Re: theory and evidence vis a vis hierarchy

1/27/2001, Richard N Hutchinson quoted:
    > "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"

Dear Richard H,

A very useful example.  It agrees entirely with my response to 
you on the 24th:
    rkm> Another consequence was that social systems were
    severely strained.  What worked for 200 hunter-gatherers no
    longer worked for 3000 villagers.  Social cohesion began to
    fail, causing an inevitable crisis stage in every society
    that adopted agriculture or herding.

Whenever populations grow past certain density threshholds,
then new forms of political organization are required - for
political reasons.  We seem to agree about this, although
others have argued that _economic complexities are what
drive centralization historically.

But where do 'new organizational structures' come from?
Evidently, hunter-gatherer tribes - when they started
farming - were unable to invent any solution other than
permitting some chief to take power.  Does that mean that no
other option was _possible for them?  I don't believe that,
and I haven't seen any evidence so far for such an
hypothesis. The only thing we know for sure is that no
alternative was known to people at that time.

Again, with the Maya, they were evidently unable to adopt
_any integrating solution, _including that of stable empire.
 If we had been living among the Mayas, we might have
concluded that human societies simply could not exist past a
certain size - such is 'inherently unstable'.  We would have
been wrong, through lack of exposure to alterntative models
of organization (eg, Roman).

Why should we, in 2001, assume that we have learned nothing
since these early historical experiences?  Does an adult
avoid situations because as a child they couldn't be
handled?  Your source says:
    "a reorganization of government on a larger and
     more complex imperial scale"

The evidence showed that "reorganization of government" was
necessary, but "complex imperial scale" is an assumption and
nothing more.


You say:
    > without successful global political integration we are now
    faced on a planetary scale with the threats of ecological
    devastation and nuclear war.

I totally agree with this.  But I do not agree that only a
centralized hierarchical government is capable of achieving
the required 'integration'.  I submit that you have not
demonstrated that need, and you have not resonded to the
specifics of my suggestions for alternatives.  I agree that
so far humanity has always opted for the centralized
solution.  That habit is one I think we need to break.  To
say we haven't broken it yet is not proof that we cannot.

---

1/27/2001, wwagar@binghamton.edu wrote:
    > 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.
    
Dear Warren,

What you and Richard H are doing is refusing to discuss
decentralized models.  You are dismissing them as 'a priory
unworthy of discussion'.  That is your privilege, and I can
seek useful dialog elsewhere, but before we drop the issue I
invite you to _entertain the concept of decentralization,
and explore some of the pros and cons, and specifics of 
implementation.

regards,
rkm