It would be good to remember that he is largely drawing from hunter gatherer societies and not just "in the past" as you describe his thesis. While valuable to

It would be good to remember that he is largely drawing from hunter gatherer societies and not just "in the past" as you describe his thesis. While valuable to look at, these agrarian and proto industrial societies also had large amounts of coercion. As I read the other posts I see too many people wanting to T/F this thesis whereas I think it real value is as a critical tool to examine societies and the minds that have to learn to live in them.