>That, and I'm not entirely sold that acquiring the knowledge of how not to starve or be eaten by animals requires an imperium or a state. Oh, you don't need t

>That, and I'm not entirely sold that acquiring the knowledge of how not to starve or be eaten by animals requires an imperium or a state. Oh, you don't need the state to deal with animals, or food supply... I mean, the state can deal with those things, but that's not why you agree to live under the power of a state. the primary function of the state is to protect you from warlords or roving bands of warriors (which I personally think are proto-state like entities) The model I have of peasant life is that okay, you are a farmer. there are good years and bad... you have to deal with crop failures and with wild animals and all that stuff. And as a pre-modern farmer, well, you had better be equipped to deal with those things; nobody else is gonna help you. In a world where everyone was a farmer, this would be mostly fine. (I mean, one could argue that some sort of mutual system to deal with crop failures would be nice, but that's asking a lot of that time period.) You can mostly deal with it. Even with really primitive technology, if nobody is trying to steal from you, you can make a go at farming. The problem is that there also exist warriors. Now, in a system with no government, where one band of warriors can expect another band of warriors to later visit the farm they have just looted, where that band of warriors can't reasonably expect to be first to that farm the next year, it is in the best interest of that band of warriors to take everything of value even if that kills the farmer This, of course, is unpleasant all around. the farmer dies first, sure, but the warriors then end up starving, 'cause they've killed everyone who creates food. Government is born when one band of warriors establishes themselves in an area, takes an amount of food from the local farmers that usually doesn't kill the farmers, and then mostly chases off any competing bands of warriors. This is better for both the warriors and the farmers than the other way, just because now the warriors have an incentive to keep the farmers alive. My understanding of feudalism is that it's essentially a complex system designed to ritualize the warfare of the warriors in a way that usually doesn't starve everyone to death. If there's someone sufficiently powerful within your lands, there is a formal system for them to share in the power over the farmers. The difference, I think, between me and an ideological anarchist is that the ideological anarchist argues that the warriors won't necessarily spring up in numbers that can't be dealt with by the farmers, that humans are basically good and would rather produce than steal. I... can only assume that people who believe we can live without a state have had better childhoods than I have.