of their expertise. Yet one can

readily see the potential danger inherent even here, that those holding

one form of authority may seek to extend their power· so that rational

authority is transformed into irrational authority. Closely related to

the concept of authority is that of leadership. Again, no one can deny

that there are individuals who appear in every human group who stand out

as influential persons for one reason or another. The anarchist movement

has long accepted leaders within its own folds, even though it has

remained suspicious of the general idea. Although group leadership is a

universal of human social organisation, it is, at the same time,

necessary to stress that leadership is conceived differently amongst

different peoples. The Pygmies and Hopi of Arizona express an anarchist

distrust of leaders, such that that each individual seeks to avoid the

leadership role, blending into the group as much as possible.

Since societies have order and structure and must deal with the problem

of power, they are therefore involved in politics. When we use the word

politics, we are concerned with power and its uses in a human group. Not

only do all societies have politics, but they have political

organisation or political systems — that is, standardized ways of

dealing with power problems. Political organisation is not a synonym for

government. Government is one form of political organisation. Politics

may be handled in a variety of ways; government is just one of those

ways. Thus it is clear that even anarchism as a theory does not deny or

oppose politics or political organisation. It is, on the contrary, very

political.

In the broadest sense politics can be applied to any kind of social

group-. That is, there may even be politics within the family — where

clearly the distribution of power between father, mother, son and

daughter is a major issue. A local club also has politics in a similar

small-scale fashion. Ordinarily, however, when one speaks of politics or

political organisation, one does not think of the internal affairs of

the family. Political organisation applies more to ‘public’ affairs —

relations which are territorial and cut across kinship groupings.

Politics involves a substantial geographical area — a community, or at

least an extensive neighbourhood. Yet even this kind of

conceptualisation leads to ambiguity as to whether one is dealing with

political or family affairs. We may have a confrontation between two

groups related by kinship, but beyond the level of extended family (for

example, two patrilineages), which would be considered at least as a

quasi-public affair. Nevertheless, the terms of address employed and the

atmosphere of the exchange will unmistakably be those of kinship.

Social sanctions

Neither anarchy , nor anarchist theory in sum, is opposed to

organisation, authority, politics, or political organisation. It is

opposed to some forms of these things, especially to law, government and

the state, to which terms we must now proceed. Radcliffe-Brown proposed

the term ‘sanctions’ to apply to the manner in which a social group

reacts to the behaviour of any one of its members. Thus, a positive

sanction is some form of expression of general approval. A soldier is

given a medal; a scholar an honorary degree, or a student an award;

mother kisses little junior for his good behaviour, or daddy gives him a

piece of candy. A negative sanction is the reaction of the community

against the behaviour of a member or members; it expresses disapproval.

Thus, a soldier may be court martialled; a scholar fired or put in jail;

a student failed in course work or ostracised by fellow students and the

child slapped b y his parent. It seems obvious that it is the negative

sanctions which become most important in any society.

Sanctions may also be categorised as being ‘diffuse’, ‘religious’ or

‘legal’. Here my interpretation deviates slightly from that -of

Radcliffe-Brown. Diffuse sanctions are those which are spontaneously

applied by , any one or more members of the community. Crucial to the

conception of diffuse sanctions is the notion that their application is

not confined to the holder of a specific social role. They may be

imposed by anyone within a given age/sex grade or, occasionally, there

may be no limit to who may initiate them. This is the meaning of

diffuse: responsibility for and the right to impose the sanction is

spread out over the community. Society as a whole has the power. There

is no special elite which even claims a monopoly on the use of violence

as a sanctioning device. Further, when and if sanctions are applied is

variable, as is the intensity of the sanctions imposed.

Diffuse sanctions include gossip, name calling, arguing, fist fighting,

killing and ostracism. Duelling and formal wrestling matches are less

widespread forms. Inuit have ritualised song competitions in which two

opponents try to outdo one another in insults before an audience which

acts as judge. Diffuse sanctions may be resorted to by an individual or

a group. And their effectiveness is enhanced as the entire community

joins in participation in the sanctions. Vigilante style action and

feuds are common forms of diffuse sanction which depend upon collective

action.

In many societies, fines and other punishments are meted out by an

assembly. Radcliffe-Brown calls these ‘organised’ sanctions. Yet they

are still not ‘legal’ but have the character of diffuse sanctions, of a

more formalised type, if the assembly has no authority to use force in

executing its decisions. In such instances the assembly members act as

mediators rather than judges and are successful to the extent that they

can convince two disputing parties to come to some compromise. Diffuse

sanctions are a universal form of social regulation; if a social group

has nothing else it will have various techniques which can readily be

classified as diffuse sanctions.

Religious sanctions involve the supernatural. ‘Black magic’ may be

performed against a person; one may be threatened with the eternal

torment of hell, or encouraged with a positive religious sanction

promising everlasting ecstasy in heaven. The Nuer leopard skin chief may

get his will done by threatening to curse another. The Ojibwa Indians

believed infractions of the rules led to the acquisition by supernatural

means of specific kinds of diseases. Thus, religious sanctions may

either have a human executor, as in the case of a curse which must be

invoked, or be seen as automatic, as with the Ojibwa belief, or the idea

that breaking out of the ten commandments commits one to hell fire. In

another respect religious sanctions are either those which are intended

to bring forth punishment in this life, or those which are for an

after-life: physical versus ultimate spiritual punishment.

Legal sanctions involve all expressions of disapproval or approval of

the behaviour of an individual wherein: a) such expressions are

specifically delegated to persons holding defined roles, one of the

duties of which is the execution of these sanctions; b) these

individuals alone have the ‘authority’ to threaten use of violence and

use it in order to carry out their job and; c) punishments meted out in

relation to the infraction are defined within certain limits and in

relation to the ‘crime’.

Policemen, justices of a court, jailers, executioners and lawmakers are

examples of those who may enforce legal sanctions. In our society they

collectively constitute a government. The state, through its agent the

government, declares it has the monopoly on the use of violence against

others within society, meaning that only certain agents of the state,

for example, policemen, can take a person off the street and put him or

her in jail. Only certain collectivities, that is, the courts, can

determine guilt and assess a punishment in accord with what others, the

lawmakers, have established as law. Finally the punishment connected

with a legal sanction is fairly standardised and precise. A person found

guilty of robbing a store will receive, say, a year to ten years in

prison.

Legal sanctions are laws. Laws exist where one has specific social roles

designed, or delegated, to enforce regulations by force of violence, if

necessary and where punishment has certain defined limits and is not

capricious. Law exists where you have government and the state;

conversely, if you have a government you have law. Legal sanctions, and

thus law and government, are not universal, but are characteristic of

only some human societies — albeit the most complex ones. Such societies

also, it should be borne in mind, retain a peripheral position for both

diffuse and religious sanctions.

Malinowski suggested that the term ‘law’ should be applied loosely to

cover all social rules which have the support of society (Malinowski,

9–59). Such usage, however, obscures the fundamental and important

difference in the means by which different rules are enforced. Law and

government are invariably associated with rule by an elite class, while

governmentless societies are invariably egalitarian and classless.

Hence, Malinowski’s loose usage obfuscates the important difference

concerning who, or what, enforces regulations.

It should be clear that any society characterised by the prevalence of

legal sanctions can hardly be called anarchic. As we shall note in

considering some of the case studies below, there are marginal examples.

There is no clean-cut line between anarchy and government. The relation

of anarchy to diffuse and religious sanctions, however, requires some

futher clarification. In the social theory of anarchism the idea of

voluntary co-operation has been made the positive side of the coin of

which abolition of government is the negative. Where the idea of

voluntary co-operation is so critical to anarchist thought, it is

important to consider it in relation to the nature of functioning

anarchic polities, giving special attention to the employment of diffuse

and religious sanctions. Voluntary co-operation, like its antonym,

coercion, is a highly ambiguous term. From one point of view nothing may

be seen as purely voluntary and all acts as being in some way coerced.

For one thing, it might be said that conscience, ego, id, ‘the inner

spirit’ or what have you, are fully as coercive forces as the policeman,

or as public ostracism. However, coercion may be best conceived as a

relationship of command and obedience, wherein the commanding force is·

either human or supernatural, but is always external to the individual

person. Ideally, for true voluntary co-operation t9 prevail, there must

be no such forms of external coercion. Yet, in fact, even anarchists

themselves accept the use of such coercive force and limit voluntary

co-operation. In their everyday activity’ in their writings and in their

own creation of anarchist communes and societies, anarchists use a

variety of diffuse sanctions. Some have advocated and applied what are

clearly legal sanctions.

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish the type of society envisioned

by a Bakunin or Proudhon from a decentralised federal democracy. Towards

the end of his life, Proudhon seems to have moved away from his advocacy

of voluntary association, towards a sort of minimal state. “ ... (I)t is

scarcely likely”, he writes in Du Principe Federatif, “however far the

human race may progress in civilisation, morality, and wisdom, that all

traces of government and authority will vanish” (20). For him anarchy

has become an ideal type, an abstraction, which like the similar ideal

types, democracy and monarchy, never exist in a pure form, but are

mixtures of political systems. “In a free society, the role of the state

or government is essentially that of legislating, instituting, creating,

beginning, establishing; as little as possible should it be executing

.... Once a beginning has been made (for some project) the machinery

established, the state withdraws leaving the execution of the new task

to local authorities and citizens” (45). Proudhon has become an advocate

of a federal or confederal system, in which the role of the centre is

reduced “to that of general initiation, or providing guarantees and

supervising ... (T)he execution of its orders (are) subject to the

approval of the federated governments and their responsible agents” (

49). He cites the Swiss confederation with approval. “If I may express

myself so” , Proudhon had written in a letter of 1864, “anarchy is a

form of government or constitution in which the principle of authority,

police institutions, restrictive and repressive measures, bureaucracy,

taxation, etc, are reduced to their simplest terms” (quoted in Buber,

43). We are left wondering if the elder Proudhon would now not feel more

at home with such early American opponents of centralised government as

John Taylor of Caroline or John Randolph of Roanoke, even John Calhoun.

Bakunin, who absorbed most of Proudhon’s federalist ideas, presents a

similar problem. In describing his idea of a federal system in the

Organisation of the International Brotherhood, Bakunin makes some

disconcerting statements: “The communal legislatures, however, will

retain the right to deviate from provincial legislation on secondary but

never on essential issues ... “ while the provincial parliament “will

never interfere with the domestic administration of the communes, it

will decide each commune’s quota of the provincial and national

taxation”. There are to be· courts and a national parliament as well.

This national parliament “will have the task of establishing the

fundamental principles that are to constitute the national charter and

will be binding upon all provinces wishing to participate in the

national pact”. The national parliament “will negotiate alliances, make

peace or war, and have the exclusive right to order (always for a

predetermined period) the formation of a national army” (Lehning,

72–73). Bakunin’s anarchy sounds like a decentralised federalist

democracy. Yet a year after writing this document he seems to redeem

himself for anarchy in an essay on Federalisme, Socialisme et

Antitheologisme: “Just because a region has formed part of a State, even

by voluntary accession, it by no means follows that it incurs any

obligation to remain tied to it forever.” “The right of free union and

equally free secession comes first and foremost among all political

rights” (Lehning, 96).

Kropotkin favourably described the early Medieval city . commune as an

anarchistic system, when, as we shall note below, it surely had a

governmental structure. The same may be said concerning the ‘anarchist

collectives’ established in the Ukraine in 1917 and later in some of

those in Spain. Even such an individualist anarchist as Josiah Warren

saw the need for organised militias. And most anarchists have

legitimised military force to achieve their ends, or have considered it

an unfortunate necessity. In a word, anarchists have sometimes been

equivocal about legal sanctions, to say the least.

In focusing on highly centralised realms of coercion in modem society

such as the state and the church, they have also tended to neglect the

sometimes more oppressive force of such diffuse sanctions as gossip and

ostracism. Nevertheless, there is an important difference between the

coercion of the state and. the coercion of diffuse sanctions, which may

in part justify anarchist reliance on the latter while rejecting the

former. In the state or government there is always a hierarchical and

status difference between those who rule and those who are ruled. Even

if it is a democracy, where we suppose that those who rule today are not

rulers tomorrow, there are nevertheless differences in status. In a

democratic system only a tiny minority will ever have the opportunity to

rule and these are invariably drawn from an elite group. Differential

status is not inherent in diffuse sanctions. Where a group or individual

employs gossip or ostracism against another person, that person may

freely use these same techniques. Where differential status is

associated with diffuse sanctions, such as in the command position of

the father over his son, we do have a form of coercion which begins to

approach that of government. Yet still the father role has the quality

of a rational authority and a young man may expect eventually to

‘graduate’ to a position of greater equality with his father, eventually

achieving fatherhood himself. In no diffuse sanctions is there a vesting

of the power to employ violence into the hands of a restricted group of

commanders.

Anarchism as a social theory cannot, and I believe in actuality does

not, reject all forms of coercion. While its advocates may wield the

slogan of voluntary co-operation, it is recognised that this too has

limits. For anarchists there is a tacit and, for many, an overt

recognition of the legitimate use of some kind of force in some

circumstances and this force is what anthropologists refer to as diffuse

sanctions. Indeed, as psychologists have informed us and as Allen Ritter

has lately reiterated, these sanctions are imperative for the

development of personality. The growth of the individual’s self image

relies upon knowing what others think of his or her behaviour. At the

same time, the operation of sanctions instills awareness of others and

so builds community by building empathy (Ritter, 1980): Concerning

religious sanctions, anarchist theoreticians have generally looked upon

religion as another oppressive system aimed at curbing the free

expression of the individual. Michael Bakunin, e.specially, saw God and

the state as two great interrelated tyrannical ogres which must be

destroyed. All well-known anarchists at least opposed the church —

religion being seen as an organised and hierarchical social structure.

Even Tolstoy agreed in this, although his anarchism derived from his

interpretation of a Christianity which stressed the literal acceptance

of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount.

The Catholic Worker Movement is a rather unusual development within

American anarchism. Led by a convert to Catholicism, Dorothy Day, it

professes both an adherence to the principles of pacifist anarchism and

to the Roman Catholic Church — a kind of Catholic Tolstoyan movement.

Few outside this movement have understood how anarchism, or for that

matter any moderately libertarian doctrine, could be reconciled with

Roman Catholicism and its dedication to an absolutist monarchy — the

papacy — and to a rigid hierarchical structure.[3] Most anarchists see

any religion as an authoritarian system, but are all religious sanctions

necessarily incompatible with anarchy? I think not. We must appreciate

the distinction made above between those religious sanctions which

require human mediation and those which are ‘automatic’. A religious

sanction which is least compatible with anarchy and takes on some of the

character of . a legal sanction, is one which can only be invoked by a

specific individual as part of a formal office and where there is

consensus that such a person has a legitimate monopoly on the power —

ie, the authority — to impose sanctions. The priest is the best example

of this. On the other hand, where the power to invoke religious

sanctions is available to the many and not legitimately monopolised, we

have a situation which parallels diffuse sanctions. A punishment which

is believed to come directly from God or some other supernatural force,

does not require human intervention and is more on the order of

subjugation to natural occurrences such as storm and earthquake. Indeed,

it is quite clear that punishment by one’s conscience is a sanction of

this order. Those religious sanctions which parallel diffuse sanctions,

as well as those which require no human intermediary, do not seem

incompatible with anarchy as we have here conceived it.

Government and the state

Conceptions of government and the state and the relationship between

them are often confused. Marxists and some anarchists, including

Bakunin, declare their opposition to the state and desire to replace

what is called ‘political’ government with a government over ‘things’.

But this seems like playing with words and sloganeering.’ Any ‘things’

are going to be manipulated by people and will therefore be seen as in

need of governing because people are involved. So it is still a

government over people. Further, one cannot abolish the state and still

have a government, since the latter is the institutional apparatus by

which the state is maintained.

Nadel (1942, 69–70) has given three specific characteristics of the

state and in doing so has also indicated the role of government in the

state. First, the state is a territorial association. It claims

‘sovereignty’ over a given place in space and all those residing within

that area are subject to, and must submit to, the institution of

authority ruling or governing that territory, that is, the government.

While the state is a territorial entity, it is often an inter-tribal and

inter-racial structure. The criteria for membership are determined by

residence and by birth. Membership is ordinarily ascribed, although one

may voluntarily apply to join if one immigrates and settles within the

territory of the state.

The state has an apparatus of government and this is to some degree

centralised. The government functions to execute existing laws,

legislate new ones, maintain ‘order and arbitrate conflicts to the

exclusion of other groups or individuals. It comprises specific

individuals holding defined social roles or offices. Crucial to the

definition of such roles is the claim to a monopoly of the legitimate

use of violence within that territory. The part played by the different

role holders in using violence may vary so that there can be a highly

differentiated system or division of labour (cf the discussion of legal

sanctions above). All are in any case part of a single integrated

monopolistic institution. Such a situation differs, for example, from

the role of the Inuit shaman who may threaten a victim with violence,

since the shaman cannot claim a monopoly on its legitimate use.

The ruling group in any state tends to be a specialised and privileged

body separated by its formation, status and organisation from the

population as a whole. This group collectively monopolises political

decision. In some polities it may constitute an entrenched and

self-perpetuating class. In other more open systems such as a democracy,

there is a greater circulation or regular turnover of membership of the

ruling group, so that dynasties or other kinds of closed classes of

rulers do not ordinarily occur. This, of course, contributes to the

illusion of equality of power in a democracy and obscures the division

between rulers and ruled.

Fundamental to both government and the state is the employment of

violence to enforce the law. This may be variously viewed as either the

imposition of the will of the ruling group, or as a device to maintain

order, keep the peace and arbitrate internal conflicts. In fact states

and governments fulfil all these functions by enforcing the law. It is

theorists of the left and especially anarchists, however, who emphasise

that the paramount and ultimate end of all law enforcement is to benefit

the ruling interests, even though there may be positive side effects

such as keeping the peace. They would further emphasise that the

existence of the state is conducive of strife and conflict since as a

system based upon the use of violence it thereby legitimises and incites

it. The state is further predicated upon the assumption that some should

be bosses giving orders while others should be subordinates — a

situation which can only irk the subordinates and frustrate them and,

thus, become yet another provocation of violence. Democratic systems may

ameliorate this situation but they do not cure it. By their nature state

and government discourage, if they do not outlaw, the natural voluntary

co-operation amongst people, a point made by Benjamin Tucker and more

recently in some detail by Taylor. Anarchist theory is therefore clearly

opposed to Hobbes’ thesis that without government society is nasty and

brutish. Indeed, anarchists set Hobbes on his head and argue that the

world would be more peaceful and amenable to co-operation if the state

were removed. And, clearly, the anthropological record does not support

Hobbes in any way. Stateless societies seem less violent and brutish

than those with the state.

Above all, the state and government are organisations for war. No more

efficient organisation for war has been developed. It is interesting and

perhaps ironic that right-wing and anarchist theoreticians have

converged in recognising the significance of violence to the life of the

state. Machiavelli’s practical guide to the operation of a state has

disturbed many a naive believer in democracy, since the Italian

politician recognises force and fraud as the obvious central mechanisms

for the success of any state. Von Treitschke, the German historian whose

greatest hero was Frederick the Great, observed that “without war no

State could be. All those we know of arose through war and the

protection of their members by armed force remains their primary and

essential task. War, therefore, will endure to the end of history as

long as there is a multiplicity of States ... the blind worshipper of an

eternal peace falls into the error of isolating the state, or dreams of

one which is universal, which we have already seen to be at variance

with reason” since a state always means one among states and thus

opposed to others (38). “(S)ubmission is what the State primarily

requires ... its very essence is the accomplishment of its will” (14).

“The State is no Academy of Arts, still less is it a Stock Exchange; it

is Power.. “ (242).

The pioneer British anthropologist, Edward B Tylor, wrote in his

Anthropology, “A constitutional government whether called republic or

kingdom, is an arrangement by which the nation governs itself by means

of the machinery of a military despotism” (156).

Nietzsche, who contrary to popular opinion was no friend of the state,

noted its predatory nature: “The State (is) unmorality organised ... the

will to war, to conquest and revenge. “ As a predator the state attempts

to become larger and larger, ever ·expanding its sphere of influence and

subjugation at the expense of other weaker states. It is true that in

the course of time in this interstate struggle most states opt out of

the conflict and resign themselves to becoming satellites of larger

states, realising they cannot effectively compete. It is also true that

the giant states may not always. seek to gobble up weaker states,

because they find it better for their own interests to keep such states

as ostensibly independent entities. Thus, in the modem world, we have

super powers which are in the midst of the struggle for expansion,

carrying on the traditional predatory role of the state — the United

States, Russia, China, France, and. the United Kingdom ( now marginally

) . There are innumerable satellite states of each of the big predators.

There are those — usually known as ‘Third-world’ states — which may try

small order predation against neighbouring states, but on the whole they

keep their independent status and opt out of full conflict because they

are buffers between, or pawns of, the big predators. Finally there are a

few states such as Switzerland and until recently Lebanon which are

perpetually neutral zones; the big predators do require such zones in

which to operate, particularly for information gathering purposes.

Conclusion

The classification of sanctions discussed above may now be summarised in

relation to political systems by means of the following diagram

presented as a continuum with anarchy, where there is 00 government, at

one end and archy, where the state and government clearly exist, at the

other. Under anarchy only diffuse and certain supernatural sanctions are

operative, while archy is characterised by the prevalence of legal

sanctions. In the middle, between the two poles, there is a limbo which

may be seen as a marginal form of anarchy or a rudimentary form of

governmental or archic system. There are many anomalous cases of this

kind and we shall consider some of these below. Such entities may

possibly be considered as transitional examples from anarchy to statism.

As Lowie has said, states do not appear full blown out of the stateless

condition; they too must evolve or develop and this takes time.

Maine in his Ancient Law was the first to explicate an evolutionary

typology of tribal or stateless society on the one hand and the state

type society on the other. The first was based on kinship ties, in which

every member believed he was related to all others in the group. Members

obeyed a head man, not as a ruler of a state, but as a senior kinsman,

as head of a family, a father. Early societies were all of this type and

in the course of time some evolved into societies with a different basis

of membership — that of territory . ‘Local contiguity’ rather than

kinship became the basis for deciding the ultimate authority. Such a

society entails a government and a state. Gluckman has noted that Maine

meant to stress that the ‘revolution’ in social order comes about when

dwelling in a certain territory was sufficient to grant citizenship

without having to create some kinship tie either by marriage, adoption,

or through inventing a genealogical connection. “The alteration comes

when a kinship idiom to express political association is no longer

demanded” (86).

My continuum should not be interpreted as an evolutionary scheme, in

which culture history is a one-way street where tribal or anarchic

societies only become state type societies, while the reverse does not

occur. At any point in time, individual societies may be placed along

the continuum. In addition, any given society may have different

positions in the course of its history. The major thrust of history

seems to be the transformation of stateless into state societies, but,

as we shall note below, there are examples as well of the reverse and of

societies which seem to oscillate back and forth between the two

opposite poles. In addition, let us not forget that even if the trend of

history and evolution favours the change from anarchy to archy, this

does not thereby make that process right and good.

II. Some Observations on Procedure

In selecting the various societies discussed in the following chapters,

I have attempted to obtain a wide ranging diversity in terms of

geography and cultural type. At the same time an effort has been made to

employ a sampling which offers distinct and different solutions to the

problem of order in anarchy. In other words, emphasis has been placed on

drawing examples of varying kinds of sanctions and styles of leadership.

Some cases are included whose anarchic nature will clearly be

controversial. They may represent cases of marginal anarchy or marginal

‘statism’.

We may distinguish among the several examples of anarchic polities

between those which are ‘unintentional’ and those which are

‘intentional’. The latter are deliberate, planned attempts by

individuals to initiate a social order according to some preconceived

programme. To use another descriptive adjective, they are ‘Utopian’

experiments along anarchist lines. Most of the sample are

‘unintentional’, the kind of societies which, like nearly all those in

the human adventure, have grown “like Topsy”, in the absence of any

overall conscious plan.

Finally, concerning these unintentional societies, it should be borne in

mind that for most of them the conditions described no longer obtain.

With the advent of European imperialism these anarchic polities — which

are clearly the least understood by European colonialists of all

non-European political arrangements — were transformed to fit into the

pattern of government and order as conceived by the masters. In the

descriptions which follow, however, the present tense will be used so as

to suggest an ‘ethnographic present’.

The discussion of the several anarchic polities is placed within the

context of a typology of societies long in vogue in anthropological

circles: that is, according to their primary mode of subsistence. Thus,

some are hunters and gatherers of wild animals and plants; others are

chiefly simple gardeners or horticulturalists primarily dependent upon

cultivating domesticated plants with hand tools and human Jabour power

alone. A third type are pastoralists who specialise in herding livestock

and at the same time may give incidental attention to cultivation of

plants. Finally, we may speak of agricultural peoples who are dependent

upon a more extensive form of plant cultivation using animal traction

or, more recently, tractor power. Here the chief technological symbol is

the use of the plough. Such societies depend upon a mixture of plant

cultivation and livestock husbandry.

Some anthropologists have made much more of such a classification of

societies than may in fact be warranted. For them the significance of

this classification is that one may predict from subsistence numerous

other strategic characteristics of such societies. Therefore, the

classification, it is held, bears out the theoretical orientation of a

materialist conception of humans and their culture. This is the view

that the subsistence base of a society determines the type of social

system. This is not the place to enter into a detailed argument

concerning this thesis. Yet usage of this classification here, as in

many other anthropological works, should not be taken as support for

this point of view. The classification is employed because it offers a

convenient way of dividing, and so dealing with, a variety of human

situations. And like any classification and its implicit theory it bears

elements of truth. Thus, we know that practically all hunting-gathering

people lack a complex division of labour, social classes-, the state and

government, and at the other end of the spectrum that practically all

agricultural societies have social classes, a complex division of

labour, the state and government. It is clear that hunting gathering

cannot provide the necessary material wherewithal to sustain such

elaborate social systems as can an agricultural system. Thus,

hunting-gathering societies are, with only a few exceptions,

‘egalitarian’ societies in Fried’s classification, or ‘band type’

societies in Service’s. And most examples of anarchic polities are

likewise to be drawn from hunting-gathering peoples, whilst agricultural

societies are almost entirely stratified (Fried) and state type systems

where anarchy is at best a marginal occurrence.

As is so true of single factor determinist theories, this one as well,

which rests upon material subsistence, has a ring of truth if we remain

at the level of certain broad generalities and probabilities. However,

such theories break down when we attempt to employ them in explaining

the wide variations which occur, for example, within hunting-gathering

systems, or the more precise dynamics pertaining to specific aspects of

the social order. Nor are they able to explain variations in ideology.

Like the geographical environment, mode of subsistence may be said to

set limits to what a people by themselves can do and can develop, but

within these limits there are, given the inventive genius of the human

mind, all kinds of variations which are possible and are not purely

epiphenomena of material conditions of life.

Any society at a given time is the product of the collective interaction

of its several parts, not of one phenomenon alone. Food gathering of a

specific kind is in part a determinant of population size and diversity,

as well as of the extent to which sufficient wealth can be produced to

allow for certain development in social organisation. Population size

and density have much to do with the kinds of social organisation which

can appear. For example, a small population can readily sustain a polity

based solely upon kinship. At the same time hunting and gathering, like

any other mqde of subsistence, is also heavily dependent upon the kinds

of technology available. Yet the technology and, thus, the whole

hunting-gathering base, depends upon the non-material factor of

knowledge which is inside people’s heads. Knowledge in turn is focussed

or oriented by the prevalent kinds of cultural values — what is held to

be the important ends of life — and in turn by the existing kinds of

technology. In a word the most satisfactory model of a social order may

be as an interacting multi-factor system.

The sequence from hunting-gathering through horticulture, pastoralism to

agriculture should not be seen as a fixed model of stages of cultural

evolution through which every culture must pass, nor should it be viewed

as a sequence of ever increasing complexity. It is true that all

societies either are, or were once, dependent on hunting-gathering and

that most present day agricultural societies started out as

hunting-gatherers and evolved into horticulturalists .. But there are a

variety of other ways or sequences in which societies may develop

besides this process. The model of cultural evolution is multilineal,

not unilineal.

Regarding degrees of complexity, some hunting-gathering societies are

more complex than some horticultural ones, some even more than a few

pastoral ones. And some of the horticultural societies are as complex as

some of the agricultural ones. In the descriptions which follow the

emphasis will be upon determining patterns and techniques of leadership

and mechanisms of social control as indices of anarchic polity. The

relations between the sexes and between age groups are two areas of

concern to anarchists, and in any modern anarchist theory there is a

demand for full sexual equality and at least an opposition to any

irrational authority over the young. In what follows we will not have a

great deal to say on this subject. The truth is that few societies grant

anything approaching sexual equality and female equality is clearly not

a feature for which most of the societies discussed below are to be

noted.[4] Similarly, the young are invariably subordinate to their

elders and more often than not in an arbitrary manner. We stick to the

strict meaning of anarchy as a polity without rulers, without

government, but again freely admit that this may leave much to be

desired by those who are ideologically anarchists and by others

concerned about liberty as well. Anarchy does not necessarily mean

freedom.

Finally, there is a problem with the names commonly applied to several

of the groups discussed in that they have an ethnocentric origin. At the

same time appropriate alternatives are difficult to locate. Thus, while

Eskimo has its origin in a pejorative, the alternative, Inuit, which is

the name they use for themselves, has an ethnocentric ring as well. It

means people or human beings carrying with it the implication that

outsiders are not human. Berber is no doubt the most pejorative

appelation of all — it means barbarian. But these people lack a single

blanket term for themselves. Most, however, use some form of Imazighen,

that is, “free men”, and I would surmise that none of them would resent

being so called. In this text I have tried to employ neutral terms for

the various groups, but I have not been able to produce any exhaustive

ethnocentric-free list of names. I still use Pygmy for lack of an

alternative and for all I know the names of many groups may disguise

insults of one kind or another. I will use Inuit instead of Eskimo; San

instead of Bushman; Samek instead of Lapp and Imazighen instead of

Berber.

III. Anarchy among Hunter-Gatherers

“Among the lessons to be learnt from the life of rude tribes is how

society can go on without the policeman to keep order” (Tylor, II, 134)

.

The hunting-gathering type is obviously the oldest kind of human

society, characterising the human way of life from its cultural

beginnings and for about 99% of the time thereafter. Beginning about

12,000 years ago, with the invention of plant cultivation and animal

husbandry, hunting and gathering began to decline. Today, there is

practically no group on earth which relies completely on this way of

life. Even the Inuit and Arctic Indians have abandoned full dependence

upon hunting and gathering in favour of a livelihood aimed in great part

at obtaining furs and manufacturing itenis for an international luxury

market. Elsewhere, the huntergatherers such as those to be found in

India or in parts of East and Central Africa, are usually specialised

castes of professional hunters dependent upon an adjacent agricultural

or horticultural society.

Hunter-gatherers constitute simple societies and are primitive in the

sense that primitive means that they are more similar to the oldest

forms of human society than are other extant ones.[5] But it is an error

to conceive of these societies as being the same as those archaic

societies. Contemporary hunter-gatherers are present-day people who,

like everyone else, have a history; they are not petrified hangovers

from a Paleolithic past. They have changed at a different rate than most

other people and in different ways. Their histories represent various

paths of evolutionary development, not necessarily some fixed stage

within, or at the bottom of, an evolutionary sequence.

Although hunting-gathering is a type or class of societies, such

societies are not undifferentiated, like so many peas in a pod. Contrary

to some popular views, there is a considerable variation among them. In

delineating the highlights of the type then we should indicate some of

the more significant variations. These societies are dependent upon the

acquisition of wild, undomesticated foods: wild game, fish and plants.

Nevertheless we find there is some tendency to specialise in exploiting

selected resources. Thus, there are those who are largely hunters of sea

mammals; others tend more to fishing. There are peoples who may be

called big game hunters and those who specialise more . in collecting

wild seeds. There are also many who are much more omnivorous in their

habits.[6]

Reliance upon wild sources of food places greater limits on potential

cultural development than any other form of subsistence. There are more

severe limits on what a people can do and can invent and utilise when

they must rely upon the often precarious and insecure sources offered by

nature alone. There is less guarantee as to where the next meal might

come from than in an agricultural society. But it is not a life that

demands unceasing labour or a kind of bare hand to mouth existence. This

is a condition which more appropriately describes a peasantry or 19^(th)

century factory working class. Ordinarily hunters and gatherers produce

a food supply sufficient for an adequate caloric intake for each member

of the group, plus enough for the ritual and ceremonial requirements

traditional for the society. Some, chiefly fishing specialists, have

been able to build up ‘surpluses’ and enjoy a more secure food supply

than many an agriculturalist. In any event, the parameters of no human

society’s subsistence are ever so rigid as to preclude freedom in

experimentation and innovation.

Hunting-gathering societies invariably have a band type organisation.

This means that the basic stable territorial group is a relatively small

one, usually under 100 persons. It contains at least a core of

individuals who are kinsmen and in most cases all in the band are

related to one another. The group is identified with some territory

which it, as well as others, sees as belonging to it.

Nomadism is normally a characteristic of such societies. Yet this does

not mean aimless wandering. Rather there is periodic movement according

to some rational plan from one encampment site to another. Nomadism, and

especially pedestrian nomadism, inhibits the accumulation of material

goods. Nomadic hunters do not make good pack rats since one can hardly

carry a mess of junk from one camp to another. A minority of

hunting-gathering people have been sedentary, dwelling in villages.

Hunting-gathering societies share a technology based upon the use of

stone, wood, bone and ivory tools. They do not of themselves know the

art of metallurgy.

There is a minimal social differentiation and specialisation of tasks.

The social roles are limited to those of kinship and to roles based on

sex and on relative age. The society is characterised by what

Radcliffe-Brown referred to as a high degree of .substitutability. That

is, it is easy to substitute one person for another. One adult male can

be fairly readily replaced by another. So each person of the same sex

and approximate age is expected to be able to do what any other one in

the same category can do. Thus, the adult male is a jack of all trades,

or, more correctly, there are no trades. Nevertheless, there are in such

societies inμividuals who do tend to specialise, so that one person may

become more adept at fashioning arrow heads than any other in the group

and another more knowledgeable in performing rituals or in making cures.

Indeed, in some cases the shaman becomes at least a part-time

specialist.

Such societies are also egalitarian to the extent that “there are as

many positions of prestige in any given age-sex grade as there are

persons capable of filling them ... “. At the same time “an egalitarian

society does not have any means of fixing or limiting the number of

persons capable of executing power” (Fried, 33). Egalitarian does not,

however, mean that there is any equality between sexes and between

different age groups. In a few hunting-gathering societies, such as the

Inuit there is greater equality between the sexes. Nevertheless males

are still considered superior.

There are also a few hunting-gathering societies which must be

considered as rank societies “in which positions of valued status are

somehow limited so that not all those of sufficient talent to occupy

such statuses actually achieve them. Such a society may or may not be

stratified. That is, a society may sharply limit its positions of

prestige without affecting the access of its entire membership to the

basic resources upon which life depends” (Fried, 1 10). In a

classification based on different criteria, Elman Service describes

‘chiefdoms’ as a type of society with some close parallels to Fried’s

rank societies. “Chiefdoms are redistributional societies with a

permanent central agency of co-ordination.” The central agency acquires

an economic, religious and political role (Service, 1962, 144). The

‘redistributor’ of communal wealth is a ‘chief or person in an

established position of influence, responsibility and wealth. The

political role of this redistributor or ‘chief’ varies considerably. At

the anarchic ‘pole’ we have the examples of the Yurok and Northwest

Coast Indians given below. At the other extreme there are Polynesian and

African chiefs who are in effect petty kings. Among hunter-gatherers

these ‘chiefly’ or ‘rank’ style societies tend to be the wealthiest and

economically most secure. Anarchy is the order of the day among

hunter-gatherers. Indeed, critics will ask why a small face-to-face

group needs a government anyway. And certainly any which may be called

fully egalitarian according to Fried’s definition are anarchic.

If this is so we can go further and say that since the egalitarian

hunting-gathering society is the oldest type of human society and

prevailed for the longest period of time — over thousands of decades —

then anarchy must be the oldest and one of the most enduring kinds of

polity. Ten thousand years ago everyone was an anarchist.

Inuit

Inuit

, the indigenous residents of the North American Arctic, are a

well-known people — both in terms of their adaptation to the hard life

of the far north and as participants in an egalitarian social system.

Even Hoebel recognises their “primitive anarchy” (1954, 67).

Social groupings among Inuit have been referred to as tribes by some

observers, but the term designates a particular geographical group which

shares a common culture and language. It has no political significance.

Birket-Smith writes:

“Thus among the Inuit there is no state which makes use of their

strength, no government to restrict their liberty of action. If anywhere

there exists that community, built upon the basis of the free accord of

free people, of which Kropotkin dreamt, it is to be found among these

poor tribes neighboring upon the North Pole” (144).

Traditionally Inuit formed local communities or bands which in some

cases consisted of a few dozen members and in others of ten times that

number. In each band there is at least one outstanding individual and

usually one person whom the others recognise as a first among equals’

(Birket-Smith, 145). Birket-Smith reports that among the Central Eskimos

of the Northern Canadian mainland this person is called “isumataq , he

who thinks, the implication being he who thinks for the others” (145).

But one might also surmise that the title implies that the person is

considered the most intelligent in the group.

In any case, an important basis for leadership is demonstrated ability

in activities necessary for survival in this climate: hunting, provision

of food and shelter, shrewdness and astuteness. Spencer, describing the

North Alaskan Inuit, says that one of the recognised leaders of the

community would be a man of wealth — that is, a big boat owner (65). Yet

this man has also achieved his position by knowledge and skill in

exploiting the local environment. Aside from such secular leadership,

shamans are an important element in Inuit politics as well as religion.

A shaman may be a respected hunter, but his power derives from his

special relationship with the supernatural forces. The shaman is a

curer, a diviner, a conjurer, a magician and a leader in religious

ceremony. The Inuit shaman is believed to have the power to ascend into

the heavens and descend into the underground, to control weather and

other natural phenomena. He can invoke supernatural forces to benefit a

person and he can also invoke them to cause injury. Among the Copper

Inuit, shamans “held the threat of witchcraft over others and were, for

the main part, not highly susceptible to vengeance because of their

presumed supernatural immunities” (Damas, 33).

In Inuit society there is no-one who can be called a ruler — a person

who can order others to obey him, having behind this order an exclusive

right to employ physical force to compel obedience. Leadership is

informal and the role of leadership only loosely defined. The commands

of a leader can be ignored with impunity, but this could be dangerous,

especially in connection with a malevolent shaman. In a community major

issues are . openly discussed in informal gatherings. Consensus

regarding a course of action may result, usually being an approval of

the suggestions made by influential men. However, if unanimity of

opinion is not forthcoming, the disagreeing parties may merely go their

own way.

The Inuit case points to the potential pitfalls of a system in which

there is no formal leadership and where anarchy prevails. As we have

noted, a shaman can exert considerable power by inducing fear of his

supernatural powers, so that he could enhance his position, although he

would not thereby enhance his prestige. Damas says they were more feared

than respected (33). A related problem which arises in Inuit society is

the man who chooses to reject community morality and assert his personal

strength in acquiring whatever he wanted. Often such men are able to run

roughshod over others in a community, but inevitably must ultimately

come to a violent demise themselves. They might be dispatched by a

revenge killing. Or in vigilante fashion, a number of men, sometimes the

offender’s relatives, would plan the execution. A less permanent

solution is to drive the individual out of the group. In any case some

form of diffuse sanction is the only means employed to overcome such

threats.

All forms of leadership, including that of shaman, are achieved statuses

in Inuit society. As one earns status, so one might also lose it. Loss

of position could come with the appearance of what is recognised as a

better leader, hunter or shaman or as a result of the failure of

shamanic powers.

Alleged wrong-doers could be ostracised and in some cases driven out of

the village, or, as we have already mentioned, in extreme cases they

might be killed. Gossip and argument are effective techniques for lesser

offences. Occasionally a severe crime might go entirely unpunished.

Ordinarily the kinsman of a murdered man sought revenge and feuds of a

limited sort have not been unknown. Inuit frequently settle disputes

through competitive trials between opponents, with the audience deciding

who is victorious and therefore winner in the dispute. Two disputants

might therefore engage in a wrestling match, or they might compete with

one another in composing songs which, among other things, attempt to

outdo each other in insult. Shamans contest with each other by

demonstrating their marvellous powers in grand spectacles which could be

the highlight of an otherwise dreary and dark winter.

An Inuit woman could not be considered as fully equal to a man, yet she

has a liberty and influence which exceeds that of women in most. other

societies. It is sometimes argued that the high position of Inuit women

results from their crucial role in the economy. An adult male Inuit

requires assistance in maintaining a household; he cannot survive

without an adult female fulfilling her role. So necessary are women to

the household that if a man is unable to find a single woman to take as

his wife, he may even indulge in polyandry and marry a woman who already

has a husband. It is true that in a difficult land, such as the Arctic,

one would expect the co-operative interdependence of a family group to

have greater significance than it might under less severe conditions.

Thus the economic importance of the woman’s role elevates her status in

such a society. On the other hand, among hunters and gatherers elsewhere

women are known to provide over 50% of the food supply in their

gathering activities, in addition to filling other crucial economic

roles in society. Yet these women do not have the freedom or equality of

their Inuit counterparts. The Australian Aboriginals are a case in

point. Inuit may well award women more equality and freedom in part

because of their important economic role, but, in fact, the position of

these women derives mostly from an emphasis upon self-reliance which is

instilled in every Inuit. A self-reliant person must be given a greater

degree of freedom. This emphasis also, I think, helps explain why

children in Inuit society are treated as distinct persons with specific

inalienable rights. In contrast, many other peoples see children at best

as mere extensions of the person of their father. Again, in the

environment of the Inuit, co-operative activity is crucial, but

self-reliance, learning to get along on your own, is mandatory if one is

to survive.

San

In the arid zones of southern Africa there are peoples collectively

referred to as Bushmen or by their close relatives, the Hottentots, as

San

. Most of them have long since abandoned a hunting-gathering way of life

to become employed as servants by neighboring Negroid groups or European

farmers. A small handful, numbering in the hundreds, have at least up

until a scant few years ago persisted in the old traditions in the

refuge of to desert areas of Botswana and Namibia.

The San are organized into bands or camps which are loosely structured

groups composed primarily of related individuals (often patrilineally

related to a common male ancestor) and dwelling in a territory

identified with the band.

San have no formal leaders, neither headmen nor chiefs, but bands do

have leaders or persons of influence. These are invariably “owners” of

the lands which surround a water hole and represent the band territory

or the area which provides its general needs. “Owners” comprise the core

of related persons, usually siblings or cousins, in the band who have

lived around its water hole longer than anyone else and are therefore

recognized as collective owners, as “hosts” of the territory to whom

anyone from outside the group is expected to request permission on

visiting the area. This kind of ownership passes from one generation to

the next as long as any descendents remain within it.

One who is not an “owner” may seek to achieve leadership status by

marrying a woman in another band who is an owner. Yet ownership alone is

insufficient to place one in the forefront. Other attributes of

leadership include being the older within a large family with many

children and grandchildren. Moreover one should possess several personal

qualities. Thus, one who is a powerful speaker is respected. It helps

also to be recognized as a mood mediator. Under no circumstances should

a leader be “arrogant, overbearing, boastful, or aloof.” (Lee, 345). Lee

notes that these characteristics of the leader are also stressed among

Australian aboriginals.

Camp leaders are preeminent in decision making, mediation and food

distribution. Yet one !Kung San in response to a question as to whether

his group had headmen replied: “Of course we have headmen! In fact we

are all headmen ... each one of us is headman over himself” (Lee, 348).

Another more recent kind of leader has arisen among “Bushmen as a

consequence of contact with neighboring Blacks, peoples who have a more

hierarchical social system. Such leaders are brokers or liaison agents

with the outside non-San peoples and have their position because of

their ability to deal with foreigners and carry on entrepreneurial

affairs. Such individuals are rarely camp or community leaders.

There are also medicine men whose sole role is the curing of illness,

receiving no special privilege because of this position. The San lack

sorcerers and witches. Throughout the society men are dominant, a factor

Marshall attributes partly to their superior physical strength, but also

to their prestige role as hunters and thus as those who provide the meat

for the community (despite the fact that plants collected by women

supply the bulk of the food). Lee, however, has noted that some women

become recognized camp leaders.

San fear fighting and desire to avoid all hostility. At the same time

fights do arise and sometimes lead to killing. Most conflicts are in the

nature of verbal abuse and argument relating to food and gift

distribution or accusations of laziness and stinginess. When actual

physical combat is provoked those around the combatants, most often

close kin or supporters of one of the protagonists, immediately seek to

separate the participants and to pacify them. Extended discussion may

ensue but the antagonists remain silent. “The trance dance that

sometimes follows a fight may serve as a peace-making mechanism when

trance performers give ritual healing to persons on both sides of the

argument” (Lee, 377). It is considered particularly important to

intervene in a fight involving men between ages 20 and 50 since they

have a monopoly on the poisoned arrows. Thus were they to lose all self

control and physical combat among these people is likened to a state of

temporary insanity — someone would surely die.

Although San do not engage in ritual murder or sacrifice they sometimes

“Carry out revenge killings. Yet even these may be avoided. for fear of

escalating the violence. On some occasions killers have been “executed”

through the mutual agreement of a group of men. According to Lee a

goodly number of those who are killed in fights are non-combatants,

being usually persons who seek to intervene to stop a fight or

occasionally a by-stander. Any severe conflict is usually resolved by

the group splitting up.

According to Lee a camp persists as long as food is shared amongst its

members, but once this is discontinued the group ceases to exist. There

are specific rules concerning the distribution of wild gaμie. The bulk

of any kill must be distributed initially by its ‘owner’, the man who

owns the arrow which first entered the animal. So a hunter who shoots an

arrow loaned to him by another is merely shooting for that person. Meat

is first distributed amongst a small group, including the hunters and

the owner of the arrow. This group in turn distributes portions to a

wider circle of individuals and they to still a larger group.

Consequently, members of the sharing group are involved in a reciprocity

system which obligates those who receive to return gifts of meat in

future distributions.

Because groups are small, nearly all social relations are actually

guided in terms of kinship concepts. There is no organisation or

integration of San beyond the band level. One retains band membership

throughout life, along with the associated rights to its resources. Yet

members do leave their home band and join others. They may still return

at a future date.

Children are treated permissively by parents. Marshall affirms the

latter are especially fond of younger children and gentle in their

treatment of them. “!Kung children are never harshly punished. One

father said that if he had a boy who was quarrelsome or who disobeyed

the rules — for instance, the absolute rule of the !Kung against

stealing food or possessions — what he would do about it would be to

keep the boy right with him until he learned sense. The children on

their part do not often do things that call for punishment. They usually

fall in with group life and do what is expected of them without apparent

uncertainty, frustration, or fear; and expressions of resistance or

hostility towards their parents, the group, or each other are very much

the exception” (Marshall, 264).

Pygmies

The traditional

Pygmy

hunters dwell in the rain forests of the interior of Zaire living in

small nomadic bands. There is neither formalised leadership nor are

there formal group councils, although outstanding men and women are

recognised in each band. No-one, however, wishes to take it upon himself

to make judgments or impose punishments on others. Rather, the

maintainance of order is a co-operative affair, or something left up to

superntural forces. “ ... Pygmies dislike and avoid personal authority”,

says Turnbull, “though they are by no means devoid of a sense of

responsibility: It is rather that they think of responsibility as

communal” (1962, 125). The Pygmies told Turnbull they had no leaders,

lawmakers or government “because we are the people of the forest”; the

forest “is the chief, the lawgiver, the leader, the final arbitrator”

(1962, 126).

When a theft has occurred there is a detailed discussion of the case by

an assembly of the whole encampment. When consensus has been reached as

to the guilty party, all those who feel so inclined collectively

administer a sound thrashing to the offender. The most outrageous

offences, it is believed, are so terrible that they result in

supernatural punishment. Minor disputes and alleged offences are often

left to the litigants who either settle them through argument or a mild

fight. Such encounters may, however, escalate and soon the whole band

may be involved in arguing the case. Turnbull writes that if you lose

patience with your wife’s nagging, you call on your friends to assist

you in trying to put her in her place. Your wife will do the same, so

that the entire camp is drawn into the argument. “At this point someone

— very often an older person with too many relatives and friends to be

accused of being partisan — steps in with the familiar remark that

everyone is making too much noise, or else diverts the issue onto a

totally different track so that people forget the origin of the argument

and give it up” (1962, 124).

Other techniques of diffuse sanctions employed commonly by Pygmies

include the use of ostracism and ridicule. In most bands there is a

young bachelor with some repute as a hunter. He assumes the role of the

clown and lampoons the disputants in a conflict. The process of

decision-making in everyday community affairs is similar to the

technique for dealing with disputes. Affairs are dealt with in a casual

and informal way and without the appearance of individual leadership. In

deciding on a hunt, each adult male is involved in discussion until

agreement is reached. Women, too, participate by offering their

opinions.

Pygmy society is strongly communal in its orientation and the emphasis

on co-operative action is such that when compared to the Inuit these

Arctic dwellers seem very individualistic indeed. Pygmies probably

approach the anarchist ideal more closely than most other groups. While

others have the form of anarchy, Pygmies appear to have captured some of

the spirit as well.

There is an attempt to avoid leadership by one or a few, to arrive at

decisions by full communal participation and consensus. Pygmies, like

the Inuit, minimise discrimination based upon sex and age differences.

Australian hunters and foragers

Australian society

, like that of other hunters, is organised on a band basis. Several

families traditionally hunted and camped together and claimed a

territory for economic exploitation and as a ritual and totemic centre.

These families were related and for the most part through the male line,

usually to a common paternal grandfather or great grandfather.

Australians have often been described as the most primitive people in

the world — or as having the simplest culture. But such descriptions

contribute more to confusion and misunderstanding of Australian cultures

than they do to clarification. It is true that few people known to

modern society have possessed a more rudimentary and limited technology.

An Australian could readily .. carry all his earthly possessions under

his arm. Spears and throwing sticks were his most elaborate form of

projectile; he did not know the use or manufacture of the bow and arrow.

In technology Australians did not elaborate on a wide range of different

types of tools, rather they concentrated on the development of a great

many styles within a few kinds of tools. Thus, one finds a wide variety

of throwing sticks or of spears.

Similarly Australians did not experiment with many different social

structures; their social organisation was based on the single principle

of kinship. Yet, they managed to invent a variety of kinship structures.

Indeed, they played upon a single theme — that of dual division- in such

a way as to create several complex kinship patterns. The most elementary

form of dual division is to cut a society into two groups (moieties)

which engage in mutual exchange, including the exchange of women, so

that wives are derived from the opposite group. Australians elaborated

this dual principle so as to create four and eight ‘section’ systems

which determined incest rules and the persons whom one might marry. To

the outsider, such as the introductory anthropology student, these

systems become extremely complex conundrums. Australian mythology and

ceremony and their attendant art forms are similarly by no means simple

or crude. On the contrary, they must be recognised as rich and highly

developed. In sum, Australians seem to have taken a minimum number of

simple principles and woven them into a complex web of variant Patterns.

Further, they seem to have been highly concerned with the realms of

kinship, mythology and ceremonial and uninterested in technology. In

contrast, western society has been interested primarily in the latter

while innovation- in kinship and ceremonial verges on being tabooed.

Thus arises the misleading notion that Australians are ‘primitive’ (in a

pejorative sense), crude and simple.

Australian political organisation requires no complexity and it has

none. Their political system has been called a ‘gerontocracy’ — by which

is meant a rule by old men. More.correctly, for Australia it means that

older men are the most influential and their opinions are accepted

because of the prestige of their elderly positions. Further, one’s

elders are one’s grandfathers, so there is the moral force of kinship

behind their words. One accepts the decision of the elder males also out

of fear of public opinion, believing all others in the band would

disapprove of any dissent. Further, older men are considered to have a

certain sanctity, since it is they who are the repositories of all the

sacred wisdom of the group. Among the Murngin, for example, each clan

has ceremonial leaders who know all the rituals of that clan. The

position is inherited from father to son. By control of the ceremonial

system these leaders also control who may be initiated into which

ceremonies and at which time. This is extremely crucial to the Murngin

male, who, in order to be a fully fledged member of society, must in the

course of his life pass through several rites of passage from one age

group to another. These rites reveal knowledge which is held to be

necessary to group survival. Life is a process of being initiated into

various ceremonies and, thus, secrets of life, and its climax is the

ultimate initiation into “the final mysteries of life by seeing the most

esoteric of the totems” (Warner, 132). The main force available to the

elders, then, appears to be a supernatural sanction: the threat of

withholding admission to certain knowledge deemed essential to success

in life. Additionally, elders may turn public opinion against a person.

Within a band the elders are the ones concerned with dealing with

strangers and the ones responsible for organising blood feuds or

instigating others to impose a punishment on malefactors. Elders,

however, have no power as a police force to enforce law. They can only

encourage physically stronger men in the community to try to impose a

punishment on an alleged culprit.

Supernatural sanctions form an important part of the Australian’s

techniques to maintain order. Bone pointing is well known and one does

not have to be a particular specialist in order to use it. In this

technique a magic bone is pointed in the direction of one’s enemy, who

is, of course, informed that this has been done. Consequently the victim

is supposed to become ill and die. As Cannon long ago pointed out, this

“technique does achieve results. Victims appear to die because they

simply resign themselves to death. Like the Inuit the Australians have

part-time religious specialists or shamans. These undergo special

initiations, often under the direction of a group of shamans who

constitute a kind of rudimen1ary guild of craft specialists. Shamans

have the power to counteract the magic of an enemy. They can also

destroy another man. This they are a major force for mobilising and

influencing public opinion and, according to Warner, they are as

effective in this respect as ceremonial leaders (242).

Australian society represents a political system with somewhat more

structure and formality than characterised the Inuit and Pygmy. Indeed,

gerontocratic features are more common to African horticulturalists.

Australians, nevertheless, function according to diffuse and religious

sanctions. The control by the older men of access to those ceremonial

initiations deemed essential for attaining full male status, approaches

a rudimentary government. Yet since Australian groups are communities of

kinsmen and these elders are kinsmen, addressed and treated as such,

their position is more clearly that of grandfather than that of governor

or policeman. In addition, elders in no way have any monopoly on the

uses of violence to impose their commands an and this, of course, is the

keystone of a governmental structure.

Other hunter-gatherers

One could continue with a catalogue of most hunting-gathering societies

as soeieties without government. For the most part they follow the

pattern characteristic of the foregoing peoples: leadership is informal

and largely achieved; it may be invested in technicians such as the good

hunter among the Inuit or Northern Athabaskan Indians, or in the shaman,

or, as in Australia, ascribed to the older men of the community; rules

are enforced through diffuse and religious sanctions and egalitarianism,

at least within a given age-sex group, prevails.

Some hunters and gatherers have the rudiments of governmental forms,

such as the warrior societies among Plains Indians. Others are ‘ranked’

societies, which nevertheless have the characteristics of functioning

anarchies. The Indians of central and northern California had a very

simple rank system, while those of the Northwest Coast had a complex

one.

The Yurok

Of the Californians let us briefly consider the

Yurok

. They were fishermen and seed (acorn) gatherers as well as hunters. The

Yurok constitute small rather permanent communities composed of

patrilineally related families centred around a senior male — ‘the rich

man’. The ‘rich man’ office is essentially the senior rank in the

community. Its holder is overseer of the group’s wealth. He directs

activities at salmon weirs and on acorn grounds and could draw upon the

wealth of the community to pay bride wealth or blood money. He maintains

his position through his ‘influence’ and displays characteristics deemed

proper for a Yurok man of prestige, particularly through demonstrations

of his great generosity and, hence, wealth. Any decisions he might make

could only be enforced by withholding his generosity or threatening to

do so. Obviously, he could do greater favours for those whom he saw as

the most obedient and loyal.

The Yurok possess an elaborate set of regulations concerning offences,

but the technique employed to enforce these rules is not one of law

enforcement, but rather one of mediation. Disputants in a case choose

‘go betweens’ or ‘crosses’ who cross back and forth between the

conflicting sides carrying offers and counter offers until an agreement

is reached. The go-betweens are expected to be completely impartial and

to bring forth an agreement which is fair to both sides. They gather the

evidence and make a judgment about damages on the basis of a scale which

forms part of Yurok traditional regulations. Individuals judged as

offenders by the go-betweens are expected to pay fines in accord with

these regulations. Thus a man’s life is valued as equal to the bride

wealth paid for his mother.

Hoebel considers that these circumstances constitute a court of law (196

1 , 25). However, Kroeber clearly indicates that the opposing parties

involved have to agree to the decision of the crosses (1953). They are

therefore not judges with the power to compel obedience by force. They

are negotiators with the moral backing of society. This is a kind of

non-governmental system of dispute settlement which one finds widely

dispersed throughout the world and one which we will encounter again in

the descriptions to follow. That it is so common and widespread may

indicate that it has proven a most successful mechanism for maintaining

peace. It should be noted that the main aim of this form of justice is

not to assess guilt and gloat over rights and wrongs, but rather it is

to re-establish communal peace and group harmony.

Yurok depend upon other important devices such as gossip and sometimes

‘rash youths’ attempt to form a kind of vigilante committee to settle

disputes, thus transforming a minor issue into a major conflict and

possibly a blood feud.

Northwest Coast Indians

In the

Northwest Coast of America

, the Indians developed one of the most elaborate cultures known for a

hunting-gathering people. It was based largely upon fishing and whaling.

These people were the great potlatch givers. They developed a complex

ceremonial system of. gift giving and partying by which individuals

sought to outdo and so shame or ‘flatten’ others by their generosity.

Through potlatching one could earn various named and privileged ranks.

Thus society was divided into three groups: those who held one or more

ranks; freemen who held no rank but who were kinsmen of those who did

and were expected to assist in amassing wealth for potlach party

engagements; and, finally, at the bottom there were slaves. These were

persons captured in warfare or others given to pay damages for an

offence. This ranking system should not be confused with a class system.

Ranking involves differential status of individuals; class involves

differential status of groups. Thus among the Northwest Coast Indians a

man might acquire many titles and be of highest rank. Yet other members

of his family might well not have this status at all. An eldest son

would inherit ‘nobility’ from his father, while the youngest son was

little more than a commoner. There are differences in wealth and sharp

competitions for prestige and for the limited number of ranked

positions. Yet the competition involved has sometimes been misunderstood

as some flagrant, individualistic form which would be dear to the heart

of the laissez faire capitalist. Actually, that which existed between

rank holders vying for yet more exalted positions depended upon wealth

which was provided by the co-operative group activity of the kinsmen of

the rank holder. If competition existed at all levels of the system· it

would have . been totally unworkable. This is something few of those who

worship at the altar of competition see, namely, that co-operation is

fundamental to all human activity, even to being able to compete.

The man with the highest rank in a village is often referred to as the

‘chief’. However, as in other instances of this kind, this usage is

misleading. A senior ranked ‘noble’ was called a chief because he was

senior and consequently had priyileges which were not shared with

others. Thus among the Nootka the chief or senior ‘noble’ of several

local settlements had certain prior rights to the salmon streams and

ocean waters for fish and sea mammals; he owned important root and berry

patches and the salvage materials which landed on the shores of his

territory.

The chief was expected to demonstrate liberality, generosity and

leadership. Yet he had little or no authority to impose his will by

force. He was not a chief in the sense of executive officer with police

powers.

Among the Carrier of the British Columbia interior, when families

quarrelled the ‘chief called all the people to his house where he

covered “his head with swan’s down, the time honored symbol of peace,

and dance(d) before them to the chanting of his personal song and the

shaking of his rattle”. After the dance he delivered an oration on the

wealth he and his clan-phratry had expended to get titles. He exhorted

the disputants to settle their quarrel and warned of the troubles which

would come if it continued (Jenness, 518). This was the limit of his

contribution to settling disputes. The phratry chief among the Carrier

ordered murderers to fast for twenty-five days and he presided at a

ceremony in which the murderer and his clan’s people handed over a blood

price.

Writing of the West Coast Indians in general, Drucker reports that “in

the rare instances when blood was shed” within a kin group “usually

nothing was done” since the group could not take revenge upon itself or

pay itself blood money (1965, 74). Revenge was resorted to when a person

of one kin group murdered one in another. Among most of the Coastal

people (except for the Kwakiutl and Nootka) the alternative to a revenge

attack in the case of intergroup murder was for one person from the

offending group to be asked to “come forth voluntarily to be slain”.

Witches accused of practising black magic were often slain and these

killings went unavenged.

Northwest Coast societies seem to represent cases of marginal anarchy,

where the ‘chiefs’ or ‘nobles’ , as men of clear rank and privilege,

held more ‘legitimate’ authority than others. Yet the situation was

still sufficiently ambiguous for such chiefs to have no monopoly of

force and most social control mechanisms were clearly of a diffuse or

religious nature.

Bibliographic note

Inuit data are derived from Birket-Smith, Damas and Spencer (see

Bibliography). San materials are from Lee, Marshall and Thomas. Turnbull

is the source for the Pygmies while Elkin, Sharp, Spencer and Gillin,

and Warner are the main sources for the Australians. The Northwest Coast

description is from Drucker and Jenness while that on the Californians

is from Kroeber. For other American Indian groups see Hallowell for

Ojibwa and Honigmann for Northern Athabascans.

IV. Anarchist Gardeners

Horticultural societies depend primarily upon gardening activity for

food supply. This differs from agriculture which entails extensive

cultivation. employing animal or mechanical draft power in cultivating

large fields. In horticulture only human labour is used and the digging

stick or hoe is the chief implement rather than the plough.

Horticultural peoples practice slash and burn, or shifting cultivation,

in which an area is burned over and cleared of brush and forest. Then

the field is planted year after year until the unfertilised soil no

longer yields a good crop, at which time the place is abandoned and the

gardeners shift to another one. This means that although

horticulturalists are ordinarily a sedentary people, especially.

compared to. most hunter-gatherers, they are occasionally forced to move

their dwellings and villages in order to be near their gardens.

Horticulturalists usually specialise in a limited number of crops. In

North America there was a corn, beans and squash complex; New Guineans

rely upon a considerable variety of different kinds of yams. Garden

foods are often supplemented by resorting to hunting and gathering

activities, which in some cases provide as much. as the gardens

themselves. Another food source is domesticated animals. New Guineans,

particularly, spend great energy and time in swine husbandry; roast pork

is central to any feast or ceremony. In Sub-Saharan Africa, gardeners

often keep cattle, sheep and goats. Among American Indians, however,

animal husbandry was never of any importance and practically all their

animal protein was derived from wild game.

This kind of subsistence provides a platform for launching a variety of

cultural innovations not found among hunter-gatherers. Some African

horticulturalists were able to develop stratified,class-based societies

with specialised craftsmen and full-time religious specialists, all on

the basis of highly productive gardens cultivated by the use of the iron

hoe. In America, the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas did the same without metal

implements. In both areas there was a relatively heavy density of

population and in West Africa this entailed the development of cities as

well. Enduring, aggressive empire states arose and. fell and true

warfare was common.

For the most part, however, horticultural societies remain with a simple

division of labour according to age and sex. Although some, such as in

Polynesia, evolved formal ranks and chiefs or rulers, probably the

majority are ‘egalitarian’ . A great many horticultural societies would

fall into Service’s ‘tribal’ type. The tribe is “a body of people of

common derivation and custom, in possession and control of their own

extensive territory. But if in some degree socially articulated, a tribe

is specifically unlike a modern nation in that its several communities

are not united under a sovereign governing authority, nor are the

boundaries of the whole thus clearly and politically determined. The

tribe builds itself up from within, the smaller community segments

joined in groups of higher order, yet just where it becomes greatest the

structure becomes weakest: the tribe as such is the most tenuous of

arrangements, without even a semblance of collective organisation. The

tribe is also uncomplicated in another way. Its economics, its politics,

its religion re not conducted by different institutions specifically

designed for the purpose but coincidentally by the same kinship and

local groups: the lineage and clan segments of the tribe, the households

and villages, which thus appear as versatile organisations in charge of

the entire social life”. This is a decentralised, functionally

generalised, and segmentary society (Sahlins, 1968, viii) . Most of the

horticultural societies having anarchic characteristics are tribal and

egalitarian societies. Yet some are ranked societies, as Fried would

call them, or ‘chiefdoms’ in Service’s language.

Examples of anarchic horticulturalists can readily be drawn from Africa,

Southeast Asia and South America. Sub-Saharan Africa provides numerous

cases of anarchic polities organised along tribal lines as defined

above. Most New Guinea societies are also cases of functioning anarchy,

but here the social organisation, though basically of the chiefdom type,

has certain ‘tribal’ characteristics as well.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Scattered throughout the continent south of the Sahara are dozens of

anarchic societies, some of which are the most populous of all anarchic

communities. For horticultural people the main· concentration is the

Volta River area of West Africa, the plateau of central Nigeria and a

band across mid-Africa just north of . the equator. A few are found in

southern Africa while a major concentration is among pastoral peoples of

East Africa (see Chapter V).

The anarchic horticultural societies of Africa are primarily limited to

the more equatorial zone of the continent — the area of greater

forestation and rainfall. The savannah grasslands to the north have

proven more amenable to the establishment and expansion of empire

states. Here in the open country, free of tsetse fly infestation one can

better keep cavalry and deploy them as devices for domination. Closer to

the equator, savannah gives way to dense forest and eventually to

tropical rain forest, neither of which are suitable for horse keeping

and in both of which it is easier t.o conduct defensive warfare with

bows and arrows — the ‘democratic’ weapon of warfare since anyone can

have one. Thus, anarchic systems have been able to survive until

recently adjacent to predatory states (Goody, 1971) .

African anarchic polities are invariably characterised by the presence

of slavery and sometimes of debased pariah castes. Neither include very

large numbers, nor are they of much importance in the total social

system. Slaves are mostly war captives and pawns and there is little

slave trading. Nevertheless, these institutions along with the normal

inferior position of women and prevalence of patriarchal authority

hardly make such polities oases of freedom, even though they may have no

government or state. Africa affords, in its myriad of anarchic and near

anarchic societies, innumerable cases of transition between anarchy and

archy. Especially important for the rise of the state and decline of

anarchy in many of these societies is the role of secret societies and

of age grading. In West Africa secret societies are important. They may

be voluntary organisations. or ones designed to initiate the entire

adult male population. A major part of their function is to enforce

community rules and punish those believed to be wrong doers. This then

represents, depending on one’s point of view, a kind of

institutionalised vigilante committee, or a rudimentary police force. In

the case of the Ibo who are discussed below, the age grades assume a

governmental function in an otherwise anarchic polity. Part of the

responsibility of those initiated into the younger grade is to act as

policemen and enforce the rulings of the village courts which are

presided over by members of the middle age grade.

Lugbara

Over a third of a million Lugbara dwell in southern Uganda and northern

Zaire. As horticulturalists they grow chiefly eleusine and sorghum, but

they also keep some cattle. The Lugbara live on open rolling plains in a

highland area of 4–5,000 feet elevation. They, like their neighbours,

are politically decentralised, traditionally having no chiefs and the

fundamental form of social organisation is the segmentary lineage.[7]

The basic social grouping is the family, either some type of joint

family or a nuclear group. Families related through males and dwelling

in a neighbourhood comprise a ‘family cluster’ or minimal lineage of

three to four generations depth. The cluster might also include

individuals who are not members of the lineage group, such as a sister’s

son or daughter’s husband. It might also have ‘clients’ residing within

it. These are persons who escaped from their own homes in times of war

or famine, or who had been expelled for some offence. Except for those

clients who had not married into the cluster, the residents are subject

to the elder of the group, who is its genealogically senior member. His

authority is primarily ritual in that he can invoke the ancestral

ghosts, who have influence only on their descendents.

The lineage owns the territory within which its members reside and the

elder allocates use rights within it as well as the rights to its

resources, including daughters of the lineage. Further, he is in control

of the use of livestock. Within the minimal lineage the elder is

responsible for settling disputes. He may also initiate hostile

relations with other groups.

Related minimal lineages form yet another lineage segment (minor

lineage), which in turn is consolidated into larger segments (major

lineages) and these in turn constitute sub clans which consolidate to

form clans. However, the number of levels of segmentation among the

Lugbara varies. The following diagram of the levels of segmentation

within a Lugbara tribe shows on the right side the various segments as

territorial units, beginning at the lowest level of the family cluster

and culminating in the subtribe. On the left side of the diagram is the

segmentary system in terms of descent groups, commencing with the

smallest segment, the minimal lineage, whose personnel is roughly

equivalent to the territorial unit, the family cluster. (It will be

recalled that some residents of the family cluster are not agnatic

kinsmen.) Correspondingly each higher level of segmentation of the

descent groups has an approximate correspondence to equivalent levels of

territorial groups. Again, the rough correspondence results from the

fact that while . territories are identified with a given descent group,

they may include residents not belonging to that descent group.

[]

[]

The major lineage comprises a most strategic segment within Lugbara

society since it is within this group that marriage and fratricide are

prohibited and kinship terms are used as forms of address. The major

lineage is the feud unit: the body that presumably unites to engage in

hostilities against other equivalent segments and within which feuding

is not supposed to occur, although it does occasionally.

Within the minor lineage only fighting with sticks and fists is

permitted: no bows and arrows or spears can be used since there is no

technique, ritual or otherwise, by which the group can deal with the

fratricide which might result. We have encountered this notion before:

that fratricide, that is, murder carried out within a closely related

group, is so horrendous that the community has no established means to

deal with it. Nevertheless, a Lugbara killer would marry his victim’s

widows and donate a bull to the victim’s mother’s brother, but still

this does not repair the injury done. A killing between minor segments

of the same lineage is also a heinous deed, but compensation in the form

of cattle is considered payable to re-establish group harmony. A

homicide involving two major lineages entails no compensation, but

rather retaliation may be resorted to. Such fighting can go on between

groups for some time. Eventually, when everyone gets tired of

hostilities, elders from both sides, in addition to elders from related

but uninvolved lineages, gather and negotiate a peace. Should the

parties continue to fight the elders may invoke a collective curse upon

them. In the curse those ancestral ghosts common to the conflicting

parties are asked to bring sickness upon all those who disobey.

Killings within a tribe and between its subclans are compensated for,

but beyond this level there is no compensation and the fighting that

goes on between tribes continues until third parties are able to

intervene successfully, or until the matter is forgotten.

As is usual in other systems of this sort, the most intense feelings of

identification, and the most active functioning in terms of mutual

interrelationship, is at the minimal level. This gradually decreases as

one ascends to encompass larger and larger groups and numbers of people,

until one can say that the tribal level has little or no significance.

Nevertheless, all Lugbara have the belief that they are all kin. They

express their own social relations by speaking of groups which are juru,

wherein potentially hostile relations obtain, and those which are

o’dipi, which include all those within a group’s direct social relations

which are not juru. Ordinarily o’dipi refers to the agnatic descendants

of a common ancestor, often a man’s major lineage. Thus, as with the

latter, among o’dipi there is supposed to be no fighting, no

intermarriage and any girl is called ‘sister’. At any given time a group

may be regarded as juru and later it may become o’dipi.

The chief form of sanction in Lugbara society is religious. Ancestral

ghosts may themselves directly impose their vengeance through sickness.

Otherwise the elder may invoke the power of the ghosts against

individuals, including his own dependants within the family cluster. The

power of the ghost invocation by an elder extends as far as there are

common ghosts. Non-agnatic kin may curse one another for breaches of

kinship ties. Witchcraft accusations are directed against neighbours.

Within the community of kin and neighbours, order is maintained through

these several supernatural sanctions, all of which form a single

mystical system. The rainmaker is a powerful figure in Lugbara society,

as he is in many neighbouring groups. Among the northern Lugbara, where

he is the senior member of the senior line of the senior major lineage

of a subclan, he is able to bring an end to hostilities by calling

people together to prohibit fighting on pain of his cursing those who do

not obey. In some areas wrongdoers may find a sanctuary in-his person.

Other important men in Lugbara society are ‘men whose names are known’.

These are invariably wealthy men, but they also have admirable character

and thus attract a following. Their influence may spread over several

tribes and their status is neither attached to the lineage system nor is

it hereditary. They carry white staves as symbols of their position.

Like the rainmakers they can curse combatants in a feud and may act as a

sanctuary for a refugee and as a mediator in quarrels. For a short

period, first in 1895 and again in 1910 ‘prophets’ appeared among the

Lugbara and had some influence.

The Lugbara have unmistakable anarchic characteristics. Yet there exist

certain specific kinds of persons — rainmakers and ‘men whose names are

known’ — who have a superior cursing power which sets them off as

privileged individuals. Here we have the beginning of a

proto-governmental structure.

Konkomba

The

Konkomba

number about 50,000 people and reside in northern Togo where they are

chiefly grain farmers raising sorghum, millet and yams. They have a

typically African segmentary lineage system based on patrilineal descent

(cf, Lugbara example). Konkombaland is divided into several tribes each

of which in turn segment into several clans. Each clan rarely has more

than 250 members and is the basic unit occupying, and being identified

with, a specific territory that is its own. Clans divide into two or

more lineages. The oldest man in, a lineage is its head, while the clan

head is the senior of all the several lineage heads. Mutual assistance

in work occurs within the clan and more commonly among members of the

lineage segment of the clan. The clan is also a church or a parish of

the prevailing fertility religion, the members of which are responsible

for major rituals associated with sowing and offerings to the sacred

land. Not only is the clan defined by economic, religious and kinship

functions, but it is the primary mechanism of social control. Within the

clan, disputes are to be settled by mediation and no violence is

tolerated. Disputes with individuals outside the clan require no

obligatory arbitration and one may resort to force or threat of

retaliation. Within the clan the elder demands observance of the rules,

but he has no power to enforce his decisions. The power he has is of a

ritual and moral nature rather than judicial. As the chief and oldest

kinsman his fellow clansmen owe him a moral obligation which is

reinforced by the fact that as the eldest he is nearest the sacred

ancestors. In addition he is guardian of the land. Within the clan,

infractions are dealt with by ostracising a culprit, or by assessment of

fines. For the latter there is no means to compel payment, aside from

the expression of disapproval by fellow clansmen and the feeling of a

moral-ritual obligation to conform. We must appreciate, however, that in

a small closely-knit community, in which everyone ‘believes’ and where

there are no cynics or atheists, such sanctions are extremely powerful.

As was noted with the Pygmies, the most horrendous crimes are not

punished by men at all, so with the Konkomba, if a man kills a fellow

clansman he would himself die. “God”, say the Konkomba, “will not suffer

to live one who has killed his brother and there is no ritual or

medicinal protection for the fratricide” (Tait, 1950, 275). Tait,

however, believes that murder of fellow clansmen does not actually

occur.

Aside from the elders within a clan, another man of influence is the

diviner, who may build up a reputation which extends over a wide area.

Ordinarily the relationship between clans is one of relative hostility,

but those which are neighbours and others which may co-operate in ritual

affairs have harmonious relations . Such groups do not feud, especially

those with close ritual ties. Clans which have, or claim to have, a near

kinship relation are also not supposed to indulge in feuds.

Nevertheless, Tait reports two closely-related clans whose feuding with

one another was so notorious that it was widely remembered among

Konkomba 30 years later.

Clans within the same tribe which engage in feud may formally end

hostilities by negotiation and ritual burial of the arrows of war. But

feuds between clans of different tribes are ‘endless’ and there appear

to be no formal means to bring peace. Apparently, those involved might

eventually get tired of fighting.

The tribe among the Konkomba is an amorphous entity. It has a name and

is associated with a territory in that it is the sum of the lands

‘owned’ by its several clan components. Face marks usually indicate a

person’s tribe. But tribes have no elders, ritual leaders or chiefs. In

inter-tribal fighting, clans of the same tribe come to the aid of their

brethren.

Konkomba, in sum, exemplify a highly decentralised polity organised

along typical segmentary lines. They represent about as clear cut a case

of anarchy as one can find among African horticulturalists.

Tiv

The

Tiv

are somewhat similar to the Konkomba, but more structured in their

social order. Over a million live in central Nigeria on a rolling plain

extending to the banks of the Benue river. Population density is well

over a hundred people per square mile. Like the Konkomba, Tiv are also

subsistence farmers engaged in grain and yam cultivation. They have few

cattle due to the problem of tsetse flies. Their settlements are

composed of rather dispersed compounds, each consisting of a ring of

huts and connected to other compounds by paths. The segmentary

patrilineal system is the fundamental principle of social organisation.

Every Tiv identifies himself with a tar, a term like ‘country’, which

refers to a given place associated with a patrilineage. Most men reside

in their own home tar, but most tars have individuals dwelling in them

from others. “In time of war, Tiv say, a man must return to his tar in

order to assist his ityo (patrilineage)” (Bohannan, L, 41).

The ityo is split into further segments. The ultimate unit is the

compound of a family — usually an extended family. Within it the senior

male, who is normally also an older man, is responsible for the members

and their actions. One who is seen as a continual trouble-maker may be

expelled from the compound by the elder. The elder devotes himself to

the daily problems of keeping peace and settling quarrels. He must

possess the necessary knowledge for peace keeping and, therefore, should

know the jural customs, the genealogy and history of his kinsmen, the

health and fertility magic, and be in “possession of the witchcraft

substance, tsav. Legitimate power depends on possession of a mystical

quality which ensures peace and fertility.

Bohannan lists four relationships in which there is “definite authority”

among the Tiv. Three of these are kinship roles: the position of the

senior member of the compound mentioned above, the father-son

relationship and that of husband and wife. A fourth relationship

involving the role of police and judges in the market-place is discussed

below.

In addition, there are also men of prestige or influence among the Tiv.

These are often elders, but they could be others as well. They possess

wealth and demonstrate generosity and astuteness. They were once able to

purchase slaves and build up gangs which were used to sell safe conduct

to strangers and to rob others. Such individuals were difficult to

control. Witchcraft and magic in the hands of the elders were the only

effective means of restraining those who were not elders. However, men

of prestige who were also elders controlled these supernatural powers

too, thus nullifying such attempts to curb them. Therefore travellers

seem to have been faced continually with a protection racket.

Elders within a lineage could be called together in assembly to deal

with various problems such as occur in connection with witchcraft,[8]

magic and curses. These include deaths, sickness, dreams, barrenness,

and ‘bad luck’. The meeting discusses the matter but has no means to

enforce settlements. Good ‘judges’ are those who get the litigants to

concur in a solution which accords with Tiv custom. An elder can only

suggest settlement and must work to bring all parties to an agreeable

resolution. He is a mediator, not a judge. Witchcraft accusation is very

common among the Tiv and it is seen as a cause for innumerable different

kinds of events. The elders are invariably reluctant to call a moot to

discuss accusations against a man of prestige. In such cases, then,

members of a victim’s age set, and afterwards members of his own

lineage, approach the elders and request an inquest.

For other problems there is no moot or inquest. Rather, the persons

involved seek out an elder and ask him to mediate. If a thief has been

caught, the victims may go directly to the thief’s compound head and

demand compensation. In cases of negligence the victim may go directly

to the culprit.

The lineage group is not the only source of protection for the

individual. Tiv are divided among age sets. Every young man is initiated

into a given set and throughout his life he passes or graduates along

with his set mates through several grades, each of which is associated

with certain communal responsibilities. The age set acts as a peer group

mutual aid association, cutting across lineage lines and consolidating

individuals from different lineages, but of similar age. Thus a man asks

his age set for protection against witches and witchcraft accusations.

He may seek assistance for land clearing and other farm work or in

financial matters. If one’s lineage for any reason withdraws its

supernatural protection, a man has his age set as protector. Age sets

may assemble to inquire into the health of one of their members.

Among the Tiv the age set system is nowhere near as elaborately

developed as among many other African peoples; in fact with the Tiv it

is a rather amorphous form of organisation. It appears to be most

important to the young adult males as a device for mutual aid and

protection. Young men have reason to be wary of the supernatural power

and especially the malevolent powers of witchcraft allegedly resting in

the hands of the older men. Thus their solidarity at this stage becomes

crucial. About age 40, as men pass into eldership roles, the age set

function changes to one of protecting the vested interests of eldership

against the jealous and resentful. After age 50 the set members

constitute a sentimental association: they are no longer competitors.

Between lineage segments there is often feuding and between larger

segments fighting can become fierce. But the Tiv also have treaty and

pact-making mechanisms. Lineage segments desirous of being able to

conduct peaceful trade make treaties with other segments aimed at safe

conduct, where otherwise as strangers they would be captured or killed.

These treaties “forbid shedding of blood of contracting . parties and

any act which might lead to it (such as shaving)” (Bohannan, L, 62).

Market pacts secure order in the major local trading centre. This is a

market associated with the tar which owns the land and controls the

market-place. The lineage segment controls the market magic important to

securing peace in the market-place, but it also provides market police

and judges, all for keeping order. Thus we have within this anarchic

polity a circumscribed and restricted area of governmental-style polity.

However it should be emphasised that this police power is restricted to

the market-place and time and is not generalised outside those

boundaries. It suggests that Tiv found traditional techniques of social

control inadequate for handling breaches of peace in the market-place

and so introduced the police. The Konkomba, too, have markets, each of

which is under the control of the clan on whose land the market is

located. They, however, do not invoke police. Rather, the market elder

has ritual control over a market shrine and he may invoke its

supernatural power. Konkomba believe an unconfessed thief would be stung

to death by bees which inhabit the trees around the shrine. On

confessing his guilt, a thief provides the market elder with a guinea

fowl which is sacrificed on the shrine.

The Tiv represent one of the largest and most densely populated of

acephalous societies. As with the Konkomba, the segmentary system is of

fundamental importance to the political order. This suggests that most

of that order is conceived in kinship terms. Yet the Tiv depend upon a

number of ancillary systems for maintaining peace. Age sets are

important devices for protecting the interests of peer groups. There are

treaties and pacts and a rudimentary governmental structure in

connection with markets. Underlying the whole system is the power of

religious sanctions, which is a power diffused especially in the older

members of the community.

Tiv society is one of intergenerational strains: of elders enforcing

their authority and younger men resenting it. But when the younger

graduate to eldership they too are concerned about maintaining and

extending their positions of dominance. As with any age grading system,

the individual may find himself in an inferior position, but also has

the satisfaction of knowing that eventually, with the passage of time,

he too will ultimately graduate to the top of the pile.

The Plateau Tonga

The Plateau Tonga are a matrilineal people living in southern Zambia.

They number well over 150,000 with a population density of more than 60

people per square mile. The Tonga keep considerable herds of cattle and

are also shifting cultivators, raising corn, millet and sorghum.

The population dwells in tiny villages, from four to eight comprising a

neighbourhood cluster. Both because of the poor soil and the shifting

cultivation, the location of a village is often changed and there is

also some considerable movement of individuals from one location to

another in order to establish a new residence.

In addition to residential ties, each Tonga is affiliated to a

matrilineal clan, the members of which are scattered throughout the

land. These clans have a highly amorphous character: they are not

corporate groups; living members never meet as a group and they have no

leaders. From the Tonga point of view, however, they are held together

by a mystical bond with the ancestral ghosts. Their function seems to be

limited to regulating marriage one cannot marry within the clan — and

establishing joking relationships with the members of several other

clans. In this way the clan serves as a social control mechanism, since

such a relationship prescribes that an individual does not become mad at

his j oking relative. He engages in an easy-going, light-hearted

association and presumably avoids conflict and open expression of

hostility. The joking relationship, like that of avoidance, is designed

as a technique to promote peace in a relationship which might ordinarily

be seen as prone to conflict.

A Tonga also belongs to a matrilineal group within the clan. This is

also a dispersed population, but more localised than the clan

membership. Thus, a given village will tend to have a high proportion of

members of one kin group. The Tonga system should not be seen as a

matrilineal counterpart of the patrilineal segmentary system we

encountered among the other African peoples. The Tonga are not much

interested in genealogical reckoning. There is no internal segmentation

or differentiation between the children of one woman within the group

and those of another. It is also not at all difficult to become absorbed

into a matrilineal group, although, theoretically, membership is based

on verifiable descent through the female line. The group also has

corporate characteristics. That is, members are jointly responsible for

providing bride wealth for their members and for defending their own in

feuds. At the same time they share bride wealth received for married

daughters and are responsible for taking collective vengeance when one

of their number has been murdered, robbed or injured. Inheritance is

also governed by matrilineal group membership and there are mutual

ritual obligations associated with it as well.

Each Tonga is involved in a complex pattern of relationships and

obligations with those in other kin groups beside his own. Thus, one

becomes an honorary member of one’s father’s matrilineal clan. Every

household is in some . important way a matter of concern not only to the

husband’s matrilineal group, but also to the matrilineal groups of his

wife, his father and his wife’s father.

We have also said that each Clan is exogamous, but there are other

marital regulations which have the effect of requiring that marriages be

contracted with a wide variety of different groups, thus cementing

alliances with a maximum number.

The neighbourhood in which one lives places on one still further

obligations with yet other, unrelated people. Neighbourhoods control

land use and exploitation of hunting, fishing and other resources. They

obligate residents to a system of mutual aid in a wide variety of

activities. Each neighbourhood has its own shrine and constitutes a

local ‘church’. In connection with this church the entire neighbourhood

becomes a congregation for mourning the death of fellow residents,

praying for rain and good crops, purifying the land after homicides and

celebrating harvests.

Aside from residential and kin ties, the Tonga have an amorphous age

grouping system which serves to strengthen intragenerational ties within

a neighbourhood. A man may also loan some of his cattle out to others.

This establishes new social ties; it also helps minimise the number of

stock he might lose from an epidemic or raid. Finally, there are

brotherhood pacts which guarantee peaceful movement, especially for

trading activity between and among different contracting neighbourhoods.

Villages and neighbourhoods both have headmen and the neighbourhood

headman is also priest of the local shrine. Of less significance are

leaders of the matrilineal groups. Finally, there are various religious

specialists including diviners and those through whom the spirits of the

rain speak. A man can compound his importance by acquiring several of

these positions. Nevertheless, Tonga leaders are always of local

importance; there are no leaders or chiefs for all the Tonga.

Positions of prestige and influence are acquired through proving one’s

reputation as a worthy man. Leadership positions are precarious in the

sense that leaders can readily be abandoned by their followers. Headmen

act as advisors, mediators and coordinators. They might intervene in a

dispute, but, like the other mediators we have encountered, they have no

authority to enforce their views. At best they might resort to

supernatural invocations. Feuds are carried on between clans and between

different cult neighbourhoods. They can be brought to an end through

agreement to pay damages. The Tonga never act together as a single

consolidated unit. No means exist for such a mobilisation. Tonga are

apparently not eager to provoke hostilities. They, like other anarchic

peoples, “stress the importance of personal restraint in the interests

of avoiding any possibility of raising hackles”. Colson states that

Tonga “attempt to sidestep issues, are reluctant to allow their fellows

to drag them into a dispute, and try to vanish from the scene if those

in their vicinity seem intent on pursuing a quarrel. Or close

supporters, who inevitably will be identified with the combatants

attempt to restrain them, taking from their hands any weapons or tools

which can be used for injury, applying gentle pressure, and murmuring

soothing words about the advisability of cooling the combat for the

moment. They do not want to take sides” or draw the wrath of a vengeful

person (1974, 39).

The central mechanism of social control in Tonga society is the fact

that any given individual is a member of a number of different groups,

which in turn are part of a network of further obligations so that any

negative action against an individual or group resulting from one set of

relationships has its counter restraining effect resulting from

affiliation with other groups and individuals. Let us recall that

everyone has close ties with his own matrilineal group, that of his

father, his mother’s father and his father’s father. This then

establishes a connection with up to four clans. These clan relations are

extended through joking relationships and marriage alliances. Further,

one belongs to a neighbourhood which draws in still others who are not

otherwise part of one’s social network. Additionally, one establishes

links through cattle loans and brotherhood pacts. By one connection or

another a person would ordinarily find that effective restraining

measures are built up to cover all the important social relations one

might have. The fine mesh of counterbalancing obligations serves to

integrate and give order to Tonga society which on the surface at least

appears as a society without form. Through such means the Tonga turned

‘chiefs’, as well as centralised authority and integration, into

redundancies.

It is a common misconception that matrilineal societies make women equal

to men. But matriliny is not matriarchy. Reckoning descent through

females is not rule by females. Of the latter there is no record and for

matrilineal societies, such as the Tonga, we find still that men are

dominant and have rights and privileges denied the women. It is of

course true that in matrilineal societies women often have more leverage

than otherwise, since property and status are inherited through

affiliation with females. Matriliny, it is sometimes observed, provides

a far more unstable kind of social organisation than does patriliny,

because inherent in the former is a conflict between inheritance through

females, on the one hand, and control of the social order by males, on

the other. This conflict often leads to strong pressures towards

patriliny, as is testified by African examples, including the Tonga. For

the Tonga have deviated from the ‘pristine’ matrilineal type in

practising virilocal residence[9] and in ascribing no little influence

to the father’s kin group.

Two marginal cases: Anuak and Ibo

If the Tiv and Lugbara award certain powers to a man without making him

a king, the Anuak of the southern Sudan perhaps institute the status of

king with its symbolic trappings but stripped of its powers. These

horticultural people live in villages each of which has a headman who

holds a ‘court’ and keeps sacred emblems of the village such as drums

and beads. He is approached by others with signs of respect such as

obeisance and the use of a special vocabulary. Although his house is no

better than anyone else’s, the fence posts are decorated with the skulls

of animals killed to provide for the feasts he offers his people. While

he has the trappings of kingship, the headman has in fact little power

and is largely at the mercy of fellow villagers. As long as he can

provide feasts he has good standing and his villagers will see to it

that everyone shows the proper respect to the headman in his ‘court’. He

is, with the help of other third parties, able to persuade both the

killer of a fellow villager to make compensation and the victim’s kin to

accept it.

Anuak, however, do not believe a man should hold the headship for very

long and, definitely, one who can no longer properly feast his followers

deserves no support. He will then find his followers deserting him. A

major faction opposing the headman and no longer respecting him will

arise and install a rival who must be the son of some previous headman.

Such an event leads to fighting in which the old headman may be deposed.

Despite the quarrelling and intrigue which surrounds the headman office,

it does operate as a unifying force in village affairs, which are

otherwise defined by a segmentary lineage form of organisation similar

to that already discussed. Although different factions may appear in a

village, they are not revolutionary ones: no one seeks to abolish the

position of headman.

In south-eastern Anuak headmen are drawn only from a ‘noble’ clan, which

apparently comes from outside the Anuak country. Necklaces, spears,

stools and drums are emblems of the office and there is much struggle,

intrigue and fighting to obtain possession of them. The holder has, as

elsewhere in Anuakland, little authority in his own village, but if he

can mobilise an armed force he could sometimes extend his influence and

even gain a usually tenuous control over neighbouring villages.

Thus, among the Anuak, we see the beginnings of a centralisation of

authority, based initially upon a ceremonial and symbolic role and

expanding in the south-east into a recognisable predatory form of

organisation.

Ibo

Another example of rudimentary governmental structure is the Ibo, the

second largest ethnic group in southern Nigeria. They presently number

some seven million and have traditionally been village-dwelling

horticulturalists. Some Ibo, however, have been town dwellers. Marketing

and trading are major activities of these people, who are noted for

their aggressive business-like activities and their individualism.

Throughout lboland there are at least two different kinds of polity.

Thus, some Ibo towns have ‘kings’ and a governmental structure which is

intrusive and not typically Ibo. Over most of lboland the traditional

highly decentralised and acephalous political system has prevailed.

Much of Ibo social life is dependent upon participation within a

segmentary lineage structure, the fundamental unit of which is the

compound under the supervision of its senior male. Related and

neighbouring lineage segments and compounds comprise a village which is

ordinarily the maximal unit of social integration and control. Within

the village complaints and legal proceedings are undertaken by compound

heads, or by groups of mediating third parties each of whom may be

called upon to settle a dispute. But such mediators ‘have no power to

impose their decisions. Thus, if one is not satisfied by this procedure,

one appeals to other institutions. The elders within each village, who

form a specific age grade, comprise a deliberative, legislative,

judicial and executive body to whom an injured party may appeal. The

elders do not act unless they are called upon to do so. They function as

a court, deciding guilt or innocence and assessing fines and

punishments. Punishments are meted out by the young members of the age

grade association. That is, like the Tiv, Ibo have age grades with

responsibilities associated with each grade. The members of the younger

grade are, among other things, responsible for bringing witnesses and

culprits to the village court and for executing punishments decided by

the court. Someone found guilty of stealing, for example, may be tied up

for days on end without food, or, if he is caught red-handed, he is

carried around the village along with what he has stolen and those on

the streets curse him, spit on him and ridicule him. There is no power

of capital punishment, but a murderer is expected to hang himself if

caught.

Aside from this governmental technique, Ibo society has other methods of

imposing sanctions. There are associations of titled men which exert

considerable influence. These organisations offer various titles which a

man may purchase and so acquire prestige. Religious sanctions are

imposed by dibia associations which are for religious specialists. There

are associations for herbalists, for diviners or medicine men; each

requires a considerable initiation fee and leads to a member’s

ordination as a ‘priest’ within the association. Most important among

such individuals are the oracles through whom the gods speak, making

predictions, answering questions and, thus, operating as a major force

in directing people’s behaviour.

Ibo society, to use Bohannan’s term, has a multicentric power system:

there are several distinct loci of power. Clearly it has a government,

but this government is sovereign only over a small population and area

and even within it is a diffuse and decentralised arrangement. In

addition Ibo society is a stratified society. At the bottom there are

slaves, individuals who were captured in warfare and a slightly higher

status of cult slaves who are persons who have been dedicated to a

deity. Above the slaves are ‘pawns’, usually young girls, who are pawned

to pay for debts. The vast majority of Ibo are freemen, but they are

divided between commoners and members of elite groups. Among the latter

are senior males of the minor lineages who are empowered to carry wooden

club-like objects which are symbols of authority. Others in the upper

echelons are the members of the title societies and the various dibia

societies. Thus, these upper levels of the Ibo world comprise both those

who have achieved an elite status by their wealth (title societies) and

their learning ( dibia societies) and those to whom high status has been

ascribed as senior lineage males.

New Guinea

Traditional New Guinea is a Tower of Babel of hundreds of different

language groups and of thousands of culturally distinct, autonomous

villages perched on tropical mountain sides or hidden in secluded

valleys. The people raise a variety of tubers and roots and keep pigs.

Much energy is devoted to ceremonial and feasting, to carrying on blood

feuds and attempting to settle them. The village is a basic social unit.

It is composed of several hundred inhabitants, most of whom claim

descent through the male line from a common ancestor and so constitute a

lineage group.

(There are a few matrilineal groups among New Guineans as well.) Members

of such lineage groups make marriages with individuals of other lineages

in neighbouring villages and so consolidate alliances with them. Within

any given village there are important men of prestige referred to in the

literature as ‘Big Men’. They acquire followings of dependants —

individuals who are in some way in the big man’s debt. The Big Mali is,

in Service’s language, a “chief redistributor” of wealth, the ‘chief’ in

control of a redistribution centre.

The lineage system is an important mechanism of social control in New

Guinea as in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, within this island, there is

probably more variety in the system than there is in all of Africa.

These New Guinean varieties should not be equated with the typical

African segmentary lineage system and they diverge from it in the

following ways: a) In much of New Guinea political organisation is a

network of inter-village relations, the focus of which is a village.

Villages of one ethnic group, situated on the margins of that group’s

territory, will have the same kind of relationship with those in other

ethnic groups as it does with its own; b) New Guinean lineages and clans

sometimes do not have a common ancestor or at higher (maximal) levels

may not even claim unilineal descent; c) In New Guinea the largest

groups which may be considered polities are groups within which no war

takes place. But such a unit often does not correspond to other kinds of

important maximal social uriits organised for events such as pig

exchanges and initiations. Further, it is sometimes difficult to

determine what uniting for war may mean. Thus, among the Siane, there is

no war within a phratry. If a clan chooses to go to war outside the

phratry, at best it can only be sure that fellow clans will remain

neutral. It cannot ·rely on fellow clans supporting it actively. Clan

and lineage in New.Guinea are better conceived of as “parameters within

which activities are instigated and points of reference fixed to

identify individuals and sub groups within publics” (Langness, 1973, 142

ff) . There is no automatic alignment of clan, subclan or even lineage

behind a man who has been wronged; d; The individual is not seen as the

jural representative of lineage or clan. Thus, kin groups are not

clearly corporate groups. In these ways New Guinea systems deviate from

the African segmentary lineages which are more sharply defined in

structure and function and possess a more clearly corporate character.

Lineage groups are important aspects of the New Guinean political system

since they carry on blood feuds and settle them. They are also the

groups which, through their adult male members, maintain internal order

and peace.

Politically, the most important individuals in a New Guinea community

are the Big Men. This too is another contrast with the normal African

plan which invests power in the ascribed role of male elder and in .the

usually achieved roles of religious specialists. The Big Man’s

leadership accrues from his wealth, his personal charisma, and sometimes

from his sheer physical power and size. An example of the latter comes

from the Tairora of the Eastern Highlands. They· tell a story of Matota

who was not only a despot but a fearsome killer as well. Yet he had some

reputation as a peacemaker since he had several trading partners and his

many wives gave him numerous affines. So he had a wide circle of

contacts, acquaintances and presumably friends. On seeing a desirable

woman Matota was known merely to motion to the woman’s husband and

proceed to take her into the bushes. He ordered villagers around with

impunity and it was considered that everything in the village belonged

to him. He was a symbol of individual initiative, boldness and male

machismo — all respected and desirable values among the Tairora.

Ultimately he met his own demise in an ambush — the only way such a man

could be controlled in this society.

Even in his prime Matota was never despot over more than 2,500 people.

His influence and control could not extend far, since not only was it

based on a meagre technology of communication and transportation, but it

depended as well purely on personal ties and his physical prowess. It

could also not lay the basis for creating an hereditary dynasty, since

the role of Big Man had to be achieved; it was not inherited. It is

likewise a question as to whether Matota himself was conceived of as

‘legitimate’ , or as just a big muscle man. Watson is not sure whether

the Tairora case suggests a society which has a leaderless political

morality occasionally interrupted by despotism — such as that of Matota.

Or does it have a political ideal of the strong leader, but considerable

ambivalence about one once he arises? (Watson , Tairora, 224 ff.) The

case does seem to suggest that where a social system which values

individual initiative, male assertiveness and aggressiveness, also lacks

control or curbs on such behaviour, despotism must occasionally appear.

Under such circumstances there seems no other way to get rid of the

despot but to kill him.

Of the Gakuku-Gama, the name for several tribes in the Central Asaro

Valley of the Eastern Highlands, Read says that authority is ordinarily

achieved and in lieu of any formal political institution “order is

maintained largely through self-regulation”. There are strong men who

have capabilities as warriors and orators and who have proven ability in

business, since they own many pigs and contribute considerable amounts

to communal feasts which accompany marriages, deaths and other events.

Men are admired for their strength and the strong man is a boastful,

aggressive person who demonstrates his superiority over others. But to

be a strongman also means economic success: one cannot have any debts

and must have reciprocated all the gifts made at one’s marriage. After

this one must acquire sufficient wealth to be able to lend it out to

others so as to build up a wide following of debtors. Such persons not

only owe the return of the principle, but also a considerable interest

as well.

Among the Mari11g, the Big Man is a physically strong and attractiv’e

adult male with a fighting man’s temperament and business ingenuity. But

Big Men vary according to their ability to communicate with the

ancestors. One of the most important positions in Maring society is that

of the ‘Fight Medicine Man’ who has control of ‘fight’ magic in time of

war. Thus religious ‘power’ Is also associated with the Big Men.

Similarly among the Wogeo, who inhabit an island off the northeast coast

of New Guinea, the leader’s influence is derived in large part from his

supernatural control of the weather. Wogeo believe he can bring rain or

sunshine and hence provoke abundance or famine. Like other Big Men he

too provides great feasts and entertainments and so makes others

indebted to him. Through his joint religious and economic powers he

acquires the right to mediate disputes, although he could do no more

than shame individuals into making a settlement (Hogbin, 1979).

Sahlins summarises the Big Man characteristics as personal power,

achieved status, an ability to attract a loyal following and to get what

he wants done by haranguing his followers; he is not so much a leader as

a hero and is able in war, magic, oratory and gardening. One might also

add that he is ordinarily a capable mediator. The aim of his economic

and political manipulations is to amass goods and distribute them in

ceremonies and feasts so as to bring him prestige as a generous man

(1963). Perhaps the Big Man is not far removed from Max Stirner’s ideal,

or the hero in an Ayn Rand novel.

This New Guinean system has close parallels with a laissez faire

capitalism, but one practised with limited resources. As Sahlins says,

it is a highly unstable system: The Big Man reaches a certain stage in

his career when he searches for greater and greater renown and is thus

driven to press his debtors and other followers for greater production;

he in turn delays reciprocities owed to his followers, so that he

eventually encourages an ‘egalitarian rebellion’ which he may try to

hold off as long as possible by use of his charismatic and oratorical

skills (1963).

The Ifugao

Several peoples in the Philippine Islands have anarchic polities. The

Ifugao are probably the best example. They live on the island of Luzon,

cultivating mountain gardens and raising chickens and pigs. Their

extensive terraces for irrigated rice production are well known.

Probably less well known is the fact that this complex system of

cultivation is accompanied by a social order in which there is no

government, no courts, no judges or constitutional or statutory law.

Ifugao social organisation is extremely simple. As with ourselves, kin

relationships are reckoned bilaterally, so that aside from the family

household a person identifies with a cognatic group of relatives. while

the basic and stable unit is a family centred around its most important

member, one is also obligated to go to the defence of any whom one

considers within the circle of kinship. Villages hardly exist; rather

houses are scattered, sometimes with a cluster of a dozen or so in one

place.

Another important aspect of Ifugao social organisation is the division

into social strata. At the top is a small group of wealthy men who could

at least claim someone in this class, called kadangyang, as an ancestor.

Admittance to the stratum is achieved by acquiring sufficient wealth to

sponsor feasts and become a man of note and influence. The great

majority of the Ifugao are either in a middle stratum where a family

owns sufficient rice fields to sustain itself, or in a lower class of

the poor who have no rice fields.

The kadangyang are the leaders of the Ifugao. They are asked to act as

go-betweens, that is third party mediators, in disputes. They bring to

any negotiations both their own reputation and the power of their own

kin group. Particulai-ly favoured are those with a reputation as head

hunters. The go-between is employed in a variety of circumstances: in

buying and selling operations, borrowing money, marriage proposals, the

collection of debts, demands for damages, buying back heads lost in war,

ransoming of the kidnapped and making peace. He is responsible to both

parties to a dispute and must be impartial, carrying from one group to

the other the proper and correct offers and payments. “He wheedles,

coaxes, flatters threatens, drives, scolds, insinuates” in trying to

bring the parties to an agreement so that he may receive the fee due

him. He “has no authority. All that he can do is to act as a peace

making go-between. His only power is in his art of persuasion, his tact

and his skillful playing on human emotions and motives” (Barton, 87).

However, a go-between can compel a defendant to participate in

negotiations. If a man tries to run away from, or shows defiance of, an

accusation, the go-between seeks him out and with his war knife

prominently displayed, therefore forces him to participate. In this

aspect we have then a true legal sanction and police authority. We may

also understand why an eminent head hunter is preferred for the

position.

Besides exacting a fee for his services the go-between also builds his

reputation and prestige with every successful settlement so that he will

be asked more frequently, acquire more in fees and build his wealth.

Most cases are settled by the assessment of fines. These are determined

in part by the nature of the wrong, but there is also a differential

scale based on a person’s social class. The go-between likewise

considers the reputations and positions of the individuals and groups

involved. Where fines are to be paid the two parties must first agree on

the amount of the payment. Ordinarily the party of the defendant

recognises an obligation to pay some indemnity; it mainly tries to

reduce the exhorbitant demands of the plaintiff. But, if one side

refuses to pay the fines that are assessed, the wronged party may then

proceed to attempt to seize property such as gongs, rice wine jars,

caraboas, gold beads, children, wives, or rice fields from the culprit.

Sentence of death applies to extreme cases such as murder, sorcery and

the refusal to pay a fine for adultery. It is ordinarily carried out .

by the wronged party. But any ‘execution’ can have adverse repercussion,

since it too may be avenged.

Where an accused denies his guilt he may be asked to undergo the boiling

water ordeal. Of course, if he refuses he is considered to be guilty.

The go-between acting as an umpire, observes the accused put his hand in

a pot of boiling water and remove a stone which has been placed in it.

Where two mutually accuse each other their hands are placed side by side

and a hot bolo knife is laid on them by the go-between, supposedly only

burning the guilty. Wrestling matches and duels are also resorted to.

Duels may commence with two opponents throwing eggs, leading to their

throwing spears and sometimes to others joining in on the fray. Feuding

is endemic, arising out of the desire to avenge alleged wrongs to one’s

kin. The taking of the head of an enemy is an important part . of the

raiding between groups. This prize gives its possessor supernatural

power including that of the murdered man. Feuds are sometimes settled by

intermarriage and marriage is, in general, a means by which one can

extend the network of friendly relations. In addition pacts are made

between individuals which guarantee one’s safety while in the home

district of a pact partner.

Ifugao men and women have fairly equal relationships. This arises in

large part from the practice of bilateral kinship. Both man and wife

bring to their marriage an equal amount of property and they also work

side by side in the fields.

The Land Dayaks

Brief mention might also be made of yet another southeast Asian people:

the Land Dayaks of Sarawak in Borneo. They number about 50,000 and are,

like the Ifugao, wet rice f’!rmers who also keep pigs and chickens. “The

Land Dayaks are anarchists to the extent that no one amongst them is

strong enough to force the others to do anything which they do not wish

to do. In this classless society there are no true chiefs. Each village

has a headman, nowadays confirmed in office by the Government, but he

leads only when the people agree to be led. The way he gets his office

and the way he uses it ensure that he will not become a dictator”

(Geddes, 21). A relative of one who was once a leader is usually

favoured to fill the post. A headman is confirmed in his position by

general consensus. He should be a man of some wealth, but riches alone

do not suffice to make one a great man. A headman, at least, should also

be gentle and wise and one who will not seek to rule arbitrarily,

forcing his own will on others. Once again we have the man of influence

who, if he is tactful, can encourage others to follow his desires.

Any important decisions of the village are decided at a general meeting

called by the headman. Here everyone is free to speak and various

viewpoints are enunciated with great vigour. A headman observed by

Geddes “chose his words carefully, left them unclouded by argument, said

them at the right times, and kept them few . Thus, his comments stand

out, clear as beacons in the general debate” (Geddes, 22). Since no

decision is final unless there is a consensus, occasionally a single

stubborn individual can obstruct action which is advocated by everyone

else. “In such a case the unanimity which closes the meeting is an

agreement to do nothing” (Geddess, 22) . Ordinarily agreement is reached

in part because public opinion is a strong force which only the most

thick-skinned can ignore.

In most villages there are one or two older men who know a sufficient

amount about the genealogies of their neighbours to settle any of the

rare disputes which do arise concerning land. The Land Dayaks also have

quasi-specialist religious leaders. Some of these lead ceremonies

connected with the veneration of ancestors and others are shamans who

tend to concentrate on the diagnosis and cure of illnesses, most of

which are believed to be caused by demons.

Like the other groups discussed in this essay, there is no overall

political integration of the Dayak society. Each village is an

autonomous and independent entity which may have either friendly or

hostile relations with its neighbours.

South American Indians

The sub-tropical and tropical regions of South America were home to a

multitude of differing cultural groups. Most of them were small in

population with no political integration beyond a local level. Some were

clearly anarchic; others were not.

Dole points to several examples of South American forest Indians wherein

a hereditary chieftainship was extremely powerful. A Sherente headman

was obeyed when he ordered several other men to kill a man who had

repeatedly abandoned his wife. Apinaye headmen ordered the execution of

alleged sorcerers. A Shavante headman held five men to be dangerous to

communal well-being and had them executed. The Cashinahua headman

visited every family in his village each day and gave out orders for the

day’s activities. His permission was also required before a marriage

could be contracted.

Dole suggests that perhaps many of the known anarchic tribes in South

America were once much less so and considers in some detail the case of

the Kirikuru, a small group of about 145 persons who live in central

Brazil.

They have ‘headmen’ who have no authority or power, although they once

had more before recent demographic and social disturbances. Disease has

reduced the population of many groups to the point where they can no

longer function as self-sufficient and separate entities. Consequently

various remnant groups consolidate. Thus among the Kirikuru there are

people from at least four different ‘tribes’. Headmanship was normally a

kind of hereditary office through the male line, but a man often dies

before his eldest son matures so that one from another family is

therefore appointed. This man himself may be from a family which had

provided headmen in another tribe. Thus leadership is distributed among

various families producing claims to succession in several patriliries

so that the position becomes weakened. Dole argues that the strength of

headmanship is tied to lineality because it provides a standardised and

exclusive channel for the exercise and transmission of authority. Where,

as with the Kirikuru, this disappears, the authority of the headman is

undermined.

In lieu of any chiefly power Kirikuru rely upon a number of diffuse

sanctions. There is gossip, complaining, and ostracism. Alleged

sorcerers and witches are killed; guilt in connection with a crime or

evil is determined by divination. Any woman who looks on the secret

flutes of the tribe is punished by gang rape.

Lowie presents examples of the chiefly role among other South American

tribes. The Caraja chief is wholly dependent on his villagers’ goodwill.

If they are dissatisfied with him they will only abandon him. The Tapuya

chief was highly respected when he was leading his warriors, but at home

he was not so honoured. The modern Taulipang “headman has very little to

say until hostilities break out with another group” (Lowie, 1949, 341).

The Jivaro likewise emphasise chieftainship only in time of war. Indeed,

they have no term for chief in their vocabulary and their war leaders

are only of a temporary kind. Actually over the long term a shaman may

be the most influential man in a Jivaro community. He is a curer, a

maker of love potions, a diviner of enemy activity and interpreter of

omens of defeat or victory in war. At the same time he may also be the

war leader.

The more anarchic of the South American polities are made up of groups

of kinsmen so that social relationships are kinship relationships. The

chiefly role as Lowie sees it, entails acting as peacemaker,

representing the group in foreign relations, welcoming visitors,

directing economic activities and indulging in admonishing harangues

(Lowie , 1949, 343).

Pierre Clastres has focussed on the more anarchic tribes in South

America. He asks why the chief should have no power. He recognises the

chief’s importance as a peacemaker and mediator, but argues that these

functions should not be confused with the nature of chieftainship. To

explain this nature we must turn to the relationship of the chiefly role

to reciprocity. The chief is involved in an exchange entailing women,

words and wealth. Most of these Indians practise polygyny. The chief is

always the man with the most wives; often the only polygynist in the

group. At the same time the chief is expected to enthral the group with

his oratory — no speech, no chief. He must sponsor feasts, support the

community in hard times and always demonstrate his magnanimity and

generosity. Through these mechanisms the chief continually strives to

validate and revalidate his position. But such demonstrations are not,

as one might think, proper reciprocations to the community·.for the

excess of wives or the position the chief has. Women are of s11tt:h

‘consummate’ value that all the words and all the gifts provided by tpe

chief are insufficient to qualify the situation as a reciprocal, that

is, equal exchange. As such the chief in his position defies

reciprocity, that basic law of social relations. Such an asymmetrical

relatibnship is identified with power and that in turn with nature. In

opposition to them stand reciprocity,[10] society and culture. People in

archaic societies, realising this conflict and the contradiction of the

fundamental social law, see power as enjoying a privileged position. It

is therefore dangerous and in need of restraint:; in fact ‘power’ should

be made ‘impotent’ . The final synthesis in this dialectic is

paradoxical. The chief’s most unreciprocal acquisition of multiple wives

puts him in a condition of perpetual indebtedness to his people, so that

he must become their servant.

Clastres’ argument is both plausible and logical. Yet reason and logic

alone are clearly insufficient grounds for accepting a theory. For the

more empirically-minded, Clastres’ explanation, like other structuralist

explanations, seems strangely detached from the solid earth. The use of

hard evidence to demonstrate the theory is lacking. We Me given no idea

of what the individuals involved may think. But then the structuralists

argue that these things are superficial appearances, not the world in

reality, the deep, underlying structure. Structuralism, like

Freudianism, Jungianism and, to a lesser extent, Marxism, suffers from

the problem of testability. A scientific hypothesis or theory should be

so constructed that it is falsifiable. It should be subject to empirical

test such that different investigators should be able to analyse the

same phenomenon and validate the hypothesis by independently coming to

the same conclusions. Strangely enough both LeviStrauss and Clastres

have investigated the chiefly role in South America according to

structuralist principles, but have apparently reached different

conclusions about it. In contrast to Clastres, Levi-Strauss offers the

usual conservative explanation that a true reciprocal relationship is

involved. (Levi-Strauss, 309). Clastres correctly expresses concern

about the ethnocentrism inherent in much political anthropology and in

cultural evolutionary doctrine. He also calls our attention to the

opposition and tension between reciprocity and leadership.

Bibliographic note

The following are the main sources used for African peoples: Lugbara,

Middleton; Konkomba, Tait; Tiv, Laura and Paul Bohannan; Tonga, Colson;

Anuak, Evans-Pritchard; Ibo, Green and Uchendu. The New Guinea materials

are from Berndt and Lawrence, Hogbin, Langness, Pospisil, Read, Sahlins,

and Watson. The Ifuago are based on Barton and the Dayak on Geddes.

South American Indians are from Clastres, Dole, Lowie, and Steward and

Faron.

V. Anarchist Herders

Our third kind of society concerns those people who specialise in the

rearing of livestock. This does not include those who, as in our

society, specialise in producing livestock for sale in a market, but

only those who rely on domesticated animals as their chief mode of

subsistence. Indeed, marketing such animals is viewed by some pastoral

peopte as almost sacrilegious.

Pastoralism possibly originates as a speciality in agricultural village

life. Early farmers — five or six thousand years ago in the Near East —

may have initially sent their livestock out of the village each day, or

for longer periods, to graze under the direction of herdsmen. In the

course of time the latter separated from the village so that they·

commenced keeping their own animals, utilising as grazing grounds the

marginal lands which were not good for agriculture. Eventually the

pastoral specialty spread through central Asia and large parts of Africa

outside the rain forest zone. Wherever it developed it was readily

adapted to local conditions, so that several types of pastoralism

survive to this day.

Pastoral peoples rely upon a few varieties of livestock. In all cases

their animals are grazers and browsers which are on the move cropping

grasses and shrubs. These animals include: equids (donkey and horse) ,

camelids (camels and llamas) , bovids (cattle yaks and buffalo), ovids

(sheep and goats) and cervids (reindeer) . Thus pastoralists may be

divided as:

1) Llama herders in highland regions of western South America

2) Reindeer herders of Arctic and Sub Arctic Eurasia.

3) Central Asiatic herders of mixed stock including, sheep, goats,

horses, cattle and sometimes camels and yaks. For the Central Asians

sheep and goats are the cornerstone of the economy, except in Tibet

where yaks are of most crucial importance.

4) Middle Eastern herders of sheep, goats and camels, with horses and

donkeys in a minor role. For some, camels are paramount; others, as in

eastern Turkey and Iran, have camels, but sheep and goats are more

important.

5 Herders of the African savannah grasslands depend on cattle, but sheep

and goats are also kept and in a few cases so are donkeys and horses.

Except among reindeer and llama herders, livestock is mainly the

provider of milk and other dairy products. Indeed, aside from the donkey

and llama, all the animals used by herders are milked in at least one

place or another. The herds contribute to the economy in other ways as

well. The larger animals are important as means of transportation — for

movement of both baggage and person; they provide the meat that is

consumed at all festive and cere monial occasions. Their hair, wool and

hides are used for making clothing, shelters, containers, harness and

many other things. Even their urine and manure is important among some

pastoralists.

Most pastoralists engage in activities other than herding for a

livelihood. Nearly all indulge in a somewhat indifferent cultivation,

providing chiefly grain. Some are occasional fishermen, while hunting

and gathering are of minor importance. One of the distinguishing

features of pastoralists, especially in the Middle East and to a lesser

extent in Central Asia and Arctic Eurasia, is the symbiotic tie to a

sedentary cultivating and town-dwellling population. The close

interaction with these peoples often affords an opportunity to acquire

wealth by raiding, warfare and extortion. In the latter case there is a

kind of protection racket, wherein sedentary villagers and townsmen pay

tribute to the pastoral tribe to avoid being raided. Furthermore, most

pastoralists depend upon townsmen for much of their manufactured goods

and other supplies and on peasant villagers for agricultural products.

Many pastoral systems are then, as Kroeber called them, ‘part cultures’

, not fully self-sufficient entities either in terms of material

productivity, or in terms of the ideological and spiritual aspects of

life.

Nearly all pastoral peoples are in part at least nomadic. There are

those who live their entire lives in dwellings which are readily

transportable and they move in a seasonal round over a tribal territory

following their grazing herds. Others may spend part of the year in

nomad encampments and part in fixed village houses, while some such as

the Nuer, to be considered below, send their herds off with all the

young people as herders during the extended dry season while the elders

remain at home in the village.

The tribal form of social organisation described in the previous chapter

prevails among herders. The chief exception is among some of the

reindeer keepers of northern Eurasia, especially the Samek who have

essentially a band type organisation like that of hunter-gatherers. The

tribal structure entails a segmentary patrilineal kind of organisation.

But in many cases this has evolved into a kind of incipient state

structure with distinct social classes and a military organisation which

undertakes true warfare.

Pastoralism ordinarily supports relatively large and dense populations

and in some cases, for example, Genghis Khan’s Mongols, has allowed for

the creation of extensive, though ephemeral, empire states. In part

because of the marginal nature of their enterprise and because they are

motivated to increase herd size and so expand grazing areas,

pastoralists, especially in southwest Asia and Africa, have acquired

reputations as warriors and predators.

The Nuer

There are some herders who have perpetuated a segmentary patrilineal

‘tribal’ system without government and as such exemplify the practice of

anarchy. Clearly the most famous example is the Nuer, an Nilotic people

presently numbering probably 400,000, who reside in the swampy Sudd area

of the White Nile and its vicinity in the southern part of the Republic

of Sudan.

We have encountered the segmentary lingeage system several times before

and the Nuer system is basically no different from that of the Lugbara

or Konkomba. There are local villages which are identified with lineage

segments and inhabited largely by members of that segment, but there are

outsiders in a village as well. In addition, members of the lineage

associated with a given village will be found dwelling in other

villages. Members of the clan segments are likewise dispersed. Village

territories identified with given lineages combine to form larger

territorial units associated with yet larger segments (subclans and

clans), until one encompasses a tribal domain which is inhabited by

members of the tribe.

A tribe may have between 5–45 ,000 people. Each is economically

self-sufficient, having all its own pastures, water supply and fishing

places. Within the tribe disputes between members ought to be settled by

mediation and members ought to unite against other tribes and

foreigners. If a Nuer leaves his own tribal domain and settles in

another he thereby changes his tribal affiliation and becomes a member

of the tribe within whose territory he now lives. This is because

hostilities between tribes are endemic and there is no obligation to

mediate. On the other hand, one may move from one lineage territory

within the same tribal domain to another without changing one’s lineage

affiliation.

In addition to the lineage structure, Nuer have age grades which cut

across lineage affiliations and tribal membership, uniting individuals

of the same sex and approximate age. It is a much weaker structure than

may be found among many other Africans, including the Tiv, and is

largely a device for noting the rites of passage between childhood,

youth, adulthood. Women also have a parallel organisation to that of the

men. Age grades have no political function and aparently do not even act

as mutual aid associations.

The feud between segments of the same complementary level of the system

is the primary political mechanism among the Nuer. Thus, if a man kills

a member of a different subclan, a feud situation would exist between

the subclans of the aggressor and his victim. However, the feud in fact

will involve only close kinsmen on both sides. the more inclusive the

segments become — that is, the higher one goes among groups in the

levels of segmentation — the more difficult it becomes to settle a

dispute, so that conflicts between members of primary or secondary

tribal sections often lead to intertribal fights (see diagram under

discussion of Lugbara above).

Disputes, including feuds, are regulated and usually ultimately settled

through the mediation of a man known as the leopard skin chief. As

Evans-Pritchard has noted, the title ‘chief’ is misleading since he has

no true chiefly powers but is rather a ritual specialist who belongs to

one of a limited number of lineages. The leopard skin chief is much like

the Lugbara rainmaker. Someone who commits a murder first goes to the

chief whose residence is a sanctuary. The chief cuts the arm of the

murderer as a mark of Cain. He may then act as a mediator between the

kin of the killed and of the killer. He insures that the latter are

willing to pay blood money so as to avoid feuding and then persuades the

other group to accept compensation. The leopard skin chief collects the

blood money in the form of cattle, from 40–50 animals, and takes them to

the dead man’s home. The chief does not act as judge, although he may be

very insistent and even threaten to curse the dead man’s kin if they do

not accept compensation. But threats are invariably made, because that

group must preserve its honour and so appear reluctant to accept. What

is of paramount importance is the “moral obligation to settle the affair

by the acceptance of a traditional payment and the wish, on both sides,

to avoid for the time being at any rate, further hostilities”

(Evans-Pritchard, 1961 , 292).

“The leopard skin chief does not rule and judge, but [is a] mediator

through whom communities desirous of ending open hostilities can

conclude an active state of feud” (Evans-Pritchard, 1961, 293) . He may

also mediate in disputes concerning ownership of cattle. In any case all

the leopard skin chief can do is ask the parties to discuss a conflict

and only if both sides are agreeable to mediation can the matter be

settled. The ultimate power of the leopard skin chief, as with that of

the Lugbara rainmaker, is to curse those who will not agree to a

suggested settlement. This is indeed the nearest the Nuer come to any

governmental structure and for someone who firmly believes in the power

of the curse it possesses, therefore, a similar authority and force to a

policemen in our society ordering someone off to jail at the point of

his pistol. On the other hand, the curse, unlike the policeman’s pistol,

is not a weapon legitimately confined to the leopard skin chief alone,

for others as well have the power to invoke the supernatural, though it

may not be as potent a force. Furthermore, the power of the chief is

apparently only legitimate within the narrow limits of accepting the

results of mediation. Its authority does not extend to other areas of

social control.

The leopard skin chief incidentally decides appropriate compensations in

accord with well-established Nuer custom, but as Evans-Pritchard makes

clear, this does not make a legal system “for there is no constituted

and impartial authority who decides on the rights and wrongs of a

dispute and there is no external power to enforce such a decision were

it given” (1961, 293).

Aside from the leopard skin chiefs, the most important men among the

Nuer are the local heads of extended families. These are older men, but

above all they are men rich in the number of cattle and men who have the

kind of personality respected by all Nuer. They also belong to what

Evans-Pritchard refers to as aristocratic clans. Such groups are those

which predominate within a given tribe. The term ‘aristocratic’ seems

inappropriate since such a clan has prestige, but no special privilege

and does not even have prestige outside of its own tribe. These

influential individuals lack any clearcut status. “Every Nuer ...

considers himself as good as his neighbour, and families and joint

families, whilst co-ordinating their activities with those of their

fellow villagers, regulate their affairs as they please. Even in raids

there is very little organisation and leadership is restricted to the

sphere of fighting and is neither institutionalised nor permanent”

(Evans-Pritchard, 1961, 294).

The Nuer do have several different kinds of ritual specialists: The Man

of the Cattle, totemic specialists, rainmakers, fetish owners,

magicians, diviners. Yet none has any political status or function,

except that some do become prominent and are able to scare others by

their alleged supern=atural powers.

As with the Lugbara, ‘prophets’ appeared as an additional political

force among the Nuer in the late 19^(th) century, probably provoked by

the Mahdist phenomenon in the Sudan. The early prophets seem to have

been ritual specialists — healers and shamans — and later to have

acquired roles as mediators of disputes within their own districts. Some

prophets were able to imbue a sense of tribal unity, with themselves as

symbols of that unity, by inciting the several factions of their tribe

to united action in war against some enemy. It was the prophets who

organised the tribes to which they belonged to fight both Arab and

European incursions. But they never integrated any group larger than

their own tribe and even these efforts were short-lived.

Egalitarianism and cattle pastoralism

Harold K Schneider argues the thesis that there is a significant

relationship between egalitarianism and dependence upon cattle

pastoralism . Focussing on East Africa, he finds that those societies

which have a high ratio of cattle to humans (more than one per person )

are egalitarian and stateless, with social systems which are either

primarily organised around the segmentary lineage concept or around age

grading. Hierarchy and the state tend to appear more commonly amongst

people with fewer cattle. He believes reliance upon cattle production by

its nature inhibits the growth of hierarchical organisation. Cattle

herds provide a highly mobile source of wealth which can grow rapidly

and can also as rapidly be wiped out. Where cattle rearing is the

primary focus of the economy and involves the participation of all it is

difficult to monopolise the main source of wealth or bring it under the

control of the few. “It is difficult ... to centralise cows” (

Schneider, 219).

In addition, Schneider emphasises the widespread importance of stock

associations in which cattle are lent out to other men. Consequently

every man becomes involved in a network of relations in which each is a

lender and a borrower of cattle. This has the manifest function of

minimising losses from raids and disease. It builds goodwill with

others, lessens pressures on grazing land and spreads the burden of

work. At the same time it helps to disguise one’s own wealth. But more

importantly, these stock associations lend reinforcement to the

hierarchy-inhibiting features of cattle raising, by engaging each man in

a multiplicity of equal and mutual bonds with others. Egalitarian

systems are such because they provide “multiple opportunities for

acquiring new wealth, so that men of substance, big men as opposed to

chiefs, were seldom able to translate wealth into power since those whom

they sought to dominate had resources, derived from multiple

opportunities and wide ranging systems of stock association credit in an

atmosphere of rapid capital formation, which allowed them to escape

submission” (Schneider, 210). Egalitarianism always “rests upon an

economic base which is such that by its nature (and sometimes perhaps by

legal arrangement) it cannot be monopolised” (Schneider, 219).

It is interesting that Schneider places considerable emphasis upon stock

associations (and possibly correctly) , but the Nuer which we have

discussed above are invariably taken as the example of the typical

cattle pastoralist, egalitarian society and they do not seem to depend

to any extent on this mechanism. They do have an institution called math

or ‘best friend’ in which two men formally establish a bond of

friendship by exchanging or loaning cattle (Howell, 198) . I have not

found math described in any published source in any detail. Either it is

not of much importance to the N uer or, as may very well be the case,

Evans-Pritchard and others who have studied the Nuer never recognised

its significance.

In his book Schneider does not address the question of why pastoral

peoples outside of East Africa tend more often to have hierarchical

systems and proto-states, if not full blown states. Central Asian

stockmen from Turkestan to Mongolia not only depended upon large herds

of sheep, but also on herds of cattle and horses as well. They also

organised some very substantial states and hierarchical systems. Arab

Bedawin and Iranian pastoralists also seem much more oriented to systems

far less egalitarian than East African herders. Yet one important

difference between Asiatic and African pastoraJists is that the former

have always dwelt in close proximity to large states (China, Iran and

the Indian states) . Perhaps, then, the evolution of hierarchical

structures amongst the Asiatic peoples is a response to this

circumstance. Notables among the pastoralists acted as intermediaries

with the giant states and were central figures in the very important

trade activity between China and the West. Through such channels, then,

pastoral notables were able to enhance their power and create states.

Schneider also does not consider the many African cultivators, many of

whom have few livestock of any kind, who have egalitarian, anarchic

social orders (eg, Konkomba, Tiv, etc) . One is led to wonder,

therefore, whether the basis for egalitarian and acephalous systems is

not so much dependence upon a highly mobile and reproductive form of

wealth (cattle) as it is dependence upon a cultural pattern which

induces a maximal dispersal of counterbalancing social bonds, and

creates an atmosphere in which monopoly is impossible. Monopolies can be

created with cattle and monopolies may be made impossible with other

forms of wealth. One might compare the Mongol herders on the one hand

with the Konkomba cultivators on the other.

The Samek or Lapps

Reindeer herding in the European sub-Arctic is in sharp contrast to the

lanky Nuer pasturing his cattle in the torrid southern Sudan. Yet these

peoples share not only pastoral life, but an individualistic world view

and anarchic social structure as well. While the Samek have generally

shown a remarkable tenacity in maintaining their unique culture in the

face of centuries of intimate contact with Europeans, they have

nevertheless modified their political and religious systems as a

consequence of this contact. For 300 or more years it can be said that

the Samek have been subject to the rule of one or the other of the

Scandinavian or Russian states and they have likewise been subject to

either Lutheran or Orthodox Christian churches. It is therefore somewhat

difficult to reconstruct the more ‘pristine’, pre-contact social order

of the Samek.

For one thing it is obvious that the Samek never had any overall

political integration. They were a people divided among many small

herding bands, each of which was an independent and autonomous entity.

The band is still important among the Samek. Despite the fact that the

Samek are a pastoral people, this basic social unit, the band, is

similar to that which characterises most hunting-gathering people. Thus

the Samek band consists of a few dozen people, most of whom are related

to one another. This relationship is bilateral; it may be either through

the father or the mother. Indeed, Samek kinship, like that of the Inuits

and of Europeans, is quite non-lineal. Members of the band have use

rights to a certain territory; thus, it could be said that the territory

is the collective property of the group. Band members have the exclusive

right to hunt and fish in the area and of paramount importance is the

right to pasture their reindeer.

Band membership has a rather fluid character in that it is perfectly

possible for one to withdraw from a group and seek membership in

another. It seems that at one time the band was an exogamous group and

thus engaged in the cementing of alliances with other similar groups

through the exchange of women as wives.

Internal affairs are managed by what some writers have called a council.

Since this body included in its membership the heads of every family,

the term ‘council’ is in fact somewhat misleading in its connotation of

formal organisation and delegation of power. Group decisions are

actually the collective responsibility of the adult male population as a

whole — a common feature of the other anarchic polities which we have

encountered.

There is in addition a band leader. This is a position for life and is

often hereditary, passing to the eldest son. But sometimes the leader

might be selected by the group. It is even possible for a man to marry

into a situation where he can eventually become leader because the

present one is his father-in-law, who has no sons to succeed him.

Ordinarily a leader should be wealthier than any of his colleagues. Band

leaders are essentially chief herdsmen of the group in that their

authority over other individuals encompasses their relationship to the

reindeer herds. The band leader is then co-ordinator of the group’s

major economic activity. “It is he who determines which kin groups

within the band shall furnish personnel for a herding expedition. It is

he who sets migration dates, accepts or rejects an applicant for band

membership, and directs herd movements. It is he who gives some

continuity and stability to the loosely organised Lapp band since his

successor is usually chosen from among his sons or sons-in-law. “

Outside the sphere of herd management the role of the leader “is

ambiguous and he is frequently overruled in group decisions” (Pehrson,

1077).

‘Master of the band’ is the literal translation of the Samek title and

‘mistress of the band’ is the equivalent term for the wife or mother of

the band leader. She has a considerable amount of influence within the

group. Indeed, Samek society like that of the Inuit, Ifugao or Dayak

awards a much more equal position to women in general. Women inherit

equally with men; they could transmit property the same as men; they

participate fully in the economic activities of the group and male

leadership of the band itself could be transmitted through a woman.

Another source of power in the Samek community in preChristian times was

the shaman. Details of Samek shamanism are not well known, but it seems

safe to say that such individuals, being the most skilled in

communicating with the supernatural, in curing illness and in divining

future events, were ones to be listened to and respected. It is hard to

believe that they did not sometimes seek to use their powers to enhance

their own personal positions within a neighbourhood.

Modern times have been accompanied by the expansion of individual

property (enlargement of herds, acquisition of modern technology such as

snowmobiles, etc) and this has tended to increase the individualism

within Samek society. At the same time the governments of Sweden,

Norway, Finland and the Soviet Union have instituted formalised

techniques to foster more direct control over Samek social affairs.

Bibliographic note

The chief source for the Nuer is Evans-Pritchard. Other African

pastoralists with acephalous political systems, some of which approach

the anarchy of the Nuer are the Barabaig (see Klima); Dinka (see

Lienhardt) ; Jie (Gulliver) ; Karamojong (Dyson Hudson); Turkana

(Gulliver). For the Samek see Pehrson and Vorren and Manker.

VI. Anarchy in Agricultural Societies

Almost by definition one would not expect examples of anarchic polities

among agricultural peoples. Among the reasons for this is the fact that

agriculture entails permanent cultivation of large tracts of land so

there is an incentive to accumulate this important resource as property.

Further, agriculture from its inception was, and still today is, widely

associated with irrigation. Due to the complex problems of water

distribution, irrigation can easily lend itself to bureaucratization or

at least it has often done so. Consequently, it is easy for a stratified

and politically centralized society to arise within the context of

agriculture. Agricultural peoples include those who share a peasant way

of life, which is followed today probably by a good minority of

humankind. In addition, modem industrial societies fall into this

category as well, so that altogether over 90% of the world’s population

is presently encompassed in this type.

Although no pristine examples of anarchy seem to be traditionally

practiced by any agricultural people, there are interesting cases of

highly decentralised confederations which border on anarchy and whose

governmental institutions are of the most ambiguous kind.

Consider ancient Iceland. This bleak island was settled in 864 by

Norsemen, no small number of whom moved because they were outlawed in

Norway or were dissatisfied with conditions there. One must remember

that nearly all the settlement of Iceland occurred before Norway

developed any system of a unified or centralised state and monarchy.

Settlers did bring with them the Germanic-Norse conception of ‘law’ , an

important ingredient of which was the notion of the assembly of free

adult males to legislate and pass sentence upon criminals, all by a

system of consensus.

The new settlers in Iceland introduced the stratified social system of

Scandinavia. There were the freemen who laid claim to homesteads in the

new land and there were hired hands or bondsmen (thralls). From the

freemen were drawn 36 chiefs (godhis) who, with their families,

constituted the aristocracy. Each chief was the senior man in his given

area, which in the early period would have included barely 1 ,000

inhabitants. He protected those dwelling in his territory and helped the

freemen in securing their rights. He was the main decision-maker to whom

people deferred; he also attempted to mediate disputes and punish

culprits. It might be said that his sword was feared not necessarily

because it was wielded by the most able fighter, but because there was

attached to it an aura of legitimate authority. But while there was then

a vague legal sanction associated with the godhi, he was basically a man

of influence who was successful in imposing his will to the extent that

he could convince his followers to accept him as their first among

equals. When the community withdrew its goodwill the chief was

powerless. He had no police force to support him, only the public

opinion which he tried to rally to his support. Thus a good chief was

one respected and admired by his followers so that they supported him. A

bad chief would find his will frustrated, his following declining and

ultimately his own gory demise. Individual freemen who disliked their

chief might renounce their allegiance to him and accept another. Because

of this, a given chiefdom was not characterised by a true notion of

territorial sovereignty, since a given territory identified with one

chief might actually be dotted with farms whose owners adhered to

another.

From very early times, in Iceland all the habitable lands in the island

were occupied and claimed as homesteads, the owners of which were

associated with one chief or another. The Icelandic hinterland, a land

dominated by icefields and live volcanoes, was a refuge for those who

rejected the system or who were outlawed by the rest of society.

The local political unit then was a chiefdom which lacked a clean cut

sovereign territory. There was no real executive power and diffuse

sanctions were the primary means of social control. A chiefdom was not a

sovereign state, but was rather a voluntary contractual relationship

between chief and freeman which could be broken at will by a freeman.

Beyond this local chiefdom, the only form of political integration in

early Iceland centred around the ‘Things’. These were voluntary

judiciary assemblies of freemen led by the chiefs “where mutual problems

were discussed according to orderly traditional procedures” (Thompson,

165). There were regional Things and one Al thing for the whole island.

The latter met annually and here participants were reminded of the

customary ‘law’ ; they also legislated new regulations and performed as

a court. But none of the Things were truly governmental institutions

since they had no power to enlist a military force, nor had they any

means, aside from urging diffuse sanctions, to enforce what was decided.

The most common punishments entailed outlawry (banishment from civilised

society for a set number of years) and confiscation of a man’s property.

The enforcement of outlawry depended entirely on the public’s

willingness to see that the man was banished. And as the Sagas tell us,

a banished man invariably found supporters who would aid him, so that

banishment was by no means the harsh punishment one might imagine in a

place like Iceland. Furthermore it seems from the Sagas that

implementation of banishment was left up to those who belonged to the

wronged party; other individuals were at best indifferent regarding

enforcement (cf. Saga of Gisli, Saga of Grettir the Strong).

In the other form of punishment — the confiscation of property — it was

necessary for a number of men from the Thing to take it upon themselves

as a collective whole to visit the homestead of the condemned and

declare the property confiscated. The men assuming this responsibility

appear also to have been the aggrieved individuals and their friends. If

no such group took up this task the judgement of the Thing remained

unenforced. When there was an attempt to confiscate property it

frequently led to feuding and acts of vengeance. A chief who was found

guilty of an offence by the Thing might defy the sentence and this too

usually resulted in blood feud.

Icelandic Things had no executive officer. The Althing, for example,

appointed a man for a three year term as ‘lawman’ whose responsibility

it was to recite one third of the law each year and also to act as a

moderator at the Althing meeting, a position similar to that of a

moderator of a New England town meeting — as a ‘non-partisan’ who merely

calls upon various individuals who wish to speak.

Social order in ancient Iceland rested upon the voluntary contractual

agreement with a godhi and upon judgements of an assembly of all adult

freemen in which enforcement depended upon voluntary collective or

diffuse sanctions. But one might also resort to blood feud and sorcery

to obtain justice and order. Even if the Althing passed judgement on a

man for murder, the honour of the murdered man’s kinsmen required

revenge and thus feuds seem to have been very common and only stopped

when cooler heads sought to intervene and begin a process which would

bring the issue to a Thing for settlement. Sometimes this settlement was

cause for renewed bloodshed.

A man also defended his honour and pride by duelling, the consequences

of which likewise provoked feuding. Both men and women could obtain a

reputation as powerful magicians so that their manipulation of

supernatural forces was greatly feared.

While there were men who obtained reputations as mediators of disputes

in Iceland (such as Njall in The Burnt Njall) the institutionalisation

of mediation was primarily in the Thing.

Laura Thompson described the ancient Icelandic commonwealth as “... in

actuality not one state but rather a confederation of independent,

politically equal godord associations” (Thompson, 163). Of course it

must be remembered that one of the reasons for this situation was that

the several chiefs were jealous of their own realms of power and

influence and so attempted to curtail centralisation of authority.

However the struggle between chiefs even eventually led to the supremacy

of fewer and fewer of them. Finally one chief became dominant and made

Iceland a Norwegian dependancy. Iceland was thus being rapidly divested

of its old decentralist, headless and anarchic characteristics —

characteristics which, to contemporary Europeans, were rather incredible

‘barbarisms’ .

Imazighen or Berbers

Throughout the Middle East there are several different ethnic groups

which have been referred to as ‘inhabiting lands of insolence’ because

they live in defiance of centralised government authority. They are

‘tribally’ organised, with patrilineages and highly decentralised,

acephalous polities. Imazighen who dwell in northern Algeria and in the

Moroccan highlands probably demonstrate the more anarchic of these

peoples. A most appropriate example is the so-called ‘Kabyle’ —

Imazighen farmers of northern Algeria and a group noted with favour by

Kropotkin.

The fundamental social unit in Kabyle society is the family household.

Several adjacent households comprise a neighbourhood within a village

and this is equivalent to a common patrilineage, although it may include

persons who are not true kinsmen. The patrilineage, in sum, is a

constituent of a clan. Ordinarily there are two clans in a village each

identified with a sof or moiety — that is, one particular half of the

village. Villages are independent entities. From ten to 20 comprise a

tribe, but this has no effective function , being at best a voluntary

association or alliance called into being on rare occasions for mutual

defence. About a dozen tribes are to be found in Kabylia.

Each lineage in a village has a chief spokesperson who participates in a

village council which deliberates on all matters of communal importance:

legislating, mediating and judging. The council is expected to defend

the honour of the community and to see to it that its decisions are

carried out. Here, as in other cases encountered in this survey, we may

note the weakness of true governmental features since there are no

specific policemen. Rather the council usually seeks to mediate between

disputants trying to find some basis for compromise and exhorting them

to reach an agreement. Once again the aim seems to be not so much to

determine guilt as to re-establish group harmony. The council is, in

fact, the voice of public opinion and communal sanctions, since it is

composed of representatives of each kin group, also because it acts only

when agreement is unanimous, that is, by consensus. The two primary

forms of punishment which may be imposed by this body are banishment

from the village and ostracism. The council, as has been said, is

essentially the voice of village public opinion and if it chooses to

ostracise a fellow villager, all others tend to fall in line to enforce

the punishment which is seen as a symbolic putting to death. Similar

diffuse and collective sanctions operate in banishing a member.

The collective oath is resorted to as a final resort, when every other

method of settlement has failed. This entails the members of a group

jointly swearing to the truth of their claims on pain of the wrath of

God if perjury is committed. Thus a refusal to swear is an admission of

guilt.

Aside from the council of the whole village, the males of a lineage on

occasion may meet as a body, but more important is the council of the

clan which controls the time of commencement of various seasonal

activities such as the beginning of ploughing, harvesting and other

communal labour, as well as the religious festivals. Throughout,

councils always operate on the basis of a well-known collection of

customary regulations peculiar to the village. These delineate the

recognised ‘crimes’ and their appropriate punishments. In addition

councils are guided by a Kabyle code of honour.

Bourdieu calls the Kabyle system a ‘gentilitial democracy’ since it is a

group of kinsmen who administer their lives through an assembly of all

the ‘fathers’ in the village. Yet it seems to lack some essential

attributes of democracy. First, the majority does not rule: consensus is

the basis for decision-making. Secondly, ideally at least, power is so

decentralised that every kin group in the community is represented.

Delegation of authority, a characteristic of democracy, can hardly be

said to exist. Thirdly, enforcement of decisions is not through

policemen and the council is not a judicial body so much as it is a

mediatory one. Ultimate power rests in the expression of the diffuse

sanctions of the community. Finally, the social intercourse is more in

the nature of a relationship between kinsmen than it is a political

affair. In these respects then we have an institution which seems more

anarchic than it is democratic.

Among Moroccan Imazighen a patrilineage system along with the respective

councils is also characteristic. Yet the structure at the higher levels

of integration is more distinct and powerful, such that tribal councils

are clearly in evidence as governing bodies. A tribal council consists

of the patriarchs from each of the several clans which make up the

tribe. These patriarchs, who are similar to Big Men, often constitute a

kind of nobility from which the higher nobility or chiefs are drawn and

these are entrusted with the affairs of the whole tribe. If the council

cannot agree on a chief, one is selected by lot.

In some parts of Morocco an important political device is the alliance

in which a patriarch and his followers, who include members of his

extended family as well as those who may not be related to hm, affiliate

with others as a lift. Feuding within the tribe can be controlled, since

if one clan attacks another, this would be the call for the members of

the alliance to come to the aid of their brethren. And of course members

of the same alliance do not feud with each other. As long as the

alliances remain strong, a tribal chiefs power is curtailed since booty

acquired in fighting has to be shared by all members of an alliance.

Occasionally a tribal chief is able to secure an adequate following with

sufficient fire power so that he can impose his will on his tribe and

extend it over others. This invariable entails his being able to gain

control of the two alliances, and to assassinate rival chiefs as well as

to provoke local conflict which he might manipulate to his advantage.

After gaining domination over an area he could then seek to reinforce

his position by being appointed a qaid (agent) by the Moroccan sultan.

Whether or not he is able to ascend this far on the ladder of political

success, his autocratic rule is usually short-lived. Establishing a

dynasty is next to impossible due to the fact that the chief is faced

with constant revolt which ultimately becomes successful and returns the

system to the old decentralised anarchic order. In any event, the system

creates the rudiments of government and a tenuous autocratic state

structure. It provides an historical process of cyclic oscillation

between archy and anarchy.

Some Moroccan Imazighen have an interesting mediation technique. While

minor disputes are left to the local chiefs and councils, major disputes

involving members of differing tribes are submitted to ‘holy men’ or

Igurramen. These hereditary saints are ideally descendants of the

Prophet and so possess baraka or holiness. They have magical powers and

are known to be good and pious men. They do not fight, or engage in

feuds or litigation, but are non-combatants and permanently neutral

pacifists who comprise their own separate patrilineages. They are the

mediators between potentially hostile groups. Aside from this task they

supervise the election of chiefs among the several tribes in their

vicinity, provide sanctuary, protection for strangers and act as centres

of information.

An important part of their mediator judicial role is to witness

collective oaths. As was mentioned for the Kabyle, the collective oath

is deemed effective because one swears on pain of divine punishment

should perjury be committed. But Gellner suggests that this is not

ultimately the reason for the effectiveness of this method of

adjudication, since individuals do perjure themselves. To Gellner the

effectiveness of the collective oath is that if a group wishes to stand

behind one of its own it will be able to do so ; it will swear

collectively to the innocence of the alleged culprit. But it can also

use the mechanism to punish one of its own who is too much of a

trouble-maker, by some or all of his kinsmen refusing to take the oath

in which case the plaintiff wins.

The saints are mediators of disputes, not judges, since they cannot

enforce their decisions, but depend upon the acceptance of the verdict

by those involved . Those who refuse to abide by a verdict face

considerable danger due to the moral authority of the saints. Public

opinion and especially that of the saints and their clients would be

turned against such persons.

In addition to the fact that Imazighen society may be characterised by a

hierarchical structure which distinguishes prestigious tribal council

members from lesser lights, there is a more clear cut class or even

caste-like division. Thus Imazighen have a small population of slaves.

In addition tiny communities of Jews have resided in the land and these

too have been a subordinate ‘pariah’ caste. Among some Imazighen, such

as those of the desert oases, there has existed a Haratin caste of serf

cultivators, usually having distinct Negroid physical features.

In sum, Imazighen style societies are hierarchical, yet in many respects

egalitarian . They exhibit anarchic characteristics and also give birth

to autocratic regimes. They are suggestive as well of interesting

non-governmental techniques for social control. Recent decades, in part

because of improved military technology, have brought all Imazighen much

more under the direct control of central governments.

The Santals

Several million people in India have been traditionally classed as

‘tribal’ . This means they belong to those minority ethnic communities

which neither observe the caste system nor accept the ideology or ritual

of Hinduism. They are egalitarian and ordinarily organised into

exogamous patrilineal clans. Tribal people are found scattered

throughout India living as village agriculturalists. Their egalitarian

ideology and decentralised social system in some cases suggests an

anarchic order.

The Santals, at least, have only the barest indication of any

governmental system. Numbering over 3,000,000 they live in eastern

India, largely in the state of Bihar. In the Santai village life is

ordered by one’s own kin group (his family and clan) and by the village

council and headman. Headmanship is an hereditary position, normally

passing from father to son, but nevertheless requiring the approval of

the village’s household heads. It is an office for life. A headman is

seen as the main protector and repository of tradition, which is greatly

treasured by Santai. He may be referred to as the ‘big man’, in other

words, a man of considerable influence. He is also seen as a man of

wisdom and learning. Nevertheless, he is at best a first among equals.

“Publicly he is little more than the voice of consensus, though

privately his influence is that of an especially respected and powerful

man” (Orans, 21). The headman receives certain tributes and privileges

for his role, including rent free lands, a portion of each animal slain

on a communal hunt and a central place at all weddings. There are six

other offices in a village and these are by appointment and for life.

These include village priests and an assistant responsible for public

morals.

The council comprises all household heads in the village. It assembles

regularly and under the chairmanship of the headman. While he ordinarily

calls meetings, anyone in the village can make a request that one be

held. Apparently, in Santai tradition there is strong emphasis upon open

and free meetings which guarantee every member the right to express his

views fully. The aim of any meeting should be to achieve consensus, but

if this unanimity is not forthcoming, the support of the overwhelming

majority is accepted. Usually final decisions follow the recommendations

of the headsman.

According to Somers, Santai village life is so structured that it

prevents concentrations of power. Thus, the seven village office holders

are never able to constitute a special power clique because council

meetings are held frequently and are open and free. Santai also do not

take kindly to the secrecy which would be required for a clique to

operate. The village has different foci of power such that they

counterbalance the power of the headman. While each institutionalised

social segment has authority over its members, there is nevertheless

considerable tolerance for individual autonomy. It seems that Santai

have a healthy distrust for power and have therefore not only developed

techniques to minimise its concentration, but have been diligent in

preserving and enforcing them.

Local village affairs are the responsibility of the council and headman.

Conflicts between persons of two different villages necessitate

settlement through the offices of elders of the village involved. A

group of between ten to 20 villages constitutes a territorial

confederation and this is the largest unit of political integration in

Santai society. This confederation also has a council composed of elders

and headmen from member villages. There is no formalised technique for

selection of members. One of the members, usually a headman of a

village, is elected permanent chairman of the group. This assembly is a

‘court of last resort’ and is concerned with intervillage affairs. Here

also no decisions are made unless consensus of an overwhelming majority

has been achieved.

In their adjudications village councils seem primarily to assess fines

and order ritual purification as judgements. The aim is to restore peace

rather than to punish. Fines are often used to provide a feast and drink

for the council and in one area both complainant and accused contribute

to such a feast, although the accused gives more.

Apparently for certain offences one could be administered physical

punishment (cf. Culshaw) . This clearly suggests legal sanctions.

Physical punishment and fines are, however, only imposed by the

collective meeting of household heads and are arrived at mostly by

consensus so that such sanctions are in fact more in the nature of

diffuse sanctions. They are not those enjoined by the force of a select

elite.

The most awesome punishment which could be imposed on an individual or

group is ostracism, which is, of course, one form of diffuse sanctions.

This seems largely to be imposed by the council of the confederation and

in connection with infractions of marital regulations. A person or a

group declared ostracised is first lampooned by the whole community.

Then the guilty will be shunned and treated as if non-existent. The

sentence of ostracism may be permanent or temporary. In the latter,

return to the community may depend on the person’s willingness to change

his ways, his demonstrated repentence and payment of the costs of

purification ceremonies.

Members of Santai society are concerned about concentrations of power

and the need to preserve an egalitarian society which gives some free

rein to individual expression. There is at the same time a strong

dedication to tradition; religious sanctions are both powerful and

important. With the emphasis upon consensus of the total community,

diffuse sanctions rather than legal sanctions seem to prevail and thus,

at the least, Santal society exemplifies a condition of marginal

anarchy. Yet, with the imposition of British colonial rule and, more

definitely, with the creation of the Indian republic, Santai society has

been radically modified and more clearly integrated into and subjugated

to the national state. For example, confederational councils have

apparently not acted among the Santai since 1947 and local headmen are

now responsible to authorities of the central government.

The medieval free city

Another social and cultural milieu upon which Kropotkin looked with

considerable favour was the medieval free city commune. He leads us to

believe that in its early form it was a society without the state and a

community of free men. But how free was it? Did it in fact lack

government?

Kropotkin argues that the medieval free city had its origin in the

village community and in the notion of the fraternity or guild. “It was

a federation of these two kinds of unions, developed under the

protection of the fortified enclosure and the turrets of the city.” In

some places this was a ‘natural growth’ , in others, especially in

Europe, it resulted from revolution. “(I)nhabitants of a borough ...

mutually took the oath to put aside all pending questions concerning

feuds arisen from insults, assaults or wounds, and they swore that

henceforth in the quarrels that might arise they would never again have

recourse to personal revenge or to a judge other than the syndics

nominated by themselves in the guild and the city” (Kropotkin, 1943,

19).

The Encyclopaedia Brittanica says: “It would be very wide of the mark,

however, to imply that the communes were democracies. The life of all

the towns was characterised by a struggle for control, as a result of

which the wealthiest and most powerful citizens (patricians) were

usually more or less successful in monopolising power. Within the

communes oligarchy was the norm.”

The liberal characteristics of these communes did vary considerably,

however not only from place to place, but also the same city might

experience a period of relative liberality and, then, ultimately decline

into tyranny. Indeed, the latter seems to be the historic process of

most of them.

The residents of the medieval commune, as Kropotkin notes, swore a

collective oath to follow the decisions of the city’s elected judges.

However, this collective oath was not always freely given; residents

were often forced to make it. In addition, it soon became only a

perfunctory act. Judges and other city administrators were chosen, often

in a popular assembly, from the wealthy and influential families who

were precisely those most interested in having a free city — free of the

interference of neighbouring dukes and kings so they might better pursue

their business interests. Not only did this situation then create a

ruling body of oligarchs, but it enhanced the class differentiation

already present.

Kropotkin overlooks the class oriented and exploitive nature of the

European guild system. Ostensibly one might say members of a guild

gradually progressed from one status to a higher and more responsible

one — that the ultimate aim of guild membership was graduation to the

rank of master. This then is no different from the ideal of any rational

educational system in which the student has the potentiality of becoming

equal in knowledge to his or her teacher. However that might be, in the

guild system, masters were the rulers and indeed dictators. The

apprentices at the bottom were treated hardly better than common slaves.

They had to be especially submissive and obedient if they wanted to

advance to a higher rank of journeyman, since that depended upon the say

of the masters. All power in the guild was vested in the masters and the

majority of members could only act as ‘yes men’ to them. Also the free

cities acquired an increasing population of wage working proletarians

who had no decision making role in the guilds, or in any part of the

economy or polity.

From the point of view of the serf on the feudal estate, the free

commune of the medieval period might have seemed like a haven of

freedom. And even from the vantage point of a 19^(th) century European

the free commune must have stood out as a laudable oasis in a desert of

authoritarianism. But there is little justification for Kropotkin’s

treating it as if it were some worthy example of early anarchy.

Fascist corporatism, syndicalism and the medieval commune

It is interesting to note the occasional close relationship between

views which are ordinarily diametrically opposed. Sometimes indeed,

opposite views are so opposite to one another that they converge in

similarity. Obviously fascism and anarchism have diametrically opposed

ideals — particularly about the morality of the state and the role of

the individual. Yet, as was suggested early in this essay, the anarchist

description of the nature of the state is not always that divergent from

the fascist one. The difference, which is crucial and fundamental, is

that while the anarchist sees the state as morally wrong, the fascist

sees it as right and good. Fascism and anarcho-syndicalism also share a

common historical tie to the corporate system allegedly associated with

the medieval commune.

Rather ironically a myth of the medieval commune’s social organisation

seems to have been used as a model for both fascist corporative theory

and the anarcho-syndicalist idea of federalism. Presumably the

administration of medieval cities was by an assembly of representatives

of the several corporations or guilds which constituted the city.

In anarcho-syndicalist theory the free commune myth becomes transformed

into an administration by levels of presumably voluntarily confederated

bodies representing the various crafts and trades. The top level is

either a national or world federation. In fascist theory, which draws

not only on the medieval mythic model, but on anarcho-syndicalism as

well, the nation state is conceived as a corporation just as the

medieval city was viewed as a corporation. Similarly it was to be

governed by an assembly of representatives of the several corporations

within the state. In fascism this means one segment representing the

working force through its syndicates divided according to craft and

another segment representing management. The state is seen, in Hobbesean

fashion, as the grand arbitrator, ameliorating these forces in the

public interest. (Of course, in actual operation the interests pursued

were those of the clique controlling the state and secondarily those of

business management.) The Soviet system might be seen as a modification

of the syndicalist and fascist models. It is certainly closer to the

latter since in effect the Soviet system absorbs the corporations of the

workers and the capitalists into the state bureaucracy.

In the United States the Catholic Worker movement has for years carried

on a campaign for a new society which combines Roman Catholicism with

communalism, anarchism and pacifism. It is, however, clear to anyone who

has read the Catholic Worker and other materials published by their

followers that the movement seeks a return to medievalism, a criticism

made of the movement almost 40 years ago by the Communist Daily Worker.

The anarchism of the Catholic Worker is a romanticised and nostalgic

notion of a medieval free commune. Their model amounts to a variation on

an authoritarian corporative one: the church becomes the state.

Anabaptists and anarchy

Kropotkin, in his essay on the origin of the state, mentions the

Anabaptist movement as an example of anarchism, although present day

members of

Anabaptist

sects and atheist oriented anarchists would undoubtedly be a little

disturbed at such an association. Modern legatees of Anabaptism are the

Mennonite, Amish and Hutterite sects. Basic to their teaching is the

‘two Kingdoms’ theology, which has its roots ultimately in Augustine’s

City of God. To Augustine there are two cities: the earthly city of self

love and contempt for God and the heavenly city of love of God and

contempt for self. The latter, or city of God, manifests itself on earth

in the church. Since the church has elements both of the heavenly and

earthly cities, it should not be identified as the city of the God. The

state corresponds to the earthly city. A true Christian state works in

close relation with the church, promotes the church and secures the

peace. Church and Christian state are inextricably bound together in

mutual dependence and obligation.

This scheme, which became the model for the medieval conception of

church state relations was modified by the Anabaptists. Thus the earthly

city or kingdom represented by government and the state is seen as

‘worldly’ and un-Christian. There can be no such thing as a Christian

state or government since it is founded upon the principle of the

legitimate use of violence to compel obedience to law. Since violence

cannot be used by Christians, they therefore cannot participate in

government or in the administration of the state. Furthermore,

Christians being right-minded individuals and members of the church, and

therefore of the Kingdom of God, have no need for governments.

Governments as institutions of the kingdom of this world are for

worldly, evil-doing people. As long as there are the latter, governments

are necessary. Christians must stand aloof from them to avoid

participation in their operation. At the same time they should be

obedient to them where it is within their conscience to be so. They

should render unto Caesar. Such rendering, however, does not include

being a member of a military organisation or a police force. Nor does it

mean holding political offices or voting for them or serving on juries,

which may send men to prison or to their death.

The true Christian is a member of the Kingdom of God through the earthly

organisation of the kingdom, which is the church. This in turn, is the

community of believers and of those who practice the teachings of Christ

in everyday life. In lieu of secular government, believers are under the

guidance of congregations of which they are full, equal and voluntary

members. The church is a voluntary contractual association; one does not

have to belong. The member is expected to live according to the doctrine

and the rules of the church. Such doctrine and regulations are not

determined by an elite body of hierarchs, but represent the collective

product of the total religious community.

There are, however, clergy who are elected by lot from among the members

of the congregation and they lead the church rituals and take a major

role in interpreting church doctrine and in dealing with alleged

wrongdoers. The ministers and bishops are the men of influence in the

community who are at least readily able to sway a large part of a

congregation, if not all, to their way of thinking. They do not have the

power to make decisions arbitrarily by themselves, however. When a

member of a congregation is accused of wrongdoing his or her case is

heard by the whole membership and decided by it. The ultimate punishment

is ‘disfellowshiping’ in which the errant member is expelled from

membership, which in the close knit highly integrated order of the

Anabaptist congregation has always meant a serious punishment. Before a

person is given such a sentence, however, he is encouraged to make a

public confession before the assembled congregation and ask for

forgiveness. Such a request is invariably granted and the matter is

ended. Refusal to do so is considered a defiance of the entire church

and this defiance of the community ultimately, then, becomes the most

serious offence. Disfellowship means not only that one is expelled from

membership, but also that one is totally shunned by all the church and

cannot share in the religious services. It is in this general manner

that Hutterite colonies and Amish congregations operate today. They have

no police or courts and do not apply to them, but settle their dispute

within their own communities in a system without government or the

state, but founded, of course, on the ultimate sanction of God’s

disapproval. Such a system, as much as others we have discussed,

requires firm belief in the power of the supernatural sanctions. It

demands such a dependence upon the community of believers that shunning

and disfellowship are perceived as excruciating punishment and so are

effective deterrents to deviant behaviour. Some so punished would not

find it easy to continue in defiance of the congregation and at the same

time continue residing among its members.

Unlike the other communities described thus far these Anabaptist groups

exist within states, so that they have always been ultimately subject to

the law and force of a given government, although as far as they are

concerned this would not in any way make their system of social control

for themselves any different than if they were not subjects of nation

states. Many such groups, for example, the Hutterites, have the

characteristics of intentional communities which are discussed below.

Bibliographic note

On ancient Iceland see Durrenberger, Gjerset and Thompson. On the

Imazighen see Bourdieu for the Kabyle, Gellner, Hart and Vinogardov for

others. See also Munson. Regarding the Santai, see Mukherjea, Orans and

Somers. Materials on the medieval free cities were drawn from Clarke,

Hughes, Lodge, Martines, Pirenne, Previte-Orton and Rorig. For the

Anabaptists see Friedmann and Hostetler.

VII. Anarchy in the Modern World

In the modem world there have been a few isolated attempts at creating

the anarchist commonwealth. One type of experiment is the institution of

anarchy within a major region or entire country. Another is the small

scale communal experiment — the ‘utopian’ or intentional community

established within the existing larger society. In both we are dealing

with a set of circumstances different from what has been encountered so

far. For here we have selfconscious efforts to establish anarchy by

individuals committed to the anarchist ideology of 19^(th) and 20^(th)

century Europe and America. This implies not only a rejection of the

state and government, but also of church and patriarchy, male dominance

and all dominance by elders. It also involves deliberately planning a

social order based upon voluntary co-operation.

There are two cases of attempts to institute anarchy at the regional or

national level. One is from the Ukraine during the Russian Revolutian

and the other from Spain during the Revolution or Civil War, 1936–39.

Unfortunately, the circumstances in both are muddled because of the

prevailing war conditions and therefore cannot provide an adequate idea

of an anarchist society in ‘normal’ times.

Not only did the Ukrainian case occur during the great revolutionary

upheaval after 1917, but it was also a short-lived affair. Nestor

Makhno, leader of anarchist revolutionary forces in the Ukraine,

initially directed his energies against the Czarist army. But for a

short period between late 1918 and June 1919, he gained sufficient

control of the cities of Ekaterinoslav and Aleksandrovsk, along with the

surrounding countryside, for some implementation of anarchist communal

ideas to be achieved.

In the rural areas, followers of Makhno expropriated farm lands,

livestock and implements from the landed estates as well as from wealthy

small holders, leaving their owners, according to Makhno “two pairs of

horses, one or two cows (depending on the size of the family), a plough,

a seeder, a mower and a pitchfork ... “ With this expropriated property

the peasants organised communes. It is alleged that the communes were

“created freely, by a spontaneous impulse of the peasants themselves,

and with the help of a few good organisers, for the purpose of providing

the necessities of life for the working people”. Everyone was expected

to work while administration and co-ordination of affairs was placed in

the hands of those of their number who were deemed most capable, such

administrators returning to their ordinary workplace with the other

peasants when these duties had been accomplished. Thus there seems to

have been an attempt to minimise differences between the workers and the

co-ordinators so as to avoid development of a bureaucracy (Voline, 105

ff). According to Voline, the Makhnovist partisan soldiers never exerted

any pressure on the peasants.

Makhno himself declared that in the communities members “applied

themselves willingly to the task”. There were communal kitchens and

dining halls, although a member could eat with his or her family in its

own quarters without objection. Apparently each member was expected to

take a responsible attitude towards food and inform the commune how much

was required before taking it. Sundays were days of rest, but if members

informed their work mates ahead of time they could leave the commune at

other times as well. Overall management of the commune was by a regular

meeting of all members.

Makhno reports that there were four of these communes within three or

four miles of Gulyai Polya and many more in the surrounding district. A

commune apparently had from 100–300 members, each being allotted

sufficient land by “district congresses of land committees”. Yet a

majority of the population of the region was not involved in the

anarchist communal movement and even within the communes only a minority

were anarchists. The great majority of villagers did not join the

communes, “citing as their reasons the advance of the German and

Austrian armies, their own lack ·of organisation, and their inability to

defend their or_der against the new ‘revolutionary’ and

counter-revolutionary authorities” (Avrich, 132) . In the urban areas

there seems to have been little organisation along anarchist lines. Only

a minority of the workers were supporters of Makhno and, unlike the

peasants, they had little ex p erience in “managing their own affairs”

and “were lost without the guidance of supervisors and technical

specialists”(Avrich, 25) Peasants could also barter produce whereas

workers depended wholly on wages.

During this short period, several regional congresses were held by the

peasants, workers and partisans of the region . While they were

presumably established to co-ordinate a regional economic and social

programme, they devoted most of their time to the pursuit of the war,

initially against the Czarists but eventually against the Bolsheviks as

well. One congress organised a Revolutionary Military Council which was

supposed to carry out all decisions of the congresses, but had itself no

power to legislate. Makhno claims that “once the resolutions of this

Second Congress were made known to the peasants of the region, each new

town and village began to send to Gulai-Polya, en masse, new volunteers

desiring to go to the front against Denikin” (general of the White Army)

(Voline, 109).

These rather ambiguous descriptions by Makhno and Voline of the actual

practice raise more questions than they answer. One wonders how many of

these army volunteers were truly volunteers. One may ask to what extent

individualism in the commune was tolerated. One may question the

technique of ‘expropriating’ property, especially from small holders.

Then, too, Makhno’s own proclamations have an all-too-familiar ring:

“Anyone convicted of counter revolutionary acts or of banditry will be

shot on the spot”. Persons refusing to accept Soviet, Ukrainian or any

other kind of money “will be subject to revolutionary punishment”. “All

individuals who attempt to hinder the distribution of this declaration

will be regarded as counter-revolutionaries” (from Proclamations of the

Makhno Movement, 1920 in Avrich, 134).[11] Makhnovist conceptions of

justice and freedom seem to have been closer to those of the Bolsheviks

than to anarchy. At best it would appear that Makhno and his cohorts

sought to initiate a kind of decentralist military democracy which was

soon nipped in the bud. Although there were attempts to prevent the

development of a differentiation between the bureaucrat and the worker,

we might expect that even if the Makhnovist society had survived, that

difference would have soon appeared and a red bureaucracy established,

as in the Soviet Union as a whole (cf Luciano Pellicani). But the Makhno

experiment had so little time and was continually harrassed by Czarist

and Bolshevik alike that it probably should not be judged too harshly.

The Spanish Revolution

The second example of the attempt to establish an anarchist society in

this century occurs in Spain — beginning in 1936. Yet again we have an

equivocal situation: is this an attempt to establish a decentralised

collectivist democracy or anarchy per se? In writing of the situation

Sam Dolgoff, Vernon Richards and other anarchists have considered the

movement and the society ‘anarchist’ . Gaston Leval, who observed many

of the collectives directly, prefers to call the movement ‘libertarian

communism’ or ‘revolutionary libertarianism’ even ‘libertarian

democracy’.

The Spanish Civil War, which ultimately brought down the Republic and

established the Fascist regime of Francisco Franco, is also seen by

members of the left and, especially the libertarian left, as a Spanish

Revolution. It was considered a revolution because during the period

from July 1936 until March 1939, widespread fundamental changes were

introduced into the social and economic life of much of Spain. Most

important to our interest is the establishment of new social

institutions by anarchists.

Spain in 1936 had the largest anarchist movement in the world. In- deed,

possibly more than half of all anarchists in the world were Spaniards.

This was the precipitate of a well-established tradition which carried a

popular anarchist movement back to 1872. The Spanish movement was

essentially Bakuninist in that it favoured an organisation of society

into localised collectives which would federate into local federations

and in turn form broader federations.

An important feature of Spanish anarchism was its mass support both from

rural and urban areas. Indeed, anarchist writers such as Rocker and

Murray Bookchin have argued that the traditional Spanish peasant

community perpetuated a tradition amenable to anarchist collectivism.

Bookchin even claims anarchism is ‘embedded’ in the life of the Spanish

people. What this seems to refer to is the pre-capitalist collective and

mutual aid practices in the village in addition to individualist values

held by the Spanish peasants. This combination of mutualism and

individualism is not unique to the Spaniards. It seems to be a common

feature of peasant peoples. Certainly the neighbours of the Spaniards,

the Imazighen and Arab peasants, might be so characterised. Anarchism

might not be so much embedded in the life of the Spanish people, as a

certain predisposition to it may be embedded in peasantry and this

because of the general character of the peasant situation. Even so, such

an observation as Bookchin’s does not adequately take into account the

authoritarian side of Spanish life, such as the influence of the church

and the fact that fascism had some appeal among Spaniards.

Clearly, however, the support for Bakuninist federalism among Spanish

peasantry, especially suggests that that milieu when faced with the

radical social-technological upheaval of the last 100 years, was a

fertile ground for anarchism.

It is not my purpose here to enter into any details of the organisation

and operation of the Spanish anarchist collectives, other than to raise

some questions concerning the role of authority within them. The ideal

of all the communes was to institute a free collective characterised by

communal ownership of means of production, voluntary membership and

right of withdrawal without punishment, full and equal participation in

the decision-making process, free choice of occupation, equal pay, free

education, medical care and pharmaceuticals, and the replacement of

money by ration or credit cards and an intercommune barter system.

The collectives in Spain, like those in Makhno’s Ukraine, operated only

during a period of intense hostilities and open warfare. This had the

obvious adverse effects of creating shortages of all kinds, and of

disrupting communications, effective social intercourse and trade. But

it also had the positive effect of continually motivating all members as

a united force against a common enemy: it was a fight for survival such

that many normal problems, which might have caused conflict in ordinary

times, were set aside and overlooked. Not only did the adverse war

circumstances affect the system, but within the short span of less than

three years it can be questioned whether there was sufficient time for

the development of the kinds of oligarchic and bureaucratic arrangements

Michels or Machajski, for example, might have predicted as part of the

dynamics of such a situation. Finally, it is also worth bearing in mind

that in almost all the collectives the dedicated anarchists were

invariably in a minority. In most of them, socialists and others not

particularly committed to the principles of decentralism, equality and

freedom, were a majority.

Reviews such as those of Leval or Dolgoff show that collectives did

implement the principle of communal ownership. In the agricultural

collectives the land, livestock and implements were the property of the

commune. Business appears to have been conducted with maximum

participation by members. There were frequent meetings and open

discussions. There was an honest attempt to introduce some equalisation

in wages for all. Free education, medicine and pharmaceuticals were

universal and some collectives went further to provide free housing,

electricity and bread.

Nevertheless for a presumed anarchist experiment some important

questions arise — again similar to those which come to mind with regard

to the Makhno experiment. First, it appears that in their meetings few

communes operated according to the principle of consensus, but instead

relied on majority vote. Now this may be an appropriate anarchist

technique if it is not utilised as a mechanism to oppress a minority

point of view. This means in effect that issues of fundamental principle

cannot be very easily decided. Further, whatever the case, the minority

must always have the right either not to follow the majority will, or to

withdraw.

The right to withdraw seems to have been recognised by the Spanish

collectives, yet someone who left stood a good chance of thereby losing

any contribution to the collective on joining. More important what

happened to those people who did leave or for that matter to those who

did not wish to join any collective? Presumably one had the choice of

belonging to a collective, or remaining an independent worker. In

agriculture this meant one was limited to a holding which did not

require hired wage labour to operate, since that was forbidden. Leval

tells us, in some of the ambiguous terminology of the left, that

“through the intermediary of the collective their[12] activities were

co-ordinated with the general plan of work” . What they produced was

sold to the collectives. One is led to wonder in what manner wage labour

is forbidden and how the activities of non-collective farmers were

‘co-ordinated’. Was there an ‘anarchist police force’? Or, in a

tradition more amenable to anarchy, were diffuse sanctions such as

ostracism or boycotting imposed?

Another questionable grey area is suggested by the mention of committees

of collectives which were elected to manage the group’s affairs.

Collectives quite commonly elected three or so of their number to act as

an executive or managerial committee or ‘administrative commission’ , to

which seemed to be delegated no small amount of authority. They decided

hours of labour and payment to be made; they decided whether or not to

expel a member. On the ‘libertarian communism’ in Alcorn village we hear

that “(t)he Committee is the paterfamilias. It possesses everything, it

directs everything, it deals with everything. Each special desire should

be submitted to it. It is, in the last resort, the only judge. One may

object that the members of the Committee run the risk of becoming

bureaucrats or even dictators. The peasants have thought of that too.

They have decided that the Committee should be changed at frequent

intervals so that every member of the village should be a member for a

certain period” (quoted in Dolgoff, 144). Yet is such a total delegation

of authority anarchy? It might better describe a democratic arrangement

in which terms of office are short and limited to one term per person.

These questions and criticisms should not be interpreted as an attempt

to belittle the Spanish effort. For these libertarian collectives were,

despite their faults, brave, novel and bold experiments in living.

Because of their anti-authoritarian bias they were probably the only

truly radical large scale efforts at change thus far in this century.

The anarchist intentional community

Intentional communities are in no sense sovereign entities, but quite

the contrary, they are communities within and upon the land of sovereign

states. They are attempts to initiate anarchic communities ‘within the

shell of the old’ . Thus, for example, the several anarchist communes

established in the United States all have had to conform in some fashion

to United States law and in many cases have been forced to close down

largely because they have not so conformed. Any anarchy in such

communities becomes highly circumscribed and is applicable to the

internal affairs of the group itself, where even here the long arm of

the law may sometimes reach. Any such commune finds itself an integral

part of the political and economic system of the state whether it wants

to be or not.

Further, individual members themselves. have been reared in the cultural

traditions and values of that state and have only the greatest

difficulty divesting themselves of their delecterious effects. In

communes which do survive more than a few years, the children do not

have the same desires, motivations and emotional problems as their

parents. Children reared in communes will not have the devotion to them

and the same ideals as their parents. The charisma of the first

generation is succeeded by the routine of the second. Nor can the

commune easily shield the young or any others from the formidable

‘attractions’ of the outside. How to keep them down on the commune is

another major problem. In short, from the start, any such project as an

anarchist intentional community has an overwhelming chance of failure

because of the odds against it which emanate from the external world.

Anarchic communal experiments have always comprised small populations.

Indeed, the great majority hardly ever reached 100 permanent members and

they have been family-like affairs. Moreover, they are invariably not

self-sufficient economically. Some, or most of the members, obtain

employment outside in order to sustain the community. While the

anarchist experiments have often been based on a communal ownership of

the land, full communism, in the sense of a pooling of wealth and

labour, has been less common than among other kinds of experiments.

Most of the anarchist intentional communities have been located in the

United States and Great Britain. Probably the first which might be

characterised as anarchic was founded by Josiah Warren. He was not only

one of the great creative thinkers within the anarchist movement, but

was also an inventor of gadgets and a social experimenter as well. For

most of his life he was interested in the intentional community movement

and indeed he lived during its hey day in America — the first three

quarters of the 19^(th) century. Warren took part in Owen’s Harmony

community and left it in 1826 believing that its mam problems were a

lack of individuality and failure to encourage self-reliance. Warren was

an individualist anarchist who did not wish to introduce communism, but

advocated a system of free contract in which each would receive

according to the time he devoted to his labours. In his Equity Store he

tried to implement his ideas by a system of goods excha ng e based on

labour notes, each worth the time in labour devoted to produce an object

or to provide some services.

In 1831, Warren, with others, organised a co-operative industrial

community in Ohio called Equity. Here it was hoped Warren’s ideas on

education and social order would be instituted. The basic principle of

anarchy was adopted: that one might do as one pleased but always at

one’s own cost. The experiment however soon failed, not because of

internal problems of the community, but because the region was infested

with malarial bacteria, making it impossible to carry on after 1835.

Warren did not endeavour to found another community until several years

later when he established Utopia, again in Ohio. Here each family

purchased its own house an lot and engaged in the equal exchange of

labour through notes which were used in all internal community

transactions. The economy was primarily industrial, as members engaged

in grinding corn and manufacturing wood and iron products. At one time

there were almost 100 residents. To Warren, at least, Utopia was

designed primarily to demonstrate the practicality of a free community;

permanent survival was secondary. And the colony did prosper and

operated successfully according to anarchist principles. It eventually

suffered from the Civil War and from the attraction of members and

potential members to the cheap land in the west. In the end it seems to

have disappeared by merging into the local scene as another American

community. While there were apparently still a few of the original

members around in 1875 most of them had moved on to Minnesota and

cheaper land some 25 years before.

Finally, Warren was instrumental in establishing a third community,

Modern Times. on Long Island, not far from New York City. Beginning in

185 1 , up to three acres of land were sold to an individual and on this

each settler built a house. The chief economic activity was market

gardening. Members largely engaged in growing fruits and vegetables for

the New York City market. Here as well emphasis was placed on voluntary

co-operation, exchange of labour notes, and a system of education which

stressed self-reliance, freedom and the acquisition of manual arts. By

1854, 37 families resided at Modern Times and it was proving to be a

successful experiment, both economically and politically. Because of the

publicity and easy accessibility to New York City, the colony received a

large number of curious visitors, many of whom decided to stay on. The

community refused to adopt rules which might prevent individuals from

settling within it. Consequently a variety of eccentrics came to live in

Modern Times. While they never constituted a very significant number,

they gave the colony some adverse publicity. This notoriety, however,

was not sufficiently detracting to inhibit the growing success of the

place, in contrast to some other communes which were practically

destroyed by bad publicity. The Civil War with its economic hardships

ultimately put an end to Modern Times as an experiment in voluntary

co-operation and mutualism.

What is most noticeable about these three communities is the fact that

none of them failed because of their anarchism; all ceased to exist

entirely because of external factors — conditions which would have

crushed any community.

Another anarchist communal experiment was established at Home,

Washington about 20 miles west of Tacoma. The Mutual Home Association

was formed in 1898 and acquired land, the use rights to which it sold to

members in the form of one to two acre plots. Membership was open to

those who sought “the personal liberty to follow their own line of

action no matter how much it may differ from the custom of the past or

present, without censure or ostracism from their neighbours” and “the

placing of every individual on his or her own merits, thereby making

them independent” ( quoted in Le Warne, 171).

The communitarian aspects of Home were extremely limited. A cooperative

for food supplies, a school, library and a variety of classes and clubs

for art, Esperanto, Oriental philosophy, music and physical culture were

available. In addition, there was neighbourly mutual aid. Communal

property included a meeting hall, a sea wall, sidewalks and a cemetery.

As in the Warrenite communities, most activity was left up to an

individual’s own enterprise.

Membership increased from 54 in 1899 to 213 by 1910 — its largest size.

A year later the Home Grocery Association, a co-operative, collapsed

amidst a bitter law suit and factional dispute. And by 1917, as a result

of a court case, the Home Association itself was dissolved and placed in

receivership. One faction claimed the other had usurped the organisation

by making crucial changes in the constitution of the organisation

without the approval of the other faction.

In Great Britain, during the last decade of 19^(th) century, at least

eight anarchist communes were organised. Two of these were influenced

primarily by Kropotkin’s views, while six were Tolstoyan. They were all

extremely small operations, rarely having more than a dozen members.

They also had only small acreages with market gardening as the primary

economic endeavour. The Purleigh Colony became a centre for the

publication of Tolstoy’s works which were translated by Aylmer Maude, a

member of the colony. It was one of the largest colonies, at one time

having at least 65 members.

Within a year or two after its organisation in 1896, the colony was

involved in internal conflict over how to select candidates for

membership and how to market the Tolstoy translations without becoming

overwhelmed by commercialism and profit-seeking. Apparently Purleigh was

eventually dissolved as members left, many to join the Dukhobor

communities in Canada.

One tiny colony, the Brotherhood Workshop originally established in

Leeds and in the course of time moving to E several different locations,

has managed to survive until the present day.

The Ferrer Colony founded near New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1915 was

named after the Spanish anarchist-educator, Francisco Ferrer. It was

organised by New York anarchists who continued to commute to work in the

city from their communal homes. At the same time they raised vegetables

and poultry, but the most significant communal enterprise was the

‘modern schQ.2!’, attended mainly by children of colony families, but

also by boarders as well. The school like the community was presumably

operated according to anarchic principles of freedom and individuality

and managed to suniive until the Second World War. While the colony had

distinct problems with internal dissent and conflict, the actual factor

which caused its demise was external. The United States army constructed

Camp Kilmer right next door and this created many critical problems with

which the colonists found it eventually impossible to cope. Theft and

personal safety seem to have been the main issues and the situation

encouraged members to move out. Yet Veysey claims that the military

intervention probably only speeded a process of already existent slow

disintegration anyway.

Joseph Cohen, who had been a member of the Ferrer colony, was

instrumental in the attempt to found an anarchist-communist commune in

Sunrise, Michigan in 1934. This lasted until 1937 and, as his

description suggests, it was an experiment which was harrassed by

internal conflict from the beginning. Indeed, the failure of the colony

may be seen in part as a justification of anarchist theory since its

major problems were organisational. There was an excessive delegation of

authority; administrative committees formed cliques and proceeded to act

arbitrarily and privily. In addition, this was an agricultural community

in which few of the members knew anything whatever about farming.

Finally, at Sunrise all property was held in common. This creates a more

intense and binding set of social relationships than the loose ties

characteristic of some of the experiments already discussed and so

creates a situation more vulnerable to conflict.

The 1960s were accompanied by a revival of the intentional community

movement. This recent development is probably of far greater proportions

than was experienced in the previous wave of communal experimentation

between 1820 and 1860. What is more, the types of community which

stressed individuality and personal freedom are more noticeable in the

recent wave, than in the earlier one. Literally hundreds of anarchic

communes have sprung up and disappeared with a few surviving for several

years.

As was mentioned above, any intentional community faces great odds from

the outset in terms of a variety of external factors which threaten

group success. However, the fact that some communes have succeeded in

face of these odds indicates there are characteristics internal to the

community which are of strategic significance regarding success or

failure. Some of these might be the following:

1) Minimisation of adverse publicity and external interference

Communities which have practiced eccentric sexual and dress habits, or

indulged in the use of drugs and at the same time have openly advertised

their behaviour, obviously invite failure by the sanctions of the

greater community and police interference. The community which is the

least unusual has the best chance of surviving at the hands of the

outside world. While it has been difficult for any community to

disappear from the view of the state, today this is almost an impossible

achievement.

2) Screening of members Much of communal success depends on the building

of a congenial group of members and this is enhanced to the extent that

persons applying for membership are adequately tested. This, of course,

sets up a ‘class’ distinction between those who have the power to test

and admit or reject and those who are the applicants — a condition which

has not always been appealing to libertarians. Nevertheless, a survey of

communal experiments indicates how often a major cause of failure has

been an inadequate control over admission to membership. On the other

hand, the most successful communal movement of all, the Hutterites, has

the most stringent admission requirements and practically never admits

members from outside.

3) Individual responsibility Many a community has failed because of the

lack of sufficient numbers of mature and responsible members and a

surfeit of what some would call selfish, little kids. , It bears

repeating that anarchy depends upon the extent to which each member

assumes a conscientious, personal responsibility and a sense of self

reliance . Riesman refers to such individuals as being ‘inner directed’

and I suspect that the successful anarchist commune is composed mainly

of these kinds of people. Many of the more enduring anarchist

experiments have been among those whose cultural milieu was nineteenth

century, English and Protestant — an inner directed type. Many Spanish

anarchists were as well. At least they often embraced an atheist

“puritanism” which opposed alcohol, bullfights and sexual promiscuity

(see Hobsbawm, 82, and Brenan, 157) . Brenan also saw parallels between

Spanish anarchist gatherings and revivalist meetings. There is a

relationship between “puritanism” and inner directedness since self

discipline among other things is basic to any “puritanism” . This is not

to say, however, that one must be a puritan in order to be

self-disciplined. It would be interesting to determine the extent to

which an association between inner directedness and an anarchic polity

occurs outside of the European milieu, among the other people which have

been discussed in the preceding pages.

4) Technical capability The most common ideal for a community has been a

rural, subsistence farming colony. In some regions of marginal economic

value, these communities have been a qualified success and have even

contributed to a modest economic revival of the area. Yet more

frequently, they have been economic disasters because members are

unfamiliar with either farm or rural life. Failure is most certain when

members are not only ignorant of such life, but persist in naive

romantic notions about it.

5) Communality To maximize the extent of communal life — communal

property , communal eating, communal housing, etc, — tends also to

intensify certain problems of conflict. Drawing people of varying

backgrounds together and so tying them to one another, engenders

trouble. Hutterites have been reasonably successful in a communal

venture in good part because they have tried to insure maximum cultural

homogeneity of all members. They have strictly controlled the

indoctrination of members from the cradle to the grave. At the same time

they have a tradition which is nearly half a millenium old. Those

anarchist communities of the 19^(th) and 20^(th) centuries which have

had some degree of success were ‘loosely’ structured with a minimum of

communal property, communal eating, communal housing , etc — they were

neighborhoods of like-minded individuals who were not so intimately

involved with each other. There was a broad leeway for individual action

and autonomy, yet at the same time mutual aid was always available on

call and, of course , economic differences were absent.

Bibliographic note

On Makhno and the Ukrainian movement see Avrich and Voline. Material on

the Spanish Revolution is derived from Brenan, Dolgoff, Leval and

Richards. On the anarchist intentional communities see Martin for

Warren’s experiments, LeWarne for the Mutual Home Association, Hardy for

the English communes, Veysey for the Ferrer Colony and Cohen, Joseph for

Sunrise.

VIII. Do Anarchist Polities have a Message?

Almost all hunting and gathering societies of which we have any record

are egalitarian and anarchic, having no government or state. A small

minority — typically those of the Northwest Coast of America and of

northern California — are rank societies, which nevertheless frequently

lack any governmental system. Among horticulturalists the extent of

egalitarian and anarchic polities is still widespread, but less so than

among hunter-gatherers. On the other hand, probably a minority of

pastoral societies and hardly any agricultural ones, fall into this

category. Among the latter, societies are characterised by

stratification and the state.

The egalitarian quality of any polity, anarchy included, it must be

remembered, is to be seen within the context of same sex and general age

or generation. True sexual equality is a rarity and societies which

approach it are, like the Ifugao or Dayaks, more often than not those

which have a bilateral kinship system. With it there is a lack of

differentiation or preference regarding relatives through either parent;

there is an equality or an approximate equality in terms of inheritance

through either parent and by members of either sex. Husband and wife

will tend to bring to the new household equal amounts of property. This

bilateral situation usually sets the stage for relatively equal

participation within the economic sphere (eg, Ifugao, Inuit, Samek).

Matriliny sometimes appears inferior to bilaterality in its ability to

provide the most secure basis for a relative sexual equality. This is

because in it, males are often motivated to neutralise the principle of

inheritance through females by asserting their own dominance.

Anarchy correlates with ‘folk’ or gemeinschaftlich characteristics. It

is easiest where the population of the maximal effective social group is

small — probably up to 200 individuals. In it ‘face to face’ relations

prevail and thus the typical diffuse sanctions of gossip, ostracism and

the like can operate most effectively. Anarchy is easiest where the

population is homogeneous and undifferentiated. Among other things this

means there is only a minimal division of labour and specialisation of

task. Such a situation where people are much the same, reduces or

minimises the opportunities for differences of opinion, sharp cleavages,

and conflict, and maximises what people have in common so that even if

there is disagreement there is still immense pressure to conform and

keep the system going. Numerous bonds of commonality bind the dissident

to the group and prevent total alienation.

Some may interpret these conditions as rigidly curtailing freedom.

Freedom, it may be said, is measured by the number of choices open to an

individual. And there are obviously fewer choices open to members of

these small scale societies. But perhaps we should question how much

less freedom exists in such societies if all the members are unaware of

a greater number of alternatives and if the same few alternatives are

available to all. How, indeed, would such societies compare to those

more ‘modern’ ones in which there are presumably so many more choices,

but in fact they are not freely available to everyone?

While it may be said that anarchy occurs most frequently in a small

group situation and is probably easier to perpetuate in this condition,

this is not to say that it is impossible in a modern more complex

context. Rather it is more correct to say that it is not very probable.

Yet we do have examples of anarchic polities among peoples such as the

Tiv, Lugbara, Nuer and Tonga, numbering in the hundreds of thousands and

with fairly dense populations, often over 100 people to the square mile.

Such social orders may be achieved through a segmentary lineage system

which as we have seen already has certain parallels to the anarchist

notion of federalism. Or, as among the Tonga and some East African

pastoralists, large populations may be integrated by a more complex

arrangement which affiliates the individual with a number of cross

cutting and bisecting groups so as to extend his or her social ties over

a wide area. In other words, individuals and groups constitute a

multitude of interconnected loci, which produce the integration of a

large social entity, but without any actual centralised co-ordination.

Even within Western civilisation we have cases of large acephalous

organisations. Studies of recent social movements in the United States

have led students of such phenomena to speak of segmented polycephalous

idea-based networks (SPINs). “An organisation chart of a SP(I)N would

look like a badly knotted fishnet with a multitude of nodes or cells of

varying sizes, each linked to all the others either directly or

indirectly” ( Hine, 19) . SPINs have no single leader, but each segment

has its leaders although none has any authority. Leadership is based

upon ability and persuasiveness alone. What holds the various autonomous

segments together and prevents disintegration is a wide range of

‘horizontal linkages’ and most important of all, an ideological linkage.

That is, there is much overlapping of membership so that one person

belongs to several groups within the whole movement. There is

considerable interaction between leaders of the participating groups or

cells and leaders themselves may lead in one group and be ordinary

members in another. There is also much ritual activity in the form of

demonstrations, rallies and the like which draw all together. The real

glue of the movement is ideological: a deep commitment to a very few key

and basic tenets which are shared by all. Hine suggests that the

biological analogue of a SPIN is the earthworm. But another may be the

brain within which there is co-ordination of a myriad cells without any

‘ruler’.

SPINs are purely instrumental and pragmatic, when the idea which spawns

one loses its influence, either because it has been won, or lost, or

made obsolete, the SPIN changes or disappears. It is probably

significant to anarchist and other propagandists that SPINs do not

emerge as a result of rational planning, but “emerge out of functional

necessity” ( Hine, 20). The parallel of SPINs to Tonga and other like

forms of social organisation is obvious. A free society modelled along

such lines may prove to be the most resistant to the growth of oligarchy

and hierarchy.

Anarchists have frequently also referred to other examples of systems

which do work without any head. Thus, we have the European railway

system, composed of several independent national rail lines, which

co-ordinate their activities so as to allow for efficiellt passage of

goods and passengers amongst several different countries. It is a system

without a head. The United States railways are owned and directed by

several separate companies which co-ordinate their operations by means

of voluntary associations of companies so as to provide for travel

throughout the country. The international postal system is of the same

acephalous nature.

It is somewhat ironic that certain defenders of a powerful national

state are at the same time advocates of an economy which not only lacks

a centralised control at the international level, but also has none at

the national level. The old liberal capitalist notion that .an economy

is, or ought to be, a self-regulating system controlled only by the

demands of a free market, is in its essence an anarchist notion.

However, it no longer remains one when it becomes a guise for exploiting

and oppressing others. In any case these several examples are what

Bohannan has referred to as ‘multicentric’ power systems.

It is clear that large, relatively complex social systems or

relationships can function efficiently in an anarchic fashion. It is,

however, noticeable that none of the ethnographic cases available

suggest the operation of anarchy where there are major urban

agglomerations. Except for the brief Spanish and Ukrainian experiments,

wherever anarchy obtains it is in a rural context. Still, if anarchy can

function in a densely populated rural area, there is again the

possibility that it could operate in cities as well.

The fact that there are few anarchic polities among complex social

structures may mean that the centralised state has appeared to be a more

practicable mechanism by which to maintain social relations in such a

milieu. It may also mean that certain individuals with power are able to

anaesthetise the populace into believing their authority is

indispensable and that life is easier by abdicating responsibility to

them. The ruled are instilled with the notion that government knows

best; it is the most efficient vehicle for providing services to the

community, while the ordinary folks are neither qualified nor capable.

Like any successful institution, government also prospers by inculcating

its necessity in the populace. Once power has been accumulated into a

few hands it is more difficult to get rid of it. It has a savage

appetite and the habit of a cancer, ever expanding and enlarging. As we

have suggested elsewhere in this essay there has been, over the decades,

a gradual erosion of self-help and voluntary co-operative institutions

in our society , an erosion which has favoured an increasing

encroachment of government into the lives of all. This is not only to be

criticised as a threat to liberty, but it is equally a threat to the

everyday practice of voluntary co-operation, of self-reliance and mutual

aid between ‘natural’ groups in society.

Even if we set aside the real possibility that the masses have been

drugged by those who achieve power, we might consider that people’s

weighting of human values have too often been such that they elect

security over freedom, order over liberty and efficiency over

individuality. The plain fact is that anarchy requires work ,

responsibility and a big gamble. Especially today , the majority of

people are content to abdicate responsibility to government — perhaps

because they are too lazy and because they have been happily mesmerised

by those in power; perhaps, also, because their self-confidence has been

undermined by the powerful.

Cultural florescence and anarchy

In Nationalism and Culture Rudolf Rocker explored the hypothesis that

wherever there is a state, there is an inhibition of human cultural

develpment and, correlatively, wherever political integration is weak

and limited to small groups cultural ‘progress’ occurs. By culture

Rocker refers to the various arts: architecture, painting, music,

literature, philosophy. Unfortunately he fails to make any systematic

analysis of cultural contents or to disengage the subject from the most

subjective level. He makes only personal judgements about the value of

Roman literature or of Greek sculpture, for example. Obviously, this is

an area in which objectivity could hardly be achieved. An equally

serious problem is that Rocker seems to view with approval the ancient

Greek city state, the early Spanish commune and the small principalities

of 17^(th) and 18^(th) century Europe. It is not clear then whether he

is critical of the state or critical only of big states. Whatever the

case might be, the argument that cultural florescence is suffocated by

the state is a fascinating question, but one replete with too many

pitfalls to be answered in any convincing way.

To pursue properly Rocker’s question we would require a more precise

conceptualisation of the state and above all we would need an objective

technique by which evaluation of art forms in different cultures could

be made. This formidable task I have no intention of pursuing. A L

Kroeber in Configurations of Culture Growth attempted something of this

sort. He made no evaluations of art forms, but used the names of noted

persons as indices for plotting the rise and decline of the several arts

and sciences in the major civilisations of the world.

His aim was to determine regularities in the growth of intellectual and

aesthetic endeavours in the course of time and from one major

civilisation to another . His technique is by no means beyond reproach.

And in his conclusions, unlike others such as Spengler or Toynbee,

Kroeber finds no grand pattern or patterns, no historical universals. He

finds no significant interrelationships between the climaxes of

particular configurations, whether these be in the natural sciences,

philosophy or arts. Nor are there connections between culmination in a

given art and a total cultural climax. The crest of a scientific wave

may come before, with, or after that of a literary wave and so on.

Cultures often have great climaxes in some arts and sciences and none at

all in others. More directly as a response to Rocker, Kroeber finds

configurations and their culminations are not particularly related to

such factors as the lack or extent of political integration. Both

Kroeber and Rocker are only concerned with literate civilisations . One

wonders how Rocker, for example, would have looked upon the cultural

development among the anarchic polities discussed in this essay,

compared to others which have states.

For one thing, we have noted that in such governmentless societies there

are nevertheless numerous oppressive features which would seem to

inhibit free creative expression. What is more, the atmosphere of

freedom in and of itself is insufficient for cultural florescence. The

free do not create in a vacuum. It is sometimes pointed out that the

Australian aboriginal hunter has much time to think and create, but the

end product is not that impressive. Aside from freedom, one requires the

appropriate stimulation. The accumulation of knowledge is a certain spur

to that stimulation. As one gathers more data one’s understanding is

eventually enhanced. New connections and relationships are seen; greater

insight is achieved and new hunches or intuitions flash into one’s mind.

The specialisation of task is a major factor in producing a creative

atmosphere, because there is the opportunity for a number of individuals

interested in the same specific problem to exchange ideas, work together

and so inspire each other. Such inspiration is accelerated as one has

easy and free communications around the world with others of like

concerns. Now historically , specialisation of task in the division of

labour — the building up of a community of scholars or artists — is

invariably associated with some urban development and the creation of a

leisured class. This suggests, then, a stratified society which has

little place for anarchy.

No one can deny that some degree of personal freedom and individuality

is essential for innovation and cultural florescence. But contrary to

Rocker it seems that cross cultural analysis and history tell us that

humans can be creative under quite dissimilar circumstances. The

quantity of freedom which may be essential is highly variable. Certainly

no one can argue that the various anarchic polities will have greater

developments in the arts simply because they have no state.

Techniques for maintaining order

Freedom and individuality as enunciated in the anarchist movement are

European, if not bourgeois, values which grew out of the Protestant

Reformation and have roots further back in Greek cultural tradition.

Most of the people with which we have dealt maintain an anarchic system

and display certain individualist traits but do not commonly explicate

philosophical thoughts on freedom. As a matter of fact we may well be

valuing these peoples for reasons important to us, but not to them (cf.

Colson, 1974, 62 3).[13]

A society may be free of governors, policemen, jails and law — the whole

apparatus of government — but this by no means guarantees it will be a

free and egalitarian society. The reliance of anarchic polities upon

diffuse and religious sanctions may lead to tyranny. The taunts, the

gossip, the ostracism and the physical violence which form part of such

sanctions often appear unyielding, unforgiving and cruel. And as we know

from our small town life there is little place of refuge from such

sanctions, so long as one desires to remain within the community.

Diffuse sanctions are often difficult to control and can readily get out

of hand, as with the vigilante committees of the Old West. What is more,

they may be a force of conservatism, stupidity and intolerance.

Nevertheless, we who dwell in state dominated societies not only must

submit to diffuse sanctions but also the overwhelming power of the state

as well. And in our age of sophisticated technology, particularly in the

realms of communication, transportation and electronic surveillance, the

state has access to an incredibly awesome power. The real tyrannies in

this world have been and are state tyrannies.

Anarchic techniques for maintaining order stress self-help and

self-regulation, which from the point of view of an American or European

may sometimes appear like a perpetual resort to violence in the form of

the feud. Lee has addressed the question of relative homicide rates

amongst San as compared to the United States and other areas. He

calculated the San rate at 20.3 per 100,000 person years. In the United

States there are 9.2 homicides per 100,000 population while a study of

23 Ugandan peoples showed a range of between 1 . 1 and 1 1 .6 per

100,000.with a mode of four to six. The U.S. figures would be far higher

if it medical facilities were as rudimentary as those of the San.

Moreover, it is noted that many automobile and other accidents in the

United States are intentionally homicides but are not counted as such.

Far more important is the number murdered in warfare and none are

counted in the homicide rate. Consequently Lee revises the American

figures and estimates the proper rate in the United States to be about

100 per 100,000. He also figures British, French, and German numbers

would be equally as large. However, I would suspect that his estimates

are too high. Nevertheless, his conclusions are valid, namely, that San

homicide rates are probably quite a bit less than those in the United

States and that while the state may be effective in reducing certain

kinds of violence such as individual fights, it creates new forms such

as war (Lee, 398–399).

Our survey of anarchic polities shows how widespread is the presumed

reliance upon the feud, which can be so wasteful of life in its apparent

senseless murder and mayhem. What is more, the feud provokes a prolonged

state of anxiety and psychological turmoil. However, it is well to bear

in mind that the destruction of the feud in an anarchic polity is hardly

likely to approach that of the warfare which is conducted between

states. While there are no available comparative figures, there is at

least one basic difference between feuding and the nature of war which

helps substantiate this conclusion. That is, feuds aim at evening a

score. The operating thesis is an eye for an eye. They do not aim at

annihilation of an enemy or unconditional surrender of the opponent.

Often, once someone has been injured in a feud, the fighting stops. At

least active peace negotiations will be initiated because of the

priority of the maintenance of group harmony. It is essential in any

conflict to restore that harmony as soon as possible. Litigation of any

kind is not aimed at finding blame for blame’s sake, but in satisfying

disputants and bringing peace. This entails a central role for third

party mediators or go-betweens. These respected men consult with

opposing sides until some compromise can be reached. The success of such

ventures depends on the ability of the mediator and on the sense of

moral obligation to play the game on the part of the parties involved.

Elizabeth Colson believes, however, that it is not so much actual

feuding, but fear of provoking a feud, that is an important mechanism of

social control in acephalous societies. She refers to recent reviews

made independently by E. Adamson Hoebel and Sally Falk Moore which

conclude that there is not a great deal of evidence for feuding as such,

but a great deal of evidence for fear of the feud. In anarchic polities

everyone becomes very much aware of the potential consequences of rash

behaviour. Each person learns the need for self-restraint. “ ... (S)ome

people live in what appears to be a Rousseauian paradise because they

take a Hobbesian view of the situation: they walk softly because they

believe it necessary not to offend others whom they regard as dangerous”

(Colson, 1974, 37) . “There is ‘peace in the feud’ as Gluckman has said,

but it is a peace based on the prevention of the first act rather than

on the force which leads to the final settlement” (Colson, 1974, 43).

It has been suggested that people in anarchic polities have less to

quarrel about because there is less property and much homogeneity and

equality. But perhaps again restraint is important because ofthe fear of

consequences, so that there appears to be less quarreling (Colson, 1974,

43).

An obligation to play the game is elemental to the functioning of any

anarchic polity. And, of course, it is readily enforced by fear of

diffuse and religious sanctions. Nevertheless, those who are used to

living in a society governed by policemen and legal sanctions often fail

to appreciate the significance of the sense of obligation to play the

game as a motivating force for social order even within their own

society. We must not forget that in all human societies most members

chose to follow the rules because they want to and because they believe

in them. They would resist any attempt to lead them into non-conformity.

In any society, sanctions of whatever kind are for the tiny minority.

Were all law enforcement to be removed tomorrow there would probably be

an initial burst of crime, but after the novelty wore off it would

dissipate. At the same time, the vast majority would not be involved,

but would go about its business· as usual. To hold, as some apparently

do, that were the law to be removed there would occur some momentous

explosion of brutish and murderous behaviour among all the populace is,

in the first place, grossly to overestimate the present power of the

police. More importantly, it is grossly to underestimate the years of

conditioning about right and wrong to which all have been exposed and

the power of the internalised censor or conscience.

In those cases where traditional techniques for social control have been

removed suddenly or greatly relaxed, two consequences are noteworthy.

One is the extent to which voluntary mutual aid spontaneously appears

and spreads — people begin helping each other. The other consequence is

the opposite response — the one . the ‘law and order’ supporters would

predict. That is, there is “i! rioting, looting and mayhem. But the

reason for this reaction is not because there is no police to keep

order. The reason is suggested by the kinds of people who engage in such

behaviour. These people are definitely not the members of society who

have prospered from it, nor are they the ones in positions of prestige,

power and influence: On the contrary, they are always from the ranks of

the disadvantaged and frustrated. And the revolt — which is what it is —

is an attempt at catharsis, to relieve pent up aggression and hostility

generated by a system perceived to be oppressive (whether it is ‘in

fact’ oppressive is beside the point; it is seen to be such and that is

what counts).

It is an error to think of humans as ‘naturally’ good; it is equally

erroneous to condemn them as monsters. And radicals, of all people,

should appreciate the extent to which people are conformists.

Some criticise anarchy because its only cement is something of the order

of moral obligation or voluntary co-operation. But democracy, too,

ultimately works in part because of the same cement. And it works best

where the cement is the strongest. That is, democracy ultimately does

not operate only because of the presence of a police force. The free

elections and two-party system could never survive if they depended upon

the army and the police to enforce them. They survive because

participants have a belief in the system and a feeling of obligation to

play according to the rules. Hocart has said that government depends on

“spontaneous and incessant goodwill ... Without it governments would

collapse” (129).

De la Boetie, Machiavelli and Spooner among others would add however,

that in any system of government submission is induced by fear and

fraud. In The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary

Servitude Etienne de la Boe tie devotes himself entirely to the question

of why people submit to rulers. He makes the following points:

1) People submit because they are born serfs and are reared as such.

2) People are tricked into servitude by the provision of feasts and

circuses by their masters and because they are mystified by ritual

practices and religious dogmas which aim to hide the vileness of rulers

and imbue reverence and adoration as well as servility.

3) The ‘mainspring’ of domination is not physical force so much as it is

a chain effect: the ruler has five or six who are his confidants and

under his control; they in turn control 600 and these in their turn

control 6,000. “The consequence of all this is fatal indeed. And whoever

is pleased to unwind the skein will observe that not the six thousand

but a hundred thousand, and even millions, cling to the tyrant by this

cord to which they are tied. According to Horner, Jupiter boasts of

being able to draw to himself all the gods when he pulls a chain” (78).

Also suggestive of why people obey is Lysander Spooner’s classification

of “ostensible supporters of a constitution”: knaves, dupes and those

who see the evil of government but do not know how to get rid of it or

do not wish to gamble their personal interests in attempting to do so.

In anarchy there is no such delusion for there is a priority placed upon

individual freedom which is absent in democracy. Democracy — granted its

concern for liberty and individualism — nevertheless like any other

system of rule, puts its ultimate priority in the preservation of the

state. When in a democracy one group threatens to withdraw — to secede —

there is always the final recourse to a ‘war measures’ act to compel

compliance and suppress ‘rebellion’. To summarize, order in the anarchic

polity, is founded in diffuse sanctions. It is maintained through

self-help, self-regulation and self-restraint and these devices are

channelled by fear as well as by the motivation to make the system work

and to play the game with a minimum of friction.

Group decision-making

Part of the democratic myth is the sanctity of majority vote. That every

so many years each voter goes to the polls and chooses a leader by

majority, and the secret ballot is the most sacred ritual of democrats.

Anarchists have argued that this is no true indication of liberty.

Rather, again as de la Boetie might have observed, the election of

rulers by majority vote is a subterfuge which helps individuals to

believe that they control the situation. The voter, in fact, chooses

from a pre-selected group and invariably there is no choice between

contrasting ideologies. The difference between major parties — those

that have a chance of victory — in any western country today is no

greater than the difference between. factions within the Communist party

in the Soviet Union or China. No one could seriously argue that there is

any ideological or any other enduring traditional philosophical contrast

between the major parties in the United States or in Canada. In addition

electors might be reminded that they are selecting individuals to do a

task for them and they have no guarantee that it will be carried out as

they desired. Above all, this job in its essence is one of forcing

obedience. Electing men to public office is like being given a limited

choice of your oppressors.

Quite often election by majority does not even occur. A candidate for

office is elected because he or she has more votes than any single other

candidate and actually receives much less than a majority of the votes

cast. In addition, the number of people who don’t vote — the silent

majority — .is never taken into account. Presumably a goodly proportion

of the non-voters are not particularly enamoured of any candidate. In

1976 in one American state, Nevada, voters were given the alternative in

the Presidential election of marking an X beside ‘None of the above’ —

the nearest thing to an anarchist vote. Slightly less than three per

cent of those who voted made this choice. In addition, 40–50% never

bothered to vote.

We frequently hear the refrain: If you don’t vote you have no right to

complain. Such an argument makes the false assumption that an election

provides real choices. And, of course, it falsely assumes the legitimacy

of the process itself: that an individual is required to delegate

authority to an arbitrarily chosen few, or that an individual is

required to elect his or her own jailers.

Above all, there is the fundamental moral question about the sanctity of

the majority. Democracy, in its advocacy of majority rule, attempts to

provide an alternative to the rule of one or of a few, but it often

replaces that kind of dictatorship by one of the majority or, most

commonly, of the plurality. It assumes that right and wrong, that

morality, is determined by a majority of those who bother to vote.

Ibsen’s Enemy of the People is a vivid dramatisation of some of the

consequences of relying ilpo n majorities. Yet even aside from the fact

that minorities may know better, or have right on their side, there

remains the truth that the majority compels the minority to conform.

The anarchic polities which we have considered, as well as anarchist

theoreticians, have stressed an alternative decisionmaking device — that

of consensus. An issue is argued out until everyone agrees or acquiesces

to a given solution, or, in lieu of such agreement, the matter is set

aside, usually to be taken up at a later date. The Society of Friends

(Quakers) in our own cultural tradition has long practiced this

technique as a means of conducting business. Decisions depend upon

coming to a sense of the meeting: a point when there is no further

expressed opposition to a plan of action.

There are many arguments against this approach. It invariably entails a

considerable amount of talk. Indeed, a member of an anarchist

intentional community once said that the main product of his group was

talk. But there is nothing more human than talk and as long as people

engage in it they will not engage in violence. Consensual politics is

most commonly criticised on the grounds that business could well be

hamstrung by a stubborn minority. This is sometimes the case, but this

can also occur in a democratic legislature, which can be as inefficient

and time consuming. If one wants an efficient system one would probably

do best to appoint a select committee of technocrats to plan and

expedite legislation, but this would not be a free society; it would be

Orwell’s 1984 world.

A more credible criticism of consensual politics derives from the manner

in which it tends to work out in actuality. First, consensual politics

is effective with small groups, since it depends upon full and open

discussion of issues in a kind of face to face relationship. Secondly,

in practice there is no equal participation by everyone. Rather the

people of influence in the community impress their opinions upon others

so that individuals fall in line and at least come to a tacit agreement.

Indeed the people of influence in a community may often confer ahead of

time and agree to a position for public consumption. Anyone ‘holding

out’ and preventing consensus is ordinarily ‘prevailed upon’ by

influential individuals to see the ‘error’ of his or her ways. All these

kinds of political manoeuverings are equally as common in democratic and

other politics. The advantage of a consensual system is that ideally it

is morally superior to others in protecting minority rights. Clearly it

can become an unwieldy and coercive instrument. Anarchists themselves,

in their implementation of communes and collectives, have often found it

necessary to resort to the democratic system of majority vote.

An alternative to consensus is decision by lot. Election of ministers

and other church officers among the various Anabaptist sects has often

been by this process, in the belief that one must avoid the

possibilities of strife, which might come from the partisan politics of

majority vote elections, and leave the decision up to God who presumably

expresses himself in the lot. Election by lot assumes, however, a high

degree of group homogeneity, or at least some kind of control over who

are to be the potential candidates. One can imagine what would occur if,

in the United States, one of the candidates in a lot was a Communist and

he was in fact selected.

The search for a decision-making process which is both moral and

efficient must yet continue. At least in the smallest more homogeneous

group, or in one committed to the· priority of group harmony, the

consensus technique seems more advantageous.

Types of leaders in anarchic polities

From a review of anarchic polities, different kinds of leadership and

attitudes towards leadership emerge. In most cases leadership is looked

on positively and to become a ‘chief’ is an aspiration of the many.

There are, however, a minority of societies in which it is considered

impolite or unethical to strive for paramountcy in any way. Leadership

roles are deemphasised and are not quite approved. Yet, whatever the

attitude, leadership patterns in any group do emerge and we may note at

least four different types amongst anarchic polities:

1) The Big Man,

2) The Technician,

3) The Holy Man,

4) The Old Man.

The Big Man is the one who acquires a central position of influence in

the community and a following of clients as a result of his wealth, his

ability to persuade and to orate and, occasionally, because of his

physical prowess. Here is the Yurok or Northwest Coast Indian ‘chief’.

Here also is the Big Man of New Guinea.

The Technician achieves paramountcy especially in huntergathering

societies. Thus one who is a good hunter collects around him a following

which is willing to do his bidding and be fed, as among Athabascan

Indian bands of the Canadian Sub-Arctic or among the Inuit.

Modifications of this role are found among the San and Pygmies. And the

Samek headmap is a master technician for a pastoral people.

The Holy Man, through some religious ideology, is accepted as a

prestigious person to whom all voluntarily defer, particularly as a

mediator of disputes. Here we have the Nuer leopard skin chief or the

maraboutic families and lineages of the Imazighen. Also of a slightly

different order is the Inuit shaman who acts not so much as mediator,

but as a manipulator of people, often for his own ends (a role which

mixes the Holy Man and Big Man concepts).

The Old Man is the leading member of the community simply by being the

senior male member of the kin group. While the Big Man and the

Technician are more frequently achieved statuses and the Holy Man may be

either an achieved or an ascribed one, that of the Old Man is ascribed,

although even here there may be the slight element of achievement. Thus

some elders may be more pre-eminent because of ability in speech, having

more wives, more wealth, more sons, or knowledge of ceremony and

esoteric doctrine. The Old Man syndrome is characteristic of Australians

and particularly of the · African horticultural societies. (Tiv,

Lugbara, Konkomba, Tallensi, etc.). Some segmentary patrilineal systems

combine the Old Man and the Holy Man syndromes, as with the Arab

Bedawin.

Earlier it was noted that authority might be considered as rational or

irrational. In connection with the above four kinds of leadership it

would appear that only the Technician represents a rational form. The

others also have clear elements of rationality, but have at the same

time irrational or arbitrary qualities. This is most true of the role of

the Old Man.

In Max Weber’s classification of types of authority, both Big Men and

Holy Men fall into the ‘charismatic’ type, while Old Men combine the

gerontocratic and patriarchal attributes of ‘traditional’ authority.

Weber does not really make provision for the Technician (Weber, 324 ff).

Conservative theory holds that the tribute offered the ruler is fully

reciprocated by the services of the ruler to the people. This argument

has been challenged by persons from a broad spectrum of ideologies, from

the democrats to anarchists. Indeed, it seems only the height of

self-delusion to contend that all forms of rulership are reciprocal. How

could the relationship between an ancient Egyptian peasant and a pharoah

conceivably be seen as a reciprocal one? Where is the reciprocity in the

enormous wealth which is yearly handed over to the British royal family

and the positive services it presumably offers? Does not every ruler

acquire special privilege and an essentially non-reciprocal relationship

with clients or subjects? Indeed, we may, with Pierre Clastres, say that

another way of defining rule is as a non-reciprocal relationship. The

ruler is the paramount example of that status.

Henry Orenstein discusses two types of asymmetrical reciprocity: the

centripetal and centrifugal. The first is the leader as servant and is

best exemplified m Pierre Clastres’ analysis of South American Indian

chiefs. Here it will be recalled the chief’s advantage is seen as a

breaking of the fundamental law of social relationships — reciprocity —

resulting in a suspicion of power and a desire to contain it.

Paradoxically, the chief is contained by his own· asymmetrical

reciprocity: his excess of wives places him in perpetual debt to the

community, so that he must forever be a servant of the people and can

never affirm coercive power as a true ruler. This conception of the

centripetal ‘chief’ works against governmental and state organisations.

Orenstein thoroughly confuses the issue when he suggests that

centripetal leaders and rulers include such widely variant persons as a

South American Indian chief, a Roman emperor and the elected official in

a democracy. If this were in fact true, it would make the concept of

centripetality useless and meaningless. The centripetal leader is

correctly a leader within the most pristine of anarchic polities: he is

a servant whose clientele may, if they choose, ignore him with impunity.

What democratic elected official or Roman emperor could ever be ignored?

Even the command of the justice of the peace must be obeyed on pain of

punishment.

In centrifugality the ruler or leader maintains a type of relationship

which can command obedience and services. What we have called the Big

Man and the Holy Man ordinarily have centrifugal relationships. It is

out of this kind of context that we have the creation of the despot and

of government. But before exploring this issue further, I would like to

suggest that perhaps some types of leaders in anarchic polities are

neither centripetal nor centrifugal. Perhaps leaders of certain polities

only engage in the ordinary reciprocal relations of everyday people.

Consider leadership among the Pygmies. Here it seems to be only of a

temporary sort, highly amorphous and ‘multicentric’, always surrounded

by a reluctance to lead or to be aggressive. There seems to be no

special advantage to be derived from leadership and the leader is not

indebted to his people. The Pygmy leader appears to embody the best

anarchic ideal, because he minimises leadership characteristics and

retains normal reciprocal relationships with others.

On the origins of the state

As we have seen from our survey of anarchic polities, the seeds of

tyranny and government are readily observable in the performance of many

leaders. The Tiv, Lugbara and other African polities, as well as the

Australians exemplify the potential tyranny of Old Men. The patriarchal

system, it might be argued, does have a certain rationality, in that it

is the elders who have lived the longest and so presumably have acquired

the most experience in living, as well as having had the greatest

opportunity to learn the wisdom of the ancestors. But it is irrational

in that it assumes that all those in ‘elder’ status are automatically

always superior.

By its nature the old man syndrome alone cannot perpetuate an elite

power group as a dynasty. A man assumes power as an older person and

retains it for a few short years at which time he must yield to new

persons who were his subordinates. Indeed, in an age graded society such

as the Tiv, a man assumes leadership for a short span of a decade, when

he must retire to inactivity and now find himself in a social setting

where those who were his subordinates are now leaders. Another reason

patriarchy in this anarchic setting may not lead to government per se is

that the entire system is intimately attached to kinship. Patriarchs or

elders are always grandfathers of some kind. One is not obligated to

obey those one does not address with a paternal type kin term.

The germ of state development might find a more fertile location in the

role of the Big Man. In New Guinea this leader acquires a body of

clients which he is able in some cases to command. Mair has contended

that the foundation of a state could be in this development by a leader

of a dependent and loyal body of supporters. Slightly different is the

individual among the Inuit who is able to lord it over a community by

his own physical force or use of dreaded supernatural powers.

With the Big Man, anarchy can then degenerate into tyranny. What

sometimes occurs may be seen as an abortive attempt to introduce a

governmental-state system. It is invariably a failure because there is a

definite ambivalence within the community towards authority, so that if

established it regularly inspires rebellion and the Big Man who tries to

be the bully is most often murdered. Thus, the situation returns to an

acephalous or more anarchic condition. In addition, there is no

precedent for establishing a succession pattern so as to perpetuate a

dynasty. It is also clear the New Guinean and other systems do not

develop permanent states out of their Big Man leadership pattern because

there is no adequate economic, technological or organisational base. The

New Guinea Big Man is limited by the productive capability of his

dependents and this is inhibited by lack of a more complex technology.

Nor can one expect to control extensive territories with the available,

very simple, methods of communication and transportation. At the same

time the Big Man’s power is maintained and extended only through a

network of personal contacts. There is no organisation of loyal

bureaucrats to sustain the realm. The difference between king and Big

Man is fundamental: kings receive tribute and submission; Big Men must

rely on support (Schneider, 207) . “Rather than being a stage in the

evolution of government, the state, or rather the monarchy, is but a

point on one end of a spectrum whose other end is stateless societies

containing only big men” (Schneider, 207).

Leaders among the Ifugao represent yet another type of Big Man. In their

role as go-betweens they have the legitimate right to command contending

parties to mediate, on threat of violence. Government then, in a most

limited sense, has been instituted.

Clastres believes that the state cannot rise out of the ‘chiefly’ role,

but this view requires some modification. First, it is least likely to

arise in those cases which clearly fit the qualifications of centripetal

leadership. Here it does not arise because the community is vigilant in

restraining the chief. Nevertheless the Anuak village chief exemplifies

a leader of this sort who, under certain circumstances can apparently

expand his authority. Secondly, the sort of anarchic leadership

characterised by the Pygmies is even less conducive to state

development. Not only does the community frown upon any vigorous

exercise of authority, but individuals have been conditioned to avoid

the aggressive affirmation of leadership. Thirdly, the state as a

permanent institution has difficulty in appearing in those centrifugal

systems such as in New Guinea for reasons we have just enumerated. On

the other hand, a governmental institution may be more likely to appear

in connection with certain kinds of mediator roles as among the Ifugao.

But, also significant in this regard are the roles of Holy Men. To be

sure, Clastres sees these as different from his centripetal style chiefs

and recognises the possible emergence of government in the role of

prophet among the Guarani Indians in South America.

Hocart has argued that the earliest government-like functions were

assumed by ritual specialists, some of whom, in the course of time,

become fully fledged rulers of states as part of the general process of

increasing specialisation in the division of labour. In Marxist theory

power derives primarily, if not exclusively, from control of the means

of production and distribution of wealth, that is, from economic

factors. Yet, it is evident that power derived from knowledge — and

usually ‘religious’ style knowledge — is often highly significant, at

least in the social dynamics of small societies. The Australian leader

derives his power by his control of esoteric ceremonial knowledge, the

Inuit shaman by his control of curing techniques and the manipulation of

the dark arts. The Nuer leopard skin chief has the power of the curse as

do the elders and rainmakers among the Lugbara. The foundation and

legitimacy of the Anuak chiefs role’ is in its ritual and supernatural

significance. Economic factors are hardly the only sources of power.

Indeed, we see this in modem society as well, where the capitalist owner

does not wield total power. Rather technicians and other specialists

command it as well, not because of their economic wealth, but because of

their knowledge. For the anarchic polities we have looked at it is clear

that the functionaries with knowledge are often entitled to invoke

sanctions which at least border on the legal. As was just noted above

the Ifugao case as well as the Nuer and Lugbara suggest that the germs

of government often first appear as the mediator role is transformed

into a judiciary one, which also has ancillary police-like powers. A

separate and distinct police force would presumably be a later

development.

Countless authors agree that the state arises with social

differentiation . and increasing social complexity. Such views often

implicitly argue that the state becomes a necessity as an integrative

device. This is apparently the thesis of Wittfogel, who in his hydraulic

theory of state origin correlates the rise of the state with the

development of extensive irrigation systems. The latter necessitate

co-ordination and the state is the grand co-ordinator. Much data has

been assembled to demonstrate that complex social arrangements, whether

irrigation works (eg, the Ifugao) or the international postal system,

are co-ordinated in lieu of the state. In addition, of course, the fact

that the state does appear constantly in connection with highly complex

social arrangements does not mean that it must occur, nor that it ought

to appear.

Oppenheimer among others argued that the state originates out of

conquest. The expansion of one group so as to conquer another gives rise

to an apparatus aimed at maintaining dominatiqn. The major drawback to a

conquest theory of state origin is that before a group embarks on the

war path it has already become a state. The examples Oppenheimer

presents are of social entities which were states when they commenced

expansion.

Anarchic polities engage in hostilities which are best not confused with

warfare, but rather should be called feuding. This is because, among

other things, true warfare entails the organisation of armies with a

chain of command and with the intent of subjugating an enemy and

occupying his territory. For those societies we have

Investigated above, it is apparent that some have the germs of

governmental organisations, but they engage in neither real warfare nor

in conquest. In other words, some kind of governmental structure is

perhaps an essential prerequisite to engaging in the true warfare

necessary for conquest. One requires at least the rudiments of an

administrative system to order new subjects about. At the same time the

truth of Oppenheimer’s theory is that pursuit of warfare and conquest

invigorates a burgeoning state and helps elaborate the administrative

hierarchy. State and conquest are best seen as mutually interdependent

phenomena which ‘feed back’ on each other.

Intrasocial conflict affords another explanation of state development.

The Marxist theory of class conflict is the most notable of such

theories. It argues that where there is an economically dominant class

there is a state and where there is no state there is no class system.

Marxist theory identifies property accumulation with the evolution of

the state. And such a correlation was made as well by anarchists.

Kropotkin and Bakunin both believed the abolition of capitalism —

private property — was a prerequisite to the building of an anarchist

society. Proudhon, however, saw that private property, which is used to

intimidate, exploit and subdue others was in truth ‘theft’ and

incompatible with anarchy, but individual property not so employed was

not. Our survey of anarchic polities seems to substantiate Proudhon’s

view. The societies we have encountered recognise individual ownership

of important resources and where, as in New Guinea, those resources are

frequently used as devices to create a body of dependents we have ‘Big

Men’ who take on a more tyrannical character than leaders in other

anarchic polities who do not seek to acquire economic control over

others. [14]

The Marxists Barry Hindiss and Paul Hirst have claimed that with “the

primitive and advanced communist modes of production” there is no state

because there are no social classes. Such a view ignores the

bureaucratic-managerial elite as a class, thus unveiling one of the

weaknesses of Marxist theory. That is, the bureaucrats as non-property

holders are not seen as a social class and so are not seen as worthy of

further consideration. Yet they are nevertheless a potent social force

which perpetuates the division of society into the powerful and the

powerless. Such observations are not intended as a demonstration of the

falsity of a class theory of state origin. Rather they are intended to

question the absoluteness and dogmatism with which this theory is

sometimes enunciated. Neither government nor social class can be

developed to any extent without the other also appearing. The case of

ancient Iceland demonstrates that social classes can exist without the

state, but not for long. Governmental functions restricted to the local

headman as a kind of proto-state require no class of rulers, but a full

blown state with government applied to extensive areas and large

populations does. And those who control and own the society’s wealth

will certainly be part of the ruling class.

Often leaders in stateless societies have been transformed into

governmental officials as a consequence of contact with already existing

nation-states. It was noted above that people bordering on China’s

northern frontier no doubt created states as a consequence of the role

of their notables as intermediaries, especially in the trading activity.

Among Afghan tribes men of influence assume the role of chief liaison

agent between their own people and a neighboring state. Increasingly

they come to accumulate the trappings of governmental authority

themselves and so help create states. Similarly, European colonial

powers in the process of their territorial aggrandizement on contact

with people in stateless societies recognized certain individuals as

“chiefs” of the “tribe” and insured for them formalized power positions.

Thus, stateless societies are either transformed into states themselves

or are absorbed into existing states.

All the relevant case material presented here concerns societies which

for the most part exhibit only rudimentary forms of government and

social class. They suggest, then, that in what might be seen as the

earliest phases of state development there are alternate paths of social

change. Ronald Cohen has written: “... [T]here is no clear cut or simple

set of causal statements that explains the phenomenon of state

formation... The formation of states is a funnel-like progression of

interactions in which a variety of pre-state systems responding to

different determinants of change are forced by otherwise unresolvable

conflicts to choose additional and more complex levels of political

hierarchy.” Once this is achieved there occurs a convergence of forms

towards the early state (142). Yet clearly involved in the beginnings of

state formation is an inter-dependent development of government and

social class tied to an economy which is able to provide the means to

sustain an elite class. Hierarchy, submission and tribute are

characteristics of any fully-developed state and these cannot properly

bloom until society has the proper wherewithal, economic and otherwise

“to deliver the goods”

Even more fundamental ingredients for state formation are the individual

will to power and the creation of a division between leaders and led.

From these basic elements we have noted several different paths for

further elaboration in the direction of the state. Thus leaders, in

their capacity as mediators may acquire authority to impose legal

sanctions, first possibly in a restricted sense and eventually

broadening the realm of control. Other kinds of leaders may build a

loyal body of dependents who in turn legitimise the use of force by the

leader. In these cases wealth and knowledge are important bases for

establishing one’s credit as a ruler. Men’s associations may assume

governmental functions and if these are in the hands of age grades we

might expect the system to be more democratic. In some instances we have

encountered, such as New Guinea, the seed of statism has been planted,

but has never truly germinated. In others, as the Tiv or the Ibo, there

is only the most limited growth; there is an anomalous condition with

the barest rudiments of the state. State development may be a subtle and

insidious process by which the distinction between leader and led is

transformed into one between ruler and ruled. In looking at anarchic

polities one can only discern at best the very beginnings of this

development — the prelude and first lines of the first act in the drama.

I suspect that one of the most common scenarios for state (and class)

development commences in the initial anarchic polity with the existence

of some kind of ‘big man’ who was at one and the same time a recognized

mediator of disputes, an impressive manipulator of supernatural forces

and above all a central figure in a redistribution system in which he

held impressive feasts for and made loans to a considerable number of

individuals who consequently became his dependents and retainers. As the

big man thus enhanced his wealth and power, trade increases, labor

specialization becomes more widespread and populations increase,

particularly as a consequence of improved productivity. The social order

then becomes more heterogeneous, composed of groups with increasingly

divergent interests and outlooks so that intergroup conflict becomes

more common and more important. Thus, the mediator and mystagogue roles

of the ‘big man’ are augmented. He can turn some of his dependents and

retainers into armed guards and enforcers abandoning his role as

mediator for that of arbitrator-ruler. Thus, human societies which once

were all egalitarian, acephalous and anarchic entities are transformed

into hierarchic, authoritarian states. At the same time some of the more

favoured henchmen of the ‘big man’, through their own machinations and

especially through being able to establish themselves as centers of

lesser redistribution systems are able to increase their own wealth and

power so that they are increasingly differentiated from the rest of

society. An elite class of controllers of wealth and power with the ‘big

man’ at the top is created over a subordinate class of producers of

wealth.

Finally, Pierre Clastres has made an interesting observation on the

phenomenon of state formation, although he might slightly overstate the

case. He maintains that the shift from huntinggathering to Neolithic

agriculture is not a decisive revolutionary change since old patterns of

social organisation were not altered that radically. In addition the

Middle American states were dependent upon an agricultural system of the

same technical level as the anarchic ‘savages’ of the forest. The real

revolution is the rise of the state and of ‘hierarchical authority’ ,

not economic transformation. “... (P)erhaps one must acknowledge that

the infrastructure is the political, and the superstructure is the

economic” (171) . Thus, is Marx turned on his head.

Does anarchy have a future or is history a one way street?

Whether anarchy has any future requires us first to consider how to

dispense with the state which now prevails everywhere. Secondly, we may

inquire into the general pattern of historic and cultural trends

regarding state development and the prospects for a libertarian age from

that vantage point.

Three general techniques for abolishing the state and government have

been most commonly proposed by anarchists. One advocates undermining the

state by the creation of a multitude of voluntary associations whose

functioning will make the state superfluous. Another favours violent

revolutionary overthrow. A third approach is non-violent direct action,

which includes such a syndicalist technique as the labour strike. Why

anarchists avoid electoral politics should be obvious from what has

already been said about anarchism. But, in short, anarchists have no

faith in such a technique because they do not believe one can defeat an

enemy by joining him.

The attempt to make the state superfluous was popular amongst the early

19^(th) century anarchists. Proudhon hoped to initiate at least the

decline of the French state by a proliferation of mutual associations

which would loan money interest free. Several Americans including Josiah

Warren had similar ideas, particularly entailing monetary reform and

mutualism, which were seen as paths to the free society. Much later,

Gustav Landauer wrote: “The state is not something which can be

destroyed by a revolution, but it is a condition, a certain relationship

between human beings, a mode of behaviour. We destroy it by contracting

other relationships, by behaving differently.”

Another approach along these same lines is the intentional community ..

Indeed, Josiah Warren saw his communities as demonstration experiments

which people would be able to observe, be impressed by and copy. Always

the anarchic intentional community is an attempt to ‘contract other

relationships’ , to ‘behave differently’ and find alternatives to the

state.

But many who seek to ‘build the new within the shell of the old’ are

essentially indifferent to the ultimate fate of the state. For many who

have participated in intentional communities the motivation is a

personal one: of finding immediately a different, and presumably better,

life for themselves and their families. They are unconcerned about its

potential consequences upon the state, or at least that is of very

secondary significance. Yet, some who are interested in building mutual

associations in part as devices to undermine the state, simultaneously

pronounce the obvious anarchist truth that the state is an institution

which will not voluntarily abdicate its power. Those in power would

never come to see themselves as superfluous and, as they have done on

countless prior occasions, they will act to suppress any perceived

threat to their positions. The state in a modern capitalist society, as

in Canada and the United States, may readily tolerate, even encourage,

credit unions and co-operatives and any number of other mutualist

voluntary associations. This support would soon turn to suppression if

such movements became a threat to the banking and corporate interests of

the country. In addition, such organisations readily tend to become

‘establishment’ oriented. Rather than having a modifying effect upon

their environment, it is the environment which modifies them in a more

conservative direction. Co-operatives, for example, are notorious for

becoming as large, as bureaucratic and nearly as capitalistic as the

more traditional organisations. Do not misunderstand. I am all in favour

of mutual associations and of Landauer’s call to contract other

relationships. However, such techniques are extremely limited and it is

hard to see how, by themselves, they can produce a transformation to a

stateless society because, by one means or another, no state will permit

it to happen.

Another course of action suggested by anarchists is violent overthrow of

the state. We have seen the use of violence as a diffuse sanction

amongst various anarchic polities. Yet this seems inconsistent with an

ideological commitment to the doctrines of anarchism. Violence is the

technique of the state and the ultimate form of coercion. Those who

adopt it as a means cannot help but be tainted by its use. A main reason

for the anarchist rejection of participation in the governmental process

is that it will have a corrupting effect upon individuals, turning them

into politicians seeking power and personal glory. No less can be the

case for those who take up violence in the attempt to find justice. Yet

the strongest arguments against anarchist resort to violence is that any

effective violence necessitates a military structure which must clearly

be the most anti-anarchist form of organisation conceivable. Can one

imagine an army organised on anarchist principles of voluntary

co-operation and consensus? The implications and logical consequences of

pacifism would seem to be anarchism. The view of some Quakers that there

can be a non-violent state or government is self-contradictory since the

state is by definition based upon violence. Otherwise it is not a state

and must be a polity based on other than legal sanctions. Conversely

anarchists who would be the first to recognise this inherent nature of

the state, have often justified war and in this sense have sought to use

statist methods to abolish the state.

Bakunin expected the revolutionary zeal of the masses to be spurred on

by a group of selfless devotees who had no care for themselves or their

own glory. They were to be a body of strong, educated personalities who

would not seek to lead, master or direct the masses. Instead, they would

learn what the people desired, articulate it and, with their broader

knowledge and understanding, better be able to aid in pushing the

revolution towards the goals set by the masses. This vanguard would be

an anonymous and invisible body blended into the background. Thus, in

part is the justification for Bakunin’s romance with secret

conspiratorial groups. The revolutionary vanguard Bakunin saw being

drawn from the large number of ‘declassed intellectuals’ and middle

class students, “children of peasants or the lower middle class, the

children of unimportant civil servants and bankrupt gentry” — any who

have no chance of pursuing a career or position (Lehning, 189). Lenin

was influenced by this Bakuninist idea, but as a ‘realist’ his vanguard

had lost all the high-minded altruism which Bakunin, in his romantic and

naive way, held to be imperative. In contrast to the fascists, whose

elite is a vanguard of heroes, Bakunin’s is a vanguard of saints.

In general, any proposal to build the barricades is today a purely

romantic notion which is strategically stupid. Military technology has

become so sophisticated and expensive that only governments can invest

in it and support it. A guerrilla army would find itself faced with

overwhelming odds and its only hope would be to incite the military to

join the revolution — a most unlikely event.

The third technique, that of non-violent direct action, is the viable

alternative to violent revolution. It requires much self-discipline and

patience, demanding that one be satisfied with miniscule successes and

slow transformation. Certainly this, coupled with the. movement to build

voluntary, mutualist associations, is the only approach having much

feasibility. Yet no prospects can be promising, particularly when one

looks at the general trend of history.

The anarchic polities we have discussed in this essay are largely

phenomena of the past. Anarchies have been transformed into subject

entities by colonialist states and then gobbled up by third world

nations. Their old social structure has been modified so as to

accommodate to the proper functioning of the modern state. The lineage

elder is now a ‘chief, who may call upon the local constabulary for aid;

the mediator becomes the judge who now commands. ‘Indigenous’ anarchies

are a dying breed, an endangered species. This process seems to support

the contention that the main thrust of history is towards the creation

of states and authoritarian forms. It is a movement from

decentralisation to centralisation, from small to big. While we may cite

case after case of the growth of states out of an earlier anarchy and

have noted the several germs of statism in our examples, the evidence of

anarchy evolving out of the state is next to non-existent. Indeed, not

only is the trend towards state organisation but it is towards bigger

and fewer states enveloping the world.

Recently Robert Carniero showed how the number of polities (of all

kinds) in the world has, since at least 1000 BC, continually declined.

“And not only has there been a decrease in the number of autonomous

political units in the world; the tendency has accelerated. It is quite

clear that the rate of decrease in the number of independent political

units between Ab 500 and AD 1976 was much greater than it was between

1000 BC and AD 500” (Carniero, 214). Overall, during the 3,000 year

period from 1000 BC to the present, he estimates the decline has been

from several hundred thousand polities to 157 in 1976. We may cavil that

the latter figure is too small since it includes only the world’s

nation-states and fails to take into account the fact that in many parts

of the world there are cultural groups which persist as autonomous

political entities despite the claim of some nation to the territory.

Still the decline is dramatic and, what is more, it would be yet greater

for anarchic polities since we must assume that a high proportion of

societies in 1000 BC were of this type, while few if any are today.

Carniero attempts to project the approximate time we must anticipate the

creation of a single world state. He arrives at, not 1984, but about

2300. Such projections can be discounted as rather fanciful, but what

cannot be overlooked is the clear major trend towards fewer and bigger

states. The usual argument against anarchy runs something like this:

people are not perfect; they require constraints; the bad need to be

confined in jails. The moment one institutes a free society based on

voluntary co-operation there will arise people who will seek to take

advantage of the situation and accumulate power themselves. Further, as

societies become larger and more dense in population and more

heterogeneous, the problems of order and decision-making become too

complex to be left to consensual techniques and diffuse sanctions. So

from this vantage point as well there are pressures to centralise,

institutionalise and formalise authority patterns. Anarchist

theoreticians have long warned of the dangers entailed in the assumption

of power even by the most idealistic. Bakunin particularly attacked

Marxism along these lines. He was rightly somewhat more than suspicious

of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ and correctly predicted that it

could be “nothing else but despotic rule over the toiling masses by a

new, numerically small aristocracy of genuine or sham scientists” (Maxim

off, 287) . Later W Machajski, a Polish participant in the Bolshevik

Revolution, came to similar conclusions about the Soviet Union, for as

he saw it the proletarian revolution had been transformed into a

dictatorship of the party hacks. Arguments along these lines were

further expanded by Max Nomad.

In 1911 Roberto Michels published his Political Parties in which he

expounded the ‘iron law of oligarchy’ . This law states that all

organisations develop in the direction of increasing authoritarianism,

bureaucratic and oligarchic rule. Whoever says organisation says

oligarchy. To demonstrate his thesis Michels analysed the history of the

several European political parties. Later Seymour Lipset and others

sought to refine Michels’ interpretation by studying a labour union, the

International Typographers Union, which did not seem to follow the

pattern of the inevitable move towards oligarchic rule. From this

investigation Lipset and his cohorts suggested some conditions which

might preclude a bureaucratic and authoritarian development.

Interestingly enough they entail little an anarchist theoretician might

not have told him: small units, a variety of autonomous local voluntary

associations, several interest groups none of which can control or

monopolise power, no great differences in socio-economic status and a

general state of economic security for all, an educated population and

one which shows a high degree of participation in communal affairs, a

high sense of group solidarity, and leaders who are not given much

salary or status difference. In other words, ‘chiefs’ must be servants —

impotent co-ordinators in a centripetal relationship. I would also

suspect that a conscious will of the membership to preserve a free

society is no small factor in this process.

Perhaps the Industrial Workers of the World is another example which

deviates from Michels’ law and for reasons similar to those Lipset found

for the typographers. Yet while we may scout about looing for

exceptions, the prevailing directions seem in accord with the ‘iron law

of oligarchy’. Thus, among labour unions, for the one or two which have

avoided this direction there are 100 which have not.

Aside from the general trend for complex organisations to develop

internal changes which produce oligarchy, there is yet another type of

observable trend which commences with voluntary associations and ends as

well in an authoritarian structure. This pattern was pointed out by Bert

Buzan in a paper on ‘Voluntary Co-operation and Social Democracy: The

Case of 20^(th) Century Neo-Populism’ delivered at the International

Symposium on Anarchism (1980). Buzan reviews the history of the

farmer-populist movement in the United States between 1880 and 1920 and

notes that it originated with various apolitical voluntary mutual aid

associations. The most important of these were co-operatives aimed at

marketing farm products. These, however, met with the concerted

opposition of vested economic interests. Thus railroads refused to carry

their goods; land and buildings were not available for sale or rent for

grain elevators and warehouses. Because of this sabotaging by capitalist

enterprises the members turned increasingly to electoral politics

spawning the Peoples Party, FarmerLabour Party and Non-Partisan League.

In their devotion to seeking reform through government, they moved away

from voluntary co-operation to depend more on formal legislation. At the

same time, of course, the co-operative organisations themselves became

large, bureaucratic and political lobbying groups (in line with Michels’

predictions). Thus, in addition to an internal dynamic which pushes an

organisation towards oligarchy, there is the external process which

propels individuals to abandon those voluntary associations they have in

favour of dependence upon bureaucratic and governmental ones.

Now the question arises, perhaps the movement towards centralised

oligarchy is only part of a long term historical process of oscillation

between decentralisation and centralisation. Yet it is difficult to find

examples of trends towards decentralisation — at least of a libertarian

nature. Periods of so-called cultural or organisational decay in history

may suggest this sort of trend. But what trends do occur in these

situations is the creation of a number of petty despotisms out of one

which had existed before. Decentralisation is not accompanied by

freedom. The revolutions and revolts of history and the decay of social

systems have invariably entailed the replacement of one kind of

despotism by an another. Or what is a process of decay of one polity is

the basis for the creation of another, so that, for example, the

appearance of Clovis’ Frankish kingdom and of the Umayyad caliphate

follow on the heels of the decline of Rome. Power abhors a vacuum. A few

South American Indian societies referred to above appear to have become

anarchic as a consequence of a general process of tribal disintegration.

Yet this situation seems uncommon and is limited to extremely tiny

polities. Those few societies such as the Pygmies, which provide not the

slightest hint of embarking upon the course towards a governmental or

state organisation, are also small and highly homogeneous without any

specialisation of task. They exemplify that rarity wherein members have

been diligent in restraining the forces of authority and wherein events

have been such that members have not been detracted from that noble

pursuit. Perhaps one must conclude that the main thrust of history is

towards centralised states with occasional minor ‘pulsations’ of

reaction — slight and temporary reversals or people running off on

alternate paths. Perhaps also the last decade and a half has experienced

a feeble resurgence of this kind in parts of the Western world. Thus,

there is not only the enormous increase in the number of communal

experiments, but there is the movement of individuals ‘back to the

land’, to simplification of life and revolt against the establishment.

More important has been the appearance of mass social movements based

upon ‘segmented polycephalous idea-based networks’ . Unfortunately these

several activities remain largely confined to the offspring of

middle-class white society alienated from the values of their parents.

Back in 1963 Paul Goodman in People or Personnel pointed out how

centralisation has now made industry inefficient, creating excessive

congestion and problems of transportation and communication. With the

diffusion of electric power it is possible and more sensible to

decentralise production. This theme has been reaffirmed continually.

Schumacher harks back to Kropotkin and Goodman, noting how ‘small is

beautiful’. Recognition that small group operations and decentralisation

can be more productive and obviously more humane, is coupled today with

some growing recognition of the inefficiency and alienating effects of

large impersonal, centralised organisations. Recently Marshall McLuhan

offered a mixed prediction for the 1980s. It was mixed in the sense that

part foresees greater decentralisation by the expanded use of the home

computer, TV, telephone and other ‘electric software’. But it is not

necessarily a prediction of individual liberation in that with this

expansion of new technology McLuhan sees a further disappearance of

personal identity — the disembodiment of individuals and a new form of

government by ‘pollstergeists’.

In spite of the various ‘recognitions’, hopes and predictions, and in

spite of the movements into the intentional community or out to the

land, states continue to become more powerful and centralisation goes on

essentially unabated. Certain biological species are reputed to have

become so specialised that they cannot adapt to changed environmental

conditions and so become extinct. Perhaps there is a parallel to the

potential fate of those social systems which become so utterly complex

and overburdened with top down administration that they collapse.

Hopefully, out of the remains might arise, like a Phoenix, a simplified

and decentralised system. But would this only generate its own tyranny?

Humans as intelligent beings have some control over their own destiny.

As they increase their knowledge and understanding in the world and,

particularly, of their own behaviour, they should better be able to

manipulate their environment and modify their social order so as to make

life more agreeable. Yet knowledge and understanding are intimately tied

up with values and priorities of values. They are circumscribed as well

by the apparent fact that humans appear to be rather conservative beasts

willing to change from the known to the unknown and the untried only in

the direst emergency. Therefore, while presently there may be a greater

realisation of the possibility of a ‘1984 world’, other priorities than

freedom and individuality may have precedence. Further, this possibility

is not perceived as an immediate and overwhelming threat. When we

consider the numbers who persist in such a simple thing as cigarette

smoking, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of its relation to

cancer, how can we expect people to be concerned about such more

abstract and apparently less obvious matters as threats to personal

freedom?

Not only is anarchy unlikely to be achieved because of the improbability

of dispensing with the state, but even given the abolition of that

institution, the prospect for subsequent modes of organisation remaining

decentralised, autonomous and free is as doubtful as the likelihood of

the participants being truly dedicated to ‘freedom, equality and justice

for all’.

I have already earlier in this book suggested the kind of free society

which might be more durable and resistant to corruption. Namely, it

would be one in which each person and group was involved in a complex

web of mutual relations such that each bond within the web would act as

a counter-balancing force to every other. In this way every participant

would be constrained and unable to expand his or her realm at the

expense of any other.

Proudhon saw human societies as being engaged in a struggle between

‘freedom’ (anarchy) and ‘authority’. But he was imbued with the rather

naive 19^(th) century notion of progress and optimism. He had faith in

the eventual victory of the forces of freedom. An Australian group — the

Sydney Libertarians — has, one might say, adapted Proudhon to the latter

part of the 20^(th) century. They envisage a perpetual struggle between

‘freedom’ and ‘authority’; neither one of which will be annihilated.

It appears, indeed, that we are left with a politics of perpetual

protest. There cannot be any point at which those dedicated to liberty

can sit back in security and assume the world is in peace, harmony and

freedom. That a truly free society may never be attained or, if

achieved, would have the most tenuous life is clearly no excuse to

abandon the struggle. If we resign ourselves to what is, there would

hardly be much point in living. And, even if anarchy were to be

achieved, eternal vigilance would be the bare minimum price for even a

modicum of success. Despite what the international anthem of the

revolutionary class might say there is no final battle. The battle is

forever.[15]

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[1] See Bibliography for this and subsequent references

[2] Proudhon’s latterday ideas on federalism have recently been raised

in connection with the discussion of the nature of Canadian federalism

and thus of the Canadian nation (cf. Proudhon, 1979)

[3] The Catholic Worker newspaper allowed the appointment of a priest as

Church censor and Dorothy Day herself has said she would stop its

publication immediately if so ordered by the Church

[4] A hypothesis developed in the 19^(th) century and in the last decade

or so given some publicity by the Marxist wing of the women’s liberation

movement, holds that in the most archaic societies men and women were

equal and that the development of ‘property’ and agriculture led to male

domination. It is certainly true that here is greater equality between

the sexes in hunter-gathering societies than in most agricultural ones.

But this ‘greater equality’ is still within the parameters of male

pre-eminence. Two other notions which frequently appear in conjunction

with that of an ancient sexual equality are the views that the older

human society as matrilineal and that originally something called group

marriage was practised. There is no substantiation for such views in the

data of anthropology. Indeed, if nothing, the evidence is against them

oldest human societies were probably either matrilineal nor patrilineal,

but rather were bilateral (non-lineal).

[5] Some hunting-gathering societies evolved out of horticultural ones,

as for example occurred with several Amazon Forest Indian societies and

with some of the Indians of the North American Plains (eg, the

Cheyenne).

[6] As has already been mentioned, most of these societies no longer

exist, but for convenience they will be discussed in the present tense.

[7] The classical conception of the segmentary lineage system as

outlined by E. E. Evans-Pritchard in The Nuer, and as reflected in

Middleton’s description of the Lugbara has been subjected to

considerable cntic1sm over the last several years. The criticism

stresses the following points: (1) Segmentary “theory” alleges that in a

segmentary lineage system any important social and political relations

are explicable in terms of lineage affiliation. Cleavages, alliances,

feuds, mutual aid are all determined by lineage affiliation. This

emphasis overlooks other types of social relationships which can be

equally important and often override an individual’s or group’s lineage

obligations. These relationships include community membership,

fnendsh1p, ne1ghborhood and affinal ties, relationships with one’s

mother’s kin, and relationships of work and economic enterprise.

Lineages, then, are not the solitary, close knit corporate bodies

claimed by the theory. (2) In segmentary “theory” it is held that

opposition arises between segments of the same level, that is, a major

lineage opposes another major lineage but never a minor or minimal

lineage. The theory also argues that the complementary segments are

approximately equal in strength. But there are too many exceptions to

these points, especially to the latter, for them to be accepted as

invariable characteristics of the segmentary lineage. (3) Presumably

membership in a lineage within the segmentary system is based

exclusively upon kin ties through males and to a common male ancestor.

In fact, there is often manipulation and jockeying with genealogies so

that some individuals who are not so related are absorbed into the

lineage. Aside from these kinds of fictions, the alleged common male

ancestor is sometimes also only an invention. In sum we may say that the

segmentary “theory” presents a people’s ideology about their social

system, an ideology which is only imperfectly reflected in their

everyday life and which therefore clearly tells only a biased story.

[8] Witchcraft differs from sorcery. In the latter an individual

deliberately carries out specific rituals aimed at injuring another

party. In witchcraft it is only believed that a person, alleged to be a

witch, performs malevolent ritual and non-ritual acts. Of course, such a

person also, in fact, holds a position which is feared or resented by

the believer in witchcraft.

[9] Virilocal residence occurs where a newly roamed couple live in the

household of the husband.

[10] Such emphasis upon reciprocity perhaps implicitly over-emphasises

the altruism involved, neglecting the fact that many people do not give

m the ‘spint’ of reciprocity so much as out of a fear of reprisal if

they do not give (Colson, 1974, 48).

[11] At a meeting discussing Makhno this writer inquired how one could

be an anarchist and at the same time order people shot for disobeying

one’s commands. The chief response from anarchists seemed to be: “But

Makhno organised workers’ and peasants’ collectives as well as

educational and cultural facilities”. And to this the obvious reply is

that Mussolini also made the railways run on time.

[12] ie, persons who did not belong to a collective.

[13] In their drive to build modern nation-states and ape the Europeans,

Africa’s political elites are eager to bury the archaic anarchic

elements, or to convert them into the idiom of democratic statism. Old

African anarchic decentralism becomes in their hands an example of some

ancient African tradition of democratic government and communalism.

[14] 1Modem anarchists face a dilemma if they propose the abolition and

prohibition of private property, in that in order to do so they would

seem to require an institution suspiciously like a state to ensure its

abolition and to ensure that it remained abolished.

[15] Perhaps this might be called the anarcho-cynicalist point of view.