for the historical dynamic of "civilisation". i.e. a new pseudorational ideology that justifies/perpetuates the regime of accumulation and the core/periphery dynamic needed to support a parasitical and idle elite, monumental construction, massive resource hoarding and concentration, grotesque displays of status and the other markers which we recognise as indicating "high" culture.
Some of the Peruvian highland cultures had a whole separate caste of persons whose specialised function was to trade surplus and luxury goods with neighbouring polities; but that trade and its currency were kept strictly and absolutely isolated from the subsistence economy necessary to ensure food security... What kingship/empire/hierarchy/colonialism introduces seems to be labour without food security, with elites controlling not only surpluses but all production; whoever controls the food supply controls our lives, which explains a lot about ADM and Monsanto...
btw, can we observe a distinction of terminology between agriculture, the tradition of the ploughed field and the (varying degrees of) monocrop, vs horticulture or permaculture, both of which were practised with high sophistication by many non-imperial type people?
There are value judgements throughout that imply the 'noble savage' vision of the world. No, you wouldn't put in those words, vocabularies change, but that's what it amounts to. For you the society where people have to work in the capitalistic economy or starve equals slavery - even those with redistribution that actually makes the choices less stark. On the other hand where you have to work as a food producer in a non-capitalistic agrarian economy - that's a laudable society. City dwellers providing goods and services are 'parasitical' upon the resource producing 'periphery'. The agriculture of the 'ploughed field' is imperialist and bad, 'horticulture' and 'permaculture' practiced by 'non imperialist' cultures, good. Small kinship based communities good, large political units bad. Non-indigenous 'imperialist' cultures vs. non-imperialist indigenous ones.
If it weren't for those type of value judgements I could read you as just an extreme pessimist, but they are there.
being "made to work as a food producer in a non-capitalistic agrarian economy" is not, in fact, anyone's idea of a good time -- nor did I ever suggest it was. monocropping and field agriculture do seem to be correlated historically with corvee labour (for both irrigation and monocrop cultivation), taxation, tribute, and control of [usually hard wheat] grain stores by a kind of evolving priest/king caste. this type of field labour is not an "alternative" to city life -- it's the original basis of city life. I don't see what is unreasonable about preferring the type of agriculture practised by some N Am indigenes, i.e. "food forest" tending and dense polyculture. it's a lot less backbreaking labour and it doesn't impoverish the soil, and provides a more varied diet. it's also quite adequate (modern experiments confirm the extremely high productivity per acre of intensive polyculture) to feed a fairly large population, unlike gatherer-hunter methods which require more hectares per person than we have left.
and yes, the ploughed field is a "bad" form of agriculture in many ways -- "bad" meaning inefficient or spendthrift -- in that it reverses carbon sequestration, and over time impoverishes the soil ecosystems on which all our lives depend. in combination with industrial equipment, neurotoxins (pesticides) and artificial and longhaul overkill "amendments," it's agricultural suicide. "bad" and "good" here have everything to do with our long term survival prospects. our culture will live longer if we don't kill the soil. that seems to me a working definition of "good".
so the question still remains for me, in what ways have non-imperial, indigenous cultures been more successful in staying power or sustainability than imperial cultures which tend to crash-n-burn regularly (not to mention in personal liberty or democratic decision making traditions) and why? and what lessons in adaptive behaviour could we learn from them now that the borders of imperial aggression have pretty much run up against each other, i.e. every square mile of the planet's surface is claimed by an imperial core?
is imperialistic behaviour adaptive? or maladaptive?
"nobility" (or "glory" for that matter) have nowt to do with it. it's a soft landing I'm hoping for, nothing more. The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
That's the social organization. How about minus corvee labour, taxation, tribute and control by a priest/king caste? It's still not anyone's idea of a good time - or is it?
it's also quite adequate (modern experiments confirm the extremely high productivity per acre of intensive polyculture)
Productivity per acre, how about productivity per hour of manual labour? And how practical is it when you add in the much larger amount of infrastructure you'd want - running water, electricity, schools, hospitals, telecommunication networks, decent housing, libraries, transport infrastructure - plus the industrial, administrative and service economy infrastructure necessary for such things for the six plus billion people in this world?
