Re: Hierarchy In the Forest: inequality is not the same asexploitation.

Camilo & others,

I will strive to make this short.  Your conception of ape behavior is
romanticized, and quite simply, wrong.  I would suggest that you take a look
at 'Chimpanzee Politics:  Power and Sex among Apes' (2000) by Frans De Waal,
Johns Hopkins Press.

To relate this to world leaders and international politics, you can then look
at Francis Fukuyama (1999) "Women and the Evolution of Politics" in 'The New
Shape of World Politics:  Contending Paradigms in International Relations
(Revised Edition), Foreign Affairs Press.

Apes do exploit apes not of their own tribe, they do organize 'warfare', and
they do commit murder.  This certainly equates with the "reduction of the
possibilities of self-realization of each individual".

Please at least look at the above mentioned works.

Jon Carlson



On Sat, 27 Jan 2001 tjelavek@dds.nl wrote:

> Yes apes have leaders, and some eat more than others, and some have more 
> wives than others.
> 
> Some people are smarter, nicer, more powerfull, more artistic, more 
> experienced, richer, have more vision, work harder, take more risks than 
> others. Sure!
> 
> But in any non-exploitative system, these inequalities do not lead to 
> frustration and reduction of the possibilities of self-realization of each 
> individual.
> 
> So to say: millions are starving today because we behave as apes, is just 
> pure and plain ape-s***!
> 
> Millions are starving today because the human leaders do not provide the 
> essential reciprocity that any natural system provides for it's hierarchical 
> structures.
> 
> What we have is a system of constant, endlessly, unnecessary, violent, 
> cynical and absurd accumulation, which is not the same as inequality.
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Camilo
> 

Jon D. Carlson
Doctoral Candidate
Arizona State University
Dep't of Political Science
P.O. Box 872001
Tempe, AZ  85287-2001