I feel like being a devil's advocate here because, as much as I'd like to believe that, there is no historical record of it. And the reason is not that history is written by the imperialistic winners of wars, but that history is written by literate people [hence civilised, hence city-dwelling]. "It's the statue, man, The Statue."
And yet
any quick survey of ethnography or field anthropology would reveal the wealth of literature (and the longstanding academic and political squabbles) over the world's non-imperialistic (aka indigenous) cultures
all of which, DeAnander continues,
are cultures of reciprocity, gift exchange, and other "sharing" mechanisms rather than hoarding and hierarchical control.
What this says to me is that we are at a point in history where we recognize and treasure the fruits and benefits of civilization (e.g. writing, science, surfing, etc.), while at the same time have evidence that what drove that civilization until now -- "hoarding and hierarchical control" -- is not what drove human (pre-civilizational) society until very recently. And what drove most of human society before -- "reciprocity, gift exchange, and other 'sharing' mechanisms", if what DeAnander says is true, or at least the impulses of generosity that underly them -- could be harnessesed to move civilization to a next level -- a post- acquisitive-economy -based civilization.
Thesis: non-hierarchical, sharing/giving-based pre-civilization
+
Antithesis: hierarchical, hoarding/controlling/appropriating-based civilization
=
Synthesis: less-hierarchical, sharing/giving-based civilization Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
Decentralised but disconnected. Anarchy?
Society 2.0 (now)
Centralised, but connected. Hierarchy?
Society 3.0
Decentralised but connected. Synarchy? "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
nice thought.
on a lighter note
I've often said that if intellectual property lawyers had been dominant in our late prehistory, we'd never have got past the stone knife stage...
The debate over who was here first started about the same time that Columbus was first arriving in the New World. In 1590, a Spanish Monk named Friar Joseph de Acosta reasoned, after much examination and comparison, that most of what was in the New World simply walked over from the Old World. He postulated a land connection between northeast Asia and northwest North America, even though that area was completely uncharted in his day. In the post-Revolutionary War United States, the scientific community was discouraged from looking into the issue so that they wouldn't inadvertently give any kind of legitimacy to the Native Americans or to their claims to the land the Europeans were stealing. [emphasis mine: politicising science is nothing new!] By the early 1900's, the archeological community had been looking and was generally in agreement that Native Americans had been in the country no more than 4,000 years. Then, in 1908, George McJunkin, the son of former slave parents, found the first Folsom Point. At the time, he was working as foreman on the Crowfoot Ranch near Folsom in northeastern New Mexico. He was also an amateur fossil collector, arrowhead hunter and naturalist. One day after a flash flood he came across some strange looking bones sticking out of the side of Wild Horse Arroyo. They were a local curiosity item until Carl Schwachheim came over from Raton and took a look at "McJunkin's site." He got in touch with Jesse Figgins, director of the Colorado Museum of Natural History. Figgins visited the site in 1926 and organized a full excavation for 1927. That's when the actual Folsom Point was found. Radiocarbon dating places these artifacts at 10-to-11,000 years old.
By the early 1900's, the archeological community had been looking and was generally in agreement that Native Americans had been in the country no more than 4,000 years. Then, in 1908, George McJunkin, the son of former slave parents, found the first Folsom Point. At the time, he was working as foreman on the Crowfoot Ranch near Folsom in northeastern New Mexico. He was also an amateur fossil collector, arrowhead hunter and naturalist. One day after a flash flood he came across some strange looking bones sticking out of the side of Wild Horse Arroyo. They were a local curiosity item until Carl Schwachheim came over from Raton and took a look at "McJunkin's site." He got in touch with Jesse Figgins, director of the Colorado Museum of Natural History. Figgins visited the site in 1926 and organized a full excavation for 1927. That's when the actual Folsom Point was found. Radiocarbon dating places these artifacts at 10-to-11,000 years old.
was chatting with a colleague today who said the archaeology/paleo-ethnography world is buzzing with the new notion that the chronological spread of Folsom Point technique may not have indicated the movements of "Folsom Point People" (as it has been interpreted for quite some time by academics raised in a culture of ownership, patents, etc -- plus in some cases lingering infection with racial/genetic superiority memes) but the free dissemination of a new idea/technology via visiting, trading, ceremonial warfare and the usual intertribal contacts. "hey that's a cool idea, let's try it!" is mostly how we refined and invented and improved our techne. monkey see, monkey copy, monkey improve :-) same goes for small farmers sharing and improving and further specialising seeds.
what this means about the current state of intelprop Enclosure and monopoly control I shudder to think. good thing there were no C&D letters when we were working on stuff like pottery glazing :-) The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
the chronological spread of Folsom Point technique may not have indicated the movements of "Folsom Point People"
D'UH'oooooo, ya THINK?
It's called: Trade Networks.
(Now if Egyptologists would figure-out graffiti is not a reliable dating methodology .... )
Come on, you yourself encouraged this renascent optimism in me with your comment that
what we believe is "natural" conditions and limits what we believe is possible; enlarging our notion of what is possible is directly threatening to elites who (for good reason!) want us to believe that things either have always been just as they are now, or are getting better and better every day.
We all agree it is our responsibiltiy to make things get better in fact, and not just in the rhetoric and ideology of those you call the "elites" (I prefer "entrenched interests" myself, because in my book you and I are both members of the "elites", but whatever: I think we are both referring to the same forces of inertia and reaction). And to do that, we have to enlarge our notion of what is possible, as you say, and for me my notion of "the possible" has not really included the idea of a "giving/sharing-based industrial economy": I took self-interest, hierarchy and "hoarding" as you say, as unalterable givens of human nature in any society, however it may be organized. While I note (and must look further into) Miguel's reference to the The Ape and the Sushi Master and Millman's mention of evolutionary psychology's descriptions of humans' inevitable "base 'desires'", I remain hopeful, and optimistic, that humans -- with courage, imagination, and perseverance -- will prove creative and resourceful enough to overcome the entrenched interests (including whatever destructive tendencies and instincts we are genetically programmed with) to keep the baby of civilization while throwing out the bathwater of imperialism and the rest of it.
Nice connection of the new Folsom Point technique "monkey see, monkey copy, monkey improve, monkey disseminate" hypothesis to Intellectual Property, Enclosure and Monopoly issues. More evidence that pre-civilizational humanity can teach contemporary imperial-civilizational humanity how to achieve a non-imperial civilizational humanity. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
And yet any quick survey of ethnography or field anthropology would reveal the wealth of literature (and the longstanding academic and political squabbles) over the world's non-imperialistic (aka indigenous) cultures
