Re: theory and evidence vis a vis hierarchy

        Precisely.  The lesson of pre-modern history for me has always
been twofold:  the failure of regimes to prevent the exploitation of man
by man, but the ability of so many regimes to achieve political
integration, a common law, an imperial culture, and a measure of peace and
stability throughout an ecumene, whether Egyptian, Persian, Chinese, Arab,
Roman, Greek, or Turkish.  By the same token, the Mayan is a good negative
example of what happens when such integration does not occur.  The threat
facing humankind in the 21st Century is not globalization, but the fact
that globalization is occurring under the auspices of two unsustainable
forces:  what Richard Moore correctly identifies as a growth-obsessed and
growth-dependent capitalism and the outreach of polities still essentially
sovereign and local which still lack a pan-human (or in pre-modern terms,
imperial) perspective.

        Warren


On Sat, 27 Jan 2001, Richard N Hutchinson wrote:

> I just ran across an amazing piece of research relevant to both the recent
> discussion of hierarchy and to my ongoing attempts to promote discussion
> of Boswell & Chase-Dunn's "The Spiral of Capitalism and Socialism":
> 
> Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio and Todd Landman.  1999.  "Evolution of Maya
>       Polities in the Ancient Mesoamerican System."  International Studies
>       Quarterly 43/4 (December):  559-598.
> 
> The authors use a comprehensive data base of 72 Maya polities, and carry
> out an event history analysis with the variables a) duration, b) system
> size, or # of polities, c) hazard rate, and d) stability.
> 
> Here are some excerpts from their findings:
> 
> "Most of the Maya political system collapsed around A.D. 800 -- as opposed
> to earlier or later -- because it failed to develop a pan-Maya political
> integration or unification that would have been necessary to sustain the
> growing number of polities already containing millions of inhabitants.  
> Instead, the Maya political system remained a set of numerous independent
> polities -- some large, most small -- that fluctuated between multipolar
> aggregation into a few powerful regional states...and disintegration into
> small local polities.  Warfare played a central role throughout these
> pulsating cycles...According to the new data we report, just before the
> beginning of the collapse in A.D. 800 the system was growing at a rate of
> at least approximately one new polity every two decades, growing in
> interaction complexity from 600 possible dyads in A.D. 300 to 2,000 by
> A.D. 800... This booming growth could not be sustained indefinitely
> without a reorganization of government on a larger and more complex
> imperial scale, even discounting for remote, noncontiguous polities and
> relations."
> 
> [The authors compare the Maya to Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and other
> comparable systems which succeeded in moving to a higher level
> integration.]
> 
> "Therefore, we propose a new and opposite explanation to the current
> view:  failure to achieve some form of pan-Maya political integration, a
> system of governance capable of significant economics of scale that would
> sustain an expanding population base with many separate hierarchical
> polities (a complex state), was the root cause of the multifaceted
> disaster that manifested itself in the areas of agriculture, ecology,
> warfare, and religion.  This means that...the traditionally alleged causes
> of the collapse were actually the secondary effects of failed political
> integration..." (585)
> 
> *** *** *** *** ***
> 
> I think the basic point is made, though it barely does justice to the
> article.
> 
> The relevance of this for 2001 seems obvious enough -- without successful
> global political integration we are now faced on a planetary scale with
> the threats of ecological devastation and nuclear war.
> 
> If it is the capitalists who pioneer this level of integration, so be it,
> but the fight for democracy must move to the planetary level.  A
> clear-sighted strategy will be based only on the recognition of multiple
> levels of system reality, not on an idealist (in the bad sense of the
> word, meaning not in touch with reality) attempt to bring about a pure,
> non-hierarchical movement or end-state.  That remains a utopian goal,
> which can motivate action, but cannot be the recipe for praxis.
> 
> For the future, RH
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
>