[robbo203]

duncan lucas wrote:

robbo-Why do you think the leaders of countries  and the worlds richest people meet yearly under intense protection . They are deciding how the  World shoud  be run -the IMF-Banksters-all the Worlds Leaders if  that isnt NWO I dont know what is ,its staring you in the face . Its now 2 % of the world  who are richer than over 1 BILLION  of the 98 % . THe UK/ US EU is OWNED by big business Camerons cabinet consists now of Millionaires .

 Duncan, I don't doubt that (some) world leaders and (some of) the world's richest people meet yearly under "intense protection". I don't deny that there are "conspiracies" in the loose sense of the word, hidden agendas which the influential and the powerful wish to pursue.  What I do deny though, and emphatically , is that the general outline of society and the broad pattern of developments in society is the outcome of some kind of elite conspiracy.  This is plain nonsense. You may not realise this but what you are arguing for is an incredibly disempowering and anti-working class view of the world.  It is a version of history dubbed by  Carlyle as the "Great Man" model of history -. a top down elitist version of history in which "the masses" are portrayed as a dumb, malleable putty to be shaped moulded and directed as the high and mighty see fit. Might I recommend to you Plekhanov's famous 1898 essay "The Role of the Individual in History"  (https://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1898/xx/individual.html). Seriously, give it a read.  Plekhanov  brilliantly took  apart the Great Man theory of history, arguing that it was based on a fundamental flaw – an "optical illusion".  So called Great Men are the product of their times rather than their times being a product of them. If Napoleon had not existed then a Napoleon-like figure would have emerged in France in the early 19th century anyway. That is what the mood of the times required after the chaos and dislocation of the French  Revolution: some strong arm figure to restore social order. So it is the case today.  You overlook that these world leaders you refer to are put into power by the masses voting for them. Ultimately it is the masses who are the real shapers of history, the drivers of events.  Unfortunately for socialists at the present time the masses are pro-capitalist and pro-nationalist and are willing to write a blank cheque for the politicians to get on with the job of trying to manage capitalism.  But capitalism functions  according to its own set of generic rules or "laws". No one actually controls or is capable of controlling the system. You refer to the massive inequality that exists in the world today as if this was the planned outcome decided upon by a tiny group of immensely powerful conspirators. No it is not! The implication of what you saying is that if our leaders intended otherwise  we could  have a much more egalitarian form of capitalist society. It is merely a question of goodwill and the determination on the part of these leaders. The Left frequently resorts to this kind of  bogus explanation which seeks to portray the non realisation of certain political aims or policies as being the result of "betrayal" by the leadership. If only Trotsky had come to power and not Stalin things would have turned out so differently This is nonsense. Capitalism cannot function except on the basis of gross inequality. . Consider what happened in the case of Russia when the Bolsheviks took over the reigns of power and sought to manage capitalism along the lines of a statist model. Around the  time of the 1917 Revolution,  Lenin enthusiastically endorsed the principle of equal pay for everyone – what is called uravnilovka or income leveling. However, in less than a year later, in an address given in April 1918 (published as "The Soviets at Work") he abjectly recanted:   “We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed a very high remuneration for the services of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian state. It is clear that such a measure is a compromise, that it is a departure from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule." Stalin  too recognised the importance of unequal remuneration upon coming to power and having to fashion policy to fit the needs of the developing system of Soviet state capitalism.  But Stalin but went a lot further than Lenin in denouncing the "evil of equality" and declaring Marxism to be the  "enemy of equalisation". Uravnilovka, was vigorously opposed on the grounds that it undermined incentives and economic performance.  And most surreally  of all, Foreign Minister Molotov once declared that  "Bolshevik policy demands a resolute struggle against equalitarians as accomplices of the class enemy, as elements hostile to socialism." (Tony Cliff, State Capitalism in Russia, p.69 http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1955/statecap/index.htm). In other words the Bolshevik were forced to do a complete about turn because the exigencies of running capitalism required this of them. Capitalism exists because we the masses, the  working class,  allow it to exist. We are the ultimate authors of our own fate – including the unpalatable  fact that we own so little and the !% so much 

[robbo203]

I think that even if there are conspiracies, and SP is quite right to point out that there are,  the point is surely that the overall pattern of events or the essential structure of society itself, its outline, and the way in which it basically functions, is not at all a conspiracy.   To claim that it is is to vest far too much power in a tiny minority of conspirators and to overlook the  divisions that are almost certainly going to arise amongst them.  By the same token, a conspiratorial perspective can have a disempowering effect on the majority who are the supposed victims of some conspiratorial plot. But more than that, conspiracy theory taken to its logical conclusion presumes that "the system" can indeed be controlled and regulated from above.  It feeds into the same kind of arguments that inform reformists and left wing advocates of more state involvement in the economy -the illusion that politicians can control the system when the system clearly controls the politicians.  The system – capitalism – operates according to its own generic "laws" and no one actually controls it in the way some conspiracy theorists seem to imagine

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

Wars are not caused by the belief that we are innately violent. Wars are caused by conflicts of economic interests within the 1%. They are fought over resources, markets etc. If you were able to convince every worker that we are not naturally aggressive (which is demonstrably untrue) ) that would not result in a peaceful world.Removing the economic reasons for violence is the answer. Inate violence is less important when we have nothing to fight about. You are wasting your time asking workers not to go to war by convincing them that they are acting out of character. They will stop fight in wars when they understand the causes of wars. Then they will turn their aggression on the 1%

 I think you are missing the point here, VinI agree that wars are not caused by the mere belief that we are "innately  violent" but, rather, occur for the reasons you cite.  However, I am not talking about why wars happen but the justifications offered by the warmongerers  for engaging in wars. Warmongerers don't tend to offer justifications along the lines that wars are fuelled by economic conflicts and we have to confront what they say just as much as what they don't say about war. What they say about war is enormously influential and is one of the reasons why workers go to war against their own interests – because they actually believe the crap pumped out by the warmongerersPart of that whole elaborate structure of justification offered by the warmongerers is the belief  the war is innate in human beings and thus unavoidable.  If you believe  that war is unavoidable – because it is  "natural" to human beings – then that clearly undermines any resistance to war.  Why resist something from which there is no escape? Our alleged inborn predilection to wage war? Another aspect of this ruling class ideology is the belief that we all separate out into different groups – – nations that have competing interests and that the nation or group that we belong to can be stronger by uniting against outsiders.  Again, this is rationalised or "naturalised" by appealing to what supposedly went on in our Paleolithic past in which the outlines of our "human nature" were said to be essentially forged – the 95% of our existence on this planet when we lived as hunter gatherers.  Which is why the question  of hunter gatherer violence simply cannot be ignored or brushed under the carpet as some kind of esoteric academic topic of interest. You know as well as I do that the human nature argument is perhaps the most insidiously  prevalent objection raised by workers against the possibility of establishing socialism.  If it is believed that war is inherent part of human nature ,  how can you seriously imagine for one moment that workers who hold this belief  will ever consider the prospect of a global cooperative  society – socialism – as being possible?.  If war is part of part of our human nature then wars are likely to occur in socialism.  And if that were the case then i would argue that that in itself negates socialism.  It  is also incidentally is at odds with your own explanation  as to why wars happen – namely because of the commercial rivalries inherent in market capitalism. You therefore have as much a vested interest as I have,  as a revolutionary socialist , to debunk the myth that war is part of our human nature.  And since human nature is necessarily something that is supposed to have emerged from our overwhelmingly hunter gatherer past that necessarily means looking at the question of violence in hunter gather society. There is absolutely no way round this for revolutionary Socialists.  If human nature is warlike because hunter gatherers were warlike  then that rules out socialism. QED

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Violence is conventionally understood in terms of the presumed death count…

For any cohort in any society, the 'death count' is always 100%!

 Of course.  But I am saying this is the formal  measure of violence which these people chose to employ and one presumes by that that they mean the intentional act to inflict harm on others resulting in their deaths (although, of course they may not necessarily have the intention to actually kill the other person even if that is the outcome) 

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

Of course there is some one-on-one violence in contemporary  HG groups as there no doubt was among prehistoric HG groups but that is not the same thing as war.

[my bold]robbo, I agree with much of your post.One key thing is your outlining of the concept of 'violence', which I've also stressed is an ideological concept, and how one regards 'violence' will determine one's view of h-g 'violence'.If the ideology being followed by the anthropologist is 'individualist', then 'one-on-one violence' counts as 'violence'.If the ideology being followed by the anthropologist is 'socialist', then 'war' counts as 'violence'.The former is about biological contact and personal pain, the latter about social conflict and widespread destruction.

 Violence is conventionally understood in terms of the presumed death count,  This is what the archaelogists and anthropologists are primarily disputing in the debate on hunter gatherer violence – how many people were actually killed – although of course there can be non fatal and also "structural" violence Also once again to remind you recognition that individuals exist or possess an individuality  is NOT to be confused with "individualism"  Individualism is a specific politico-economic doctrine which is focussed  outwardly on the relations that individuals have with one another and posits self interest as the driving force in the way they relate to each other

[robbo203]

ALB wrote:

Here's a message received at Head Office from somebody in Japan:

Quote:

To socialist party of GB: Break off relations with Rothchilds promptly 21 Feb., 2015 tatsmaki (Japan)     According to a space information from the Creators of the Space blocks control world, the Socialist Party of GB is a tool bribed for the purpose of self-protection of Rothchilds being shapeshifters of draconians of the Draco to avoid sanctions by the Creators. Draconians of the Draco are the official emblem of London city. They are bosses of leptilian-humanoids of the Lizard being the dictator-ruler of the USA. They are invaders-rulers of the Earth since the ancient times.     The GHQ of draconians and leptilian-humanoids in Agarta of inner world of the Earth was liquidated by the Creators on Aug. 17, 2014. But Illuminati, G20 leaders, ruling layers of each nation and activists elements of it's various fields are continuing wrongdoings all over the world.       The Socialist Party of GB has raised a slogan of "Abolish money! ", but it is not for social justice and is for such an ugly selfish purpose of Rothchilds.     The Creators gave them an order so that the Socialist Party GB breaks off with Rothchilds promptly and becomes the independent political party of the British people.      The Earth will be disappeared from our Space as the last general cleaning of the Earth in 2015 by the Creators.

Come to the meeting this afternoon when all will be revealed: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/what-conspiracy-theories-arent-telling-you-head-office-3pm   

 Hilarious.  Maybe conspiracy theories are themselves  part of a wider conspiracy to entertain , distract  and generally lead  folk up the garden path – a paradox if there ever was oneIn any case whats wrong with lizards? I rather like them  – although I prefer geckos here in sunny Spain as they are better at catching flies

[robbo203]

oh,  and as an example if what we are up against as socialists, read this essay by E O Wilson on "Is War Inevitable" http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jun/07-is-war-inevitable-by-e-o-wilson then tell me why you consider the question of hunter gather violence is  a matter of little importance

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

We see eye to eye on that at least Robin! Though don't we both come from a political tradition that, in caricature at least, makes equally mad claims about billions voting? ;)To get back to the subject of the thread, though, before we get told off by the moderator again, I think socialists should be perfectly relaxed about these kinds of questions. So what if it was found that a tendency towards violence and war is innate, hard-wired into our genes? If true, we need to know it. Not least so we can create social structures that promote peace and understanding between innately crazy creatures. State repression is hardly the only or the best way to achieve this – as anthropology shows all too well.

 Yes, Stuart, to answer your first question, we do, but  the vote in question  is presumably a  one-off thing and does not entail the necessity of acquiring an intimate close knowledge of say , String  Theory, along with thousands upon thousands of other scientific theories in order to determine their "truth" by means of a knowledgeable vote. Individuals dont have to read all 3 volumes of Capital to understand and want socialism.  There is simply no comparison here and I have no hesitation in deciding which one of these is the "mad claim". On your second point, you raise an interesting question and I link this to Vin's suggestion in another post that  hunter gatherer violence is a matter of little import in the struggle to achieve socialism and that we should be focussing on things that matter – the problems that workers have to endure under capitalism.  Of course we should be doing that but the question of hunter gather violence should not be so readily dismissed as being of little or no importance to socialist.s,  We should be aware that it is used as ideological tool  against those who question the dominant capitalist ideology and put forward a socialist alternative to capitalism. Consider what lies behind the argument  that "war is innate, hard-wired into our genes".  It stems from the idea of group selection and the notion that "in-group amity" necessitates  "out-group enmity".  Or to put in more familiar terms. we need a common enemy in order to unite and express solidarity with each other as human beings living in  distinct groups.  War, in other words, is the basis of our human sociality. It is necessary for human progress and, above all, it means violently  pitting "us" against "them". I'm astonished that any socialist cannot see the central relevance of this to the case for socialism.  How often are we told that socialism might work on a small face to face scale but "world socialism"?  – Forget it!    Human beings are naturally prone to fighting with each other rather than coming together to forge a common global society . Or as Edward Wilson  put it "War is embedded in our very nature". If so that means a permanent state of global disunity In that event  I don't see much hope for socialism ever being established and focusing on the problems that workers face now will be to no avail – all that could only ever lead to ultimately is settling for some reformist programme if you wanted to actually do something about those problems as opposed to just talking about them. Socialism would be out of question since according to the theory , global cooperation and solidarity is out of the question. Well, I disagree with the theory. Hunter gatherer groups like the Aborigines in fact maintain vast networks of solidarity extending over hundreds of kilometres and there is a degree of porosity between groups,   War in the sense of systematic organised violence between groups is a recent phenomenon as Brian Ferguson points out and I wish people here would read the links I gave earlier to the stuff he has written.  Of course there is some one-on-one violence in contemporary  HG groups as there no doubt was among prehistoric HG groups but that is not the same thing as war.  And unlike in the Paleolithic era HG groups today  do not really have the option of moving on if local resources are depleted – not with national boundaries and special reserves into which they are shunted like some endangered species for tourist to take photos of.  Nomadism , the ability to move around freely and vote with your feet, was a very major  component in the well honed strategy of conflict avoidance among prehistoric hunter gatherers.  Also there are other explanations for human solidarity than the supposed link between  "in group amity" and "out-group enmity".  In-group amity does not have entail outgroup enmity.  The awareness among members of a group that they depend on each other and benefit from each other can shift the focus instead towards the internal dynamics of the group with the application of sanctions against free riders for example At bottom what is at stake in this debate on hunter gatherers is what it means to be a human being and we should not lose sight of this. Its implications for the struggle to achieve world socialism can hardly be overstated.

[robbo203]

Vin wrote:

My feelings exactly. We could try talking about the issues that affect the working class at the moment instead of 'science for socialists' and 'hunter gatherers'

 I don't know if I would go along with that sentiment at all, Vin.  I think the question of what happened in the past , or rather how we interpret the past,  IS highly relevant.  You are not just discussing issues that affect the working class at the moment for its own sake, presumably; you are wanting to put forward  an alternative to capitalism. However you look at it,  that is an ideological battle  that you are engaged in, at the heart of which is what we perceive human beings to be and to be capable of.  On that point I agree with LBird, even  if I disagree with him on many others. Do you imagine that socialism would be on the cards if it were widely felt that we were naturally prone to inflict violence on each other on the slightest pretext and that  this alleged predisposition towards violence – justifying the need for a state  – is something that we acquired in our remote hunter gatherer  past. ?  I don't think so. These kind of theoretical issues have to be tackled – not in isolation from but in conjunction with the kind of issues you have in mind

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

You say hold a vote, LB, but how is a rational individual to vote? Surely only by making a good faith effort to decide between the alternatives based on their truth value, ie, on how they measure up to reality?

 Stuart, you could ask LBird how he expects a global population 7 billion  to vote – and vote knowledgeably –  on each of thousands upon thousands of scientific theories that are churned every year to determine their " truth value" or indeed why this is is even necessary (if I believe the earth revolves around the sun and the majority thinks otherwise I am not going to be dissuaded from what I believe just because a majority thinks otherwise).  You could ask LBird but don't expect an answer – he has been dodging this question over several threads now. His views are an odd mixture of the basically sound – e.g. no branch of human  knowledge including anthropology is "value free"  – and the truly  nutty. .  But "thats just my opinion" as the guy on RT keeps on sayingFirst warning:  1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.

[robbo203]

This might be of  interest to some here – an article entitled "Analysing Steven Pinker's rates of violence in non-state societies" that I stumbled uponhttps://www.academia.edu/5735381/Analysing_Steven_Pinkers_rates_of_violence_in_non-state_societies Tan makes two or three interesting points – that much of the data supporting the " war is innate" camp is inconsistent- that in absolute terms violent deaths in non state societies are statistically very small indeed, typically in double digits or less for most of the groups mentioned.  But if you convert the figures into violent deaths per 100.000 that makes it seem like these societies are very violent when compared to state-based societies- that what is counted as "war deaths" within non state societies may very well have resulted from state violence inflicted on non state societies. As Tan puts it:to reiterate what has been mentioned in the previous section, we are also unclear whether some of these figures included war deaths incurred as a result of clashes with the state. Whether it does or not brings us back to the same dilemma that was voiced earlier- i.e.. is the Leviathan a force for suppressing violence as Pinker has been saying or whether it is a perpetuator. As to Pinker, I'm beginning to somewhat change my opinion of him. I don't think he is quite the genetic determinist he is made out to be.   In The Blank Slate, he evidently seeks to disassociate himself from such a position:Though no book on human nature can hope to be uncontroversial, I did not write it to be yet another "explosive" book, as dust jackets tend to say.   I am not, as many people assume, countering an extreme "nurture" position with an extreme "nature" position, with the truth lying somewhere in between.  In some cases, an extreme environmentalist explanation is correct: which language you speak is an obvious example, and differences between races and ethnic groups in test scores may be another.  In other cases, such as certain inherited neurological disorders, an extreme hereditarian explanation is correct.  In most cases the correct explanation will invoke a complex interaction between heredity and environment: culture is crucial, but culture could not exist without mental faculties that allow humans to create and learn culture to being with.  My goal in this book is not to argue that genes are everything and culture is nothing – no one believes that – but to explore why the extreme position (that culture is everything) is so often seen as moderate and the moderate position is seen as extreme.  (Preface) The problem lies with his representation  of the state as exerting a pacifying influence on the population.  The implication would seem to be that if the state were to disappear tomorrow then rates of violence would increase sharply to levels they are claimed to have been in non state societies.  But this might not be quite correct.  Pinker's seems to attribute the relative decline in violence to social factors other than the state Notably: 1. the feminisation of society – significant since most violence is committed y men aged 18-302. the "escalator of reason" – the civilising influence resulting increases in educational levels etc3.the expanding circle of ethics – the tendency to morally identify with ever larger social entities4."gentle commerce" – the idea that commercial interdependencies make it more difficult to wage war Some of these factors are a bit more  questionable than others.  But they do go to show that Pinker's position is more nuanced than it might appear to be on a first reading….

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Robin: "Am I to take it that you too have become a pro-statist by virtue of your evident enthusiasm for what Diamond has to say?"Me; No, not at all. Early on in his book, Diamond says explicitly that his book shows why the "dreams" of anarchists can never be realised. I'm fairly sure he's wrong about that – I hope so anyway. I'm sure he's wrong about lots of things. But his books are wonderful.

 Good to hear that Stuart!

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

We all know people are naturally capable of both grotesque violence as well as incredible kindness.  The much more interesting question is what causes them to behave in one way or another.

[my bold]This is a contradictory statement, robbo.If something is 'natural', then that is the cause of the 'behavour'.

 There is nothing contradictory about the above statement. I'm talking about what  people capable of doing; I'm not necessarily trying to explain what causes them to do what they do. 

LBird wrote:

The beginning of wisdom, though, is starting to realise that all 'facts' reflect the 'opinion' of the researcher. Carr's What is History? would be relevent reading here, for those comrades who do realise that simplying looking for the 'facts of anthropology' is the really pointless activity. Stuart will remain the prisoner of the framework of the last anthropologist that they read.

 Yes , we know all this LBird.  Why do you feel the need to endlessly repeat this same old argument as if know one else apart from your good self is privy to the insight that there is no such thing as a value free anthropology  or science?  Can  we kinda move on with the argument a bit, eh? ..  Its getting quite boring hearing the same old thing being constantly regurgitated

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

I have not followed all of what looked like a mostly pointless debate on this thread, but I am interested in the ostensible subject matter, and thought this link might be of interest – it's Jared Diamond defending his recent (and brilliant) book on the subject:http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Rousseau_Revisited.html

 Interesting link though I  can't say I was overly impressed., Stuart.   Diamond along with Pinker and co have been charged with confusing complex HG societies – tribes  –  with simple HG societies  – bands  – and also with confusing hunter gatherer societies in general  with horticulturalist societies.  In his book "The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?" (2012) Diamond makes much of the fact that the Dani people of Papua New Guinea have a reputation for being violent.  However, not only are the Dani tribal in social organisation; they also happen to be agriculturalists practicing an elementary system of property rights. With territoriality and sedentism coming into the picture this would indeed provide an incentive for violent conflict.  but the point about simple HG  bands is that they are nomadic – there is no territory to defend.  I note that Diamond in the article you posted is still talking about tribal societies not band societies Why is this important? Well, as John Horgan points out in the link I posted earlier One of the most insidious modern memes holds that war is innate, an adaptation bred into our ancestors by natural selection. This hypothesis—let’s call it the “Deep Roots Theory of War”–has been promoted by such intellectual heavyweights as Steven Pinker, Edward Wilson, Jared Diamond, Richard Wrangham, Francis Fukuyama and David Brooks.  (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/07/18/new-study-of-foragers-undermines-claim-that-war-has-deep-evolutionary-roots)If it is the case that "war is innate, an adaptation bred  into ancestors by natural selection" then this would have had to have happened a long long time ago – when in fact human beings were universally living as simple hunter gather societies – not tribal societies. Tribal societies are too recent  for this warlike "adaptation" to have taken effect.  So in order to make this argument stick you would have to demonstrate that war was a fact of life when we were all simple hunter gatherers way back in the distant past. And that is precisely where Diamond , Pinker et come unstuck; they cannot produce such evidence as R  Brian  Ferguson has very effectively demonstrated in the link I provided So the Diamond-Pinker hypothesis falls at the first hurdle.  What worries me is that this is an argument that has ostensibly been used to justify the need for a state as a supposed  "pacifying influence" on the population  which is allegedly prone to this innate disposition to wage on their fellow human beings.  Am I to take it that you too have become a pro-statist by virtue of your evident enthusiasm for what Diamond has to say? I sincerely hope not Stuart Oh, and just as an aside, I note in Diamond's article he saysTribal victors kill their captives and don’t take prisoners, because they can’t be readily imprisoned or exploited. Is this necessarily the case though?  Its a  long time since I read Evans Pritchard book on the Nuer so I may be wrong here  but I vaguely recall that in their sporadic fighting with the neighbouring Dinka tribe that occasionally, instead of being killed,  the defeated Dinka would simply be assimilated and became Nuer themselves .  If I recall correctly Evans Pritchard was saying that the Dinka and the Nuer were often one and the same people.  Correct me if I am wrong

stuartw2112 wrote:

Regardless of the facts in the debate about hunter gatherers, I would have thought that the merest introspection would reveal that human beings are naturally capable of and indeed delight in the most grotesque violence and stupidity (as well as kindness and intelligence). If introspection won't do it, just look at the contributions to this forum (including mine)!

 Yes but this is not saying anything profound or novel. We all know people are naturally capable of both grotesque violence as well as incredible kindness.  The much more interesting question is what causes them to behave in one way or another. I don't think that has got anything really to do with our genes

[robbo203]

YMS That Radical Anthropology article by Peter Gray you  posted a link to was very useful and informative.  In connection with this discussion I think the following passage is highly relevant: Essentially all researchers who write about the social lives of hunter-gatherers emphasize the high value placed on individual autonomy. The descriptions make it clear that hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is different from the individualism that characterizes modern, Western, capitalist cultures. Western individualism tends to pit each person against others in competition for resources and rewards. It includes the right to accumulate property and to use disparities in wealth to control the behavior of others. Thus, Western individualism tends, in principal, to set each person apart from each other person. In contrast, as Tim Ingold has most explicitly pointed out, the hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is one that connects each person to others, rather than sets them apart but does so in a way that does not create dependencies. Their autonomy does not include the right to accumulate property or to use power or threats to control others’ behavior or to make others indebted to them. Their autonomy does, however, allow people to make their own decisions from day-to-day and moment-to-moment about their own activities, as long as they do not violate the implicit and explicit rules of the band, such as rules about sharing. For example, individual hunter-gatherers are free, on any day, to join a hunting or gathering party or to stay at camp and rest, depending purely on their own preference. This is a freedom that goes far beyond the freedom of most workers in Western cultures

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