5 ms·
This sounds like fantasy to me: "Prior to colonisation, most people lived in subsistence economies where they enjoyed access to abundant commons – land, water,
by tdrgabi 8y ago
This sounds like fantasy to me:
"Prior to colonisation, most people lived in subsistence economies where they enjoyed access to abundant commons – land, water, forests, livestock and robust systems of sharing and reciprocity. They had little if any money, but then they didn’t need it in order to live well – so it makes little sense to claim that they were poor."
They still fought over resources and hunting grounds. They even had slaves. I don't understand how that is a robust system of sharing and reciprocity.
- makerofspoons 8y agoIt's the 21st century and we are still propagating the noble savage stereotype.
- iguy 8y agoRight! Not to mention erasing the pre-colonial civilisations of half the world. Delhi is what, the 9th city on that site? The Guardian believes that none of those palace builders employed tax-collectors?
- mberning 8y agoAlso, none of the people promoting this regressive ideal are willing to be the first to give up current lifestyle either.
- coldtea 8y agoAs if it was "refuted" conclusively (as opposed to merely replaced by the opposite myth of monotonic progress)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- michaelscott 8y agoIndeed. Most societies across the planet were either also invading and conquering their neighbours or at the least systems in place that were analogous to those of colonists. Mongolia, China, Japan, India and many other Asian nations had been in and out of well documented wars for millenia, and even "primitive" cultures such as the Yurok had a working currency and trade economy, and the Iroquois a now well-known federation of tribes with a strong governmental structure.
- avmich 8y agoWe still fight even now, even most developed countries have wars. And subsistence societies don't necessarily have slavery on a big scale.
- sct202 8y agoYeah my parents are from one of those formerly poverty stricken places, and there was money, trade, and land ownership. So many people who are living today have experienced their lives improving rapidly within their memory, that it seems ridiculous to claim the opposite.
- watwut 8y agoYour parents are from "prior to colonization"? That is unlikely. Regardless of original claim of before colonization, your parents might see end of it.
- sct202 8y agoI'm sure that the 40 years of European colonization 400 years ago most definitely taught my barbaric ancestors how to use silver and claim land.
- iguy 8y agoSure, but "money, trade, and land ownership" were common in lots of places, long long before Europeans showed up. I mean we have Sumerian tax records!
- gipp 8y agoAnd to whatever extent it was ever true, its erosion would be much more about the growth of population and the shrinking of the commons that results from that. Not some half-baked Marxist angle
- seibelj 8y agoMaybe a hunter-gatherer society that never found conflict could fit this stereotype, if they ever existed. But the moment people put down roots, others wanted their stuff. The Aztecs were destroyed as a result of colonization, but Cortes couldn’t have killed them without getting a coalition of enemies of Montezuma on his side. And the reason a coalition could happen was that the Aztecs were merciless in their enslavement, taxation, and domination of other tribes and cities in their region. Colonizers did horrible things but let’s not pretend that humanity was pristine and without malice before the Europeans arrived. Human nature does not change.
- coldtea 8y ago>They still fought over resources and hunting grounds. They even had slaves. Western powers fought (and still fight) over resources and zones of interest, so there's that.