Graeber goes: Look! Other societies have existed and been stable! Other societies have successfully experimented with their social organization, and done without many of the things we today see as necessary evils!
And he certainly shows a lot of (to me) convincing evidence that yes, people in the past were more politically conscious (in practice at least) than we give them credit for. I say in practice, because usually we don't know what their deliberations were
like.
But the big two question then become:
1. How did we then fall into the trap of "TINO" thinking in the first place? Who stole our belief that things could be different, and how on earth did they manage to pull that heist off? and
2. Why did so many large societies drift into all too similar, dismal ways of organizations? With e.g. autocratic rulers who murder the whole extended families of advisors who fall out of favour?
And he certainly shows a lot of (to me) convincing evidence that yes, people in the past were more politically conscious (in practice at least) than we give them credit for. I say in practice, because usually we don't know what their deliberations were like.
But the big two question then become:
1. How did we then fall into the trap of "TINO" thinking in the first place? Who stole our belief that things could be different, and how on earth did they manage to pull that heist off? and
2. Why did so many large societies drift into all too similar, dismal ways of organizations? With e.g. autocratic rulers who murder the whole extended families of advisors who fall out of favour?