Anarchism: Vignettes Against Hobbes

This is a story about medieval Maghribi merchants, Kalahari San Bushmen, American ranchers, Arctic Inuits, Pygmies, The Semai, and Wisconsin businessmen.

At what price, under the point of whose spear, under what kind of domination, to what justification, would a person give up their capacity to decide for themselves? Or to contribute to the deliberative will of the collective? Who would give up that freedom?

What can stateless cultures and societies tell us about sovereign power? Anthropologist Christopher Boehm has summed up his survey of 339 studies and said that ‘nomadic foragers’ have a natural aversion to inequality and ‘are universally – and all but obsessively – concerned with being free from the authority of others.’

All of the vein pretenses that Hobbes argued would generate violence, in fact, on closer inspection motivate peace. When he said that competition leads to greed, he didn’t give enough weight to the observation that cooperation is more beneficial. When he thought that the desire for reputation would leave to a pursuit of glory he failed to see that reputation selects for kindness, cooperation, and conformity. The sharp tongue of gossip is the most powerful ostraciser. And when he argued that equality of strength would lead to endless war he forgot that equality of condition, of faculties, of the capacity for reason, leads to that most human of values: fairness.

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Sources:

Andrew Rutten, Anarchy Order and the Law : A Post-Hobbesian View

Avner Greif, Contract Enforeability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: The Maghribi Traders’ Coalition

Simon Halliday and Patrick Schmidt, Stewart Macaulay and “NonContractual Relations in Business”,

Stewart Macaulay, Non-Contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study

Harold Barclay, People without Government

Rutger Bregman, Humankind

Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid

Robert Ellickson, Order Without Law: How Neighbours Settle Disputes