View source for People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy

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<ref>See Bibliography for this and subsequent references</ref>: "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 Aid. 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.

=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 19th 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 anti
hierarchical, 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 19th 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.<ref>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)</ref>

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 cross
cultural 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 anti
structure. 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.<ref>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</ref>
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.

=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.<ref>A hypothesis developed in the 19th 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).</ref> 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.

=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 hunter
gatherers 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.<ref>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).</ref> 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.<ref>As has already been mentioned, most of these societies no longer exist, but for
convenience they will be discussed in the present tense.</ref>

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 19th
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 people|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 [[Mbuti people|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==
[[Aboriginal Australians|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 people|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 indigenous peoples|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.

=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.<ref>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.</ref>

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.

[[File:Lugbara tribe segments.png|thumbnail|]]

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,<ref>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.</ref> 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 joking 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 pre
carious in the sense that leaders can readily be abandoned by
their followers. Headmen act as advisors, mediators and co
ordinators. 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 agree
ment 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 com
batants attempt to restrain them, taking from their hands any
weapons or tools which can be used for injury, applying gentle pres
sure, and murmuring soothing words about the advisability of cool
ing 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<ref>Virilocal residence occurs where a newly roamed couple live in the household of the husband.</ref> 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,<ref>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).</ref>
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 are 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 Levi
Strauss 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.

=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 addi
tion, 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 do
main 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 indi
viduals 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 organisa
tion to that of the men. Age grades have no political function and ap
arently 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 19th 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 pre
Christian 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.

=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 19th 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 [[Anabaptists|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.

=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 self
conscious efforts to establish anarchy by individuals committed
to the anarchist ideology of 19th and 20th 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).<ref>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.</ref>
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 feder
ate 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<ref>ie, persons who did not belong to a collective.</ref> 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 19th
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 19th 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 19th and 20th
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.

=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 pas
toralists, 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 com
panies 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
17th and 18th 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 re
lationships 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).<ref>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.</ref>

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 democ
rats. 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 decision
making 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 hunter
gathering 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. <ref>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.</ref>

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 diffe
rent 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 eventu
ally 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 hunting
gathering 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 19th 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 20th 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, Farmer
Labour 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 19th 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 20th 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.<ref>Perhaps this might be called the anarcho-cynicalist point of view.</ref>

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<references/>