
The myth of the 'agricultural revolution' - auxbuss
https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history
======
tribune
Wealth inequality seems a meaningless measure to apply in retrospect to
societies which had no material wealth. Even if these groups were materially
egalitarian (i.e. everyone is poor by modern standards), I doubt that there
was real equality. The fact that some men would have reproduced with multiple
women while others did not reproduce at all is an example of this.

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drcode
This article follows the tried-and-true format of "Everyone used to think
ABSOLUTIST_STRAWMAN_NO_ONE_ACTUALLY_BELIEVES was true, but now we've learned
the issue is more nuanced."

~~~
cairo_x
"ABSOLUTIST_STRAWMAN_ _NO_ONE_ _ACTUALLY_BELIEVES" This is itself a strawman!

They spent huge swathes explaining exactly what was assumed to be true and by
whom, and what is still assumed by certain people/fields etc. And if the
article isn't enough go read the comments section where the two authors (who
are at the top of their field*) answer questions and critiques.

Going by many comments here it would seem many have skimmed the article
because it's too long and have come away with their own constructed reality of
what it is even saying in the first place based being reactionary to certain
statements without bothering to take in the context of what surrounds them.
Similarly the comments section of the article consists of the authors re-
iterating what they've already said.

Yes it is nuanced, which is why it requires a close reading.

David Graeber is easily one of best anthropological theorist of his generation
from anywhere in the world. People who dismiss this because 'evidence' should
wait for the book--a good chunk of which will be nothing but citations. This
is not some generalized Joe Rogan friendly pop science or pop history (see:
Pinker and Harari).

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doorty
I'm not buying this guy's long-winded "debunk." I think the book Sapiens does
a better job at discussing the potential theories and the evidence to back it
up.

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woodandsteel
The authors are arguing that findings in anthropology and archeology, if
further researched for many more decades, will reveal that it is possible for
our modern industrial societies to abolish inequality and become anarchist
socialist regimes.

It has some interesting facts, but also some essential errors. Rousseau did
not say the original state of nature was people living in small bands, but
rather entirely independently. Anthropologists have never said that the
original foraging bands were independent,but were always parts of tribes. And
they have for a long time held that foraging tribes in areas with a high
concentration of food resources, such as the American Pacific North-West, were
sedentary.

Perhaps most important is that foraging tribes, due to population pressures,
engage in regular violent conflict over land. With the coming of agriculture
such conflict intensifies, and eventually leads to highly inequal militaristic
civilizations.

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AnimalMuppet
TL;DR: Ancient hunter-gatherer societies, in at least some instances, may have
transformed from small bands into larger groups (and then back) through the
course of a year. In the process, they could also move from more authoritarian
to more egalitarian and back. Therefore everything everybody thinks they know
about the origin of authoritarianism and inequality is wrong.

But they took 50(!) screens of text to say it, while presenting what should
have been said in one-fifth of the words...

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cairo_x
Please don't tl;dr when it's clear by your summary that you haven't read the
whole thing.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Actually, I did.

~~~
cairo_x
Well then why is the tl;dr literally only one of the configurations/examples
they describe in relation to their numerous other large points?

This related to the larger point that it is a misnomer that authoritarianism
emerges only in larger groups, agriculture/ civilizations, etc, and that
actually egalitarianism is _not_ some default mode for small groups.

 _One of the biggest points,_ for example, was that ‘civilization’ does not
come as a package. The world’s first cities did not just emerge in a handful
of locations, together with systems of centralised government and bureaucratic
control. That it no longer makes any sense to use phrases like ‘the
agricultural revolution’ when dealing with processes of such inordinate length
and complexity.

Another point made early on was about the assumptions about the probability of
achieving emancipation from more authoritarian modes organization. The
likelihood we’ll all just place ourselves in some form of voluntary servitude.
The myth that our innate drive for freedom somehow leads us, time andtagain,
on a ‘spontaneous march to inequality’.

That the attempt to form ‘big picture’ narratives has been a source of much of
the bullshit (pop history, pop science, drawing on outdated economic theory,
and outdated archeology, cherry-picking sources--basically anyone Joe Rogan
has on his podcast!).

Their summary alone was about 8 large paragraphs long.

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nitwit005
> This is important because the narrative also defines our sense of political
> possibility.

The thesis rests on this assumption, but I kind of doubt that people base
their political beliefs on how early agricultural societies ordered
themselves.

~~~
tabtab
Even if they did, the inequality level was certainly far smaller pre-
agriculture (PA) than it is now. If you measure it in sexual partners and food
in PA, the difference PA is still much smaller than today. Kings and
billionaires came when agriculture did.

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brandfountain
Mostly a lot of establishment bashing because 'they' are dumb and he is not.
There are competing theories about the emergence of farming, even if not as
fast as often stated it was still a profound revolution.

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jimnotgym
What a horrible layout. This article may have been written as an advert for
Firefox reader view

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z0r
I guess in those historical egalitarian cities they had a more egalitarian
family structure? What a load of codswallop

~~~
dang
Could you please read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and follow those rules when commenting here? They include these two:

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A
good critical comment teaches us something."

"Don't be snarky."

~~~
z0r
I wasn't trying to be snarky, was just objecting to the conclusion of the
piece. It argues that inequality in society projects from the structure of
family relations, but nothing was spoken about those relationships in the
small being any different for their historical examples of egalitarian
societies. I'm probably not well enough educated to read this article
properly, but the conclusion seems to be weakly supported to me.

~~~
dang
> It argues that inequality in society projects from the structure of family
> relations, but nothing was spoken about those relationships in the small
> being any different for their historical examples of egalitarian societies.

That's the sort of substantive point we're looking for in the first place!

