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It's important to account for selection bias here: feudalism generally leaves very obvious archaeological traces, both in terms of infrastructure and bureaucrat
by kqr 5y ago
It's important to account for selection bias here: feudalism generally leaves very obvious archaeological traces, both in terms of infrastructure and bureaucratic artifacts (which in turn tend to be designed for longevity.)
Feudalism might not be as common as we think of it; it's simply very visible in the historic record.
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As for why people would choose to live in more egalitarian forms: because we care.
Many forms of organising humans in the past and present have had specific mechanisms installed to prevent single people from getting too much power. (Including preventing them from converting wealth into power -- something we take for granted that one can just do today.)
As a case in point: I live in a condo association. We and all our neighbours collectively own and maintain this building. We vote on big issues and elect representatives for everyday duties. It would be very hard to consistently appropriate large amounts of resources over a longer time period, compared to, say, a small business owner.
We can only guess, but sometimes (at least from native American verbal history) this can happen because the people have experienced feudalist systems and realised how bad that turned out.
I strongly recommend reading Graeber's The Dawn of Everything to start out.
- bee_rider 5y ago> We can only guess, but sometimes (at least from native American verbal history) this can happen because the people have experienced feudalist systems and realised how bad that turned out. This seems like a pretty reasonable theory, but does indicate a little problem I think -- the people have experienced the feudal system will only be around for a couple generations after the change-over. So, at least to the extent that this is the cause, it would likely be a transitory configuration, right? (ignoring some unusual circumstances, like being neighbors to a particularly unpleasant feudal state and having them as a constant contrast). I wonder what that sort of configuration decays toward.
- kqr 5y agoYou'd be surprised how long oral history can live. There are people who tell the same cautionary tales for thousands or even tens of thousands of years. (We know among other things because they clearly reference landmarks that we today find geological traces of that help us date their existence.) But yes, you're onto something with the neighbour hypothesis too -- egalitarian and hierarchical (or beaurocratic and violent) societies often come in pairs, right next to each other.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago'There are people who tell the same cautionary tales for thousands or even tens of thousands of years.' The people retelling the story don't understand it - we have stories and kings and feudalism, go on the street and ask a random person any question about how feudalism works: What rights did peasants have? What right does the lord have over his peasants? could peasants be sold and how are they different from slaves? Which 'levels' of nobility does what? Who pays taxes to whom? If put theae people into a feudal society tomorrow, and just renamed 'baron' and 'lord' to something else, they would not know it. We could call it 'landlord' and 'investor'
- bee_rider 5y ago> But yes, you're onto something with the neighbour hypothesis too -- egalitarian and hierarchical (or beaurocratic and violent) societies often come in pairs, right next to each other. This is going to sound sarcastic or something, but I'm actually curious -- do they? I would tend to assume that they appear to come in pairs, but this is largely because we happened to find history books written by the self-professed egalitarian society, and not their rivals, to whom they allocate every vice.
- kqr 5y agoVisible history is generally written by the beaurocratic/violent society, not their egalitarian neighbour. If you think further back in history, I'm sure you'll recall "the great periods" as we call them, marred with obvious artifacts from oppressive societies. Their egalitarian neighbours where only just starting to discover. In part because their traces are less obvious, and in part because we've had a mental confirmation bias against finding them. I refer back to The Dawn of Everything if you want more details!
- bee_rider 5y agoInteresting, thanks!
- paisawalla 5y ago> As for why people would choose to live in more egalitarian forms The question is not why would people choose to live under supposed egalitarianism, but why would that be the default system. It relies on non-betrayal behavior across multiple actors in whom power is vested, which depends on many non-intuitive cultural innovations in thinking about your peers and social responsibility. Feudalism is at least straightforwardly plausible as the point towards which high entropy systems descend. Conversely, it's very hard to see how democratic communalism would just spontaneously emerge and maintain itself without consistent effort and cooperation, both fragile dependencies.
- zozbot234 5y agoDemocratic communalism can sustain itself perfectly fine at the scale of a small village, or a neighborhood in a small town, or a single condo/HOA in a big city or suburban area. The whole question is what to do beyond that scale.
- kqr 5y agoWe have evidence that communalism (or at least something similar to it) has worked at large scales in the past. In fact, it ought to be one of the easiest things to get to work, because you don't have to coerce anyone of anything.
- lobocinza 5y agoLike if trust wasn't an issue.
- kqr 5y agoTrust is one of the most important issues! I trust my two-year old to carry his glass to the table because I've given him the opportunity to show me he can be trusted with that. I don't trust my two-year old to not fall down stairs because I've given him the opportunity to show me he can be trusted with that and he has failed to show it. That's how it works in an egalitarian society too. You give people a chance to show they can be trusted. If they fail to show that, you stop trusting them.