the native americans and at one time all of humanity have been in extreme primativism. Why is this? Could it be due to some oppressive "indian statism" that ruled over the tribe so perfectly that it kept their civilization back and if so, could this be the case with people like gauls, britons, germans, etc.? I lack any info. so maybe there is something on mises that can help me?
And perhaps another question: How did the state ever get formed? Does Austrianism imply any kind of "materialist view of history" where incentives towards the state can be said to have "determined" the point of state growth? Obviously, austrian econ. can predict the fall of a state, why not the rise of one?
wombatron: I could be wrong, but I think that North American Indians were as primitive as they were because of European diseases spreading through the populations. There were civilizations at least comparable to the Aztecs and Maya along the Mississippi and Missouri and in the Pacific Northwest that were mostly destroyed by disease, before extensive contact was made with Europeans.
I could be wrong, but I think that North American Indians were as primitive as they were because of European diseases spreading through the populations. There were civilizations at least comparable to the Aztecs and Maya along the Mississippi and Missouri and in the Pacific Northwest that were mostly destroyed by disease, before extensive contact was made with Europeans.
That doesn't answer the question. Native Americans, before the year 1492, were not as technologically advanced as Europeans or Asians.
Can we blame it on "Indian Statism"? No. But it is true that societies advance at different rates because of the institutions they possess.
Unless people presuppose that the world operates in an orderly way science is impossible. You won't look for patterns in nature unless you expect them to be there. In societies that believed that world was controlled by a multitude of unpredictable gods, that behave as humans do, science did not flourish.
Like wise, in Medieval Christian Europe people believed that God had created an orderly world and sought to describe it.(many of the most learned scientists were monks) But in the Islamic world it was thought that while God behaved in a certain way today, he might change his habits tomorrow, at least no human was in a position to claim that he would not. In which area did science advance, and in which did it stagnate?
Peace
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
really, I tried to look it up but I think these civilizations were around and fell (with the exception of the aztec and incas and to an extent the maya) before the europeans made contact -they fell in the late middle ages perhaps 100 or 50 years before columbus.
At least in the case of the Mississipians, there was some limited contact. According to the Wikipedia article, it appears to be a combination of European diseases, the introduction of horses (which allowed nomadism), and the Little Ice Age.
That states encourage primitivism is certainly true, though, as can be seen in the history of the relatively static cultures of Sumeria, Egypt, and China, compared to the relatively free Greeks and Romans (at least early on in the latter).
Communal property is the default state of primitive tribes, and is what keeps them primitive. Until they discover a social system that enables capital accumulation, some form of private property, they never settle into a civilization.
As for the state, that happened when governments created bureaucracies in order to exercise indirect power over territories much greater than what direct power, or hierarchies of power, allow.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
No, in fact Austrians would argue in favour of explanations making sense of ideological factors and thus ideas. I guess you could get a materialist explanation. Hoppe has written on the origin of the state and the variety of theories encompassing the topic. Look up the exogenous/endogenous theories on the Mises website.
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
In my opinion, they didn't change for the same reason the Steppe people didn't change for thousands of years. What they did worked and left them wanting for nothing; until some real competition came along. In both instances this change was the gun. Crack horse archers and skirmishing are nothing compared to a line of rifles.
wombatron:There were civilizations at least comparable to the Aztecs and Maya along the Mississippi and Missouri and in the Pacific Northwest that were mostly destroyed by disease, before extensive contact was made with Europeans.
The North American Indians were never that advanced. Note there are no ruins of cities like the Aztecs and Maya built to be found north of the Rio Grande. And the Aztec, Inca, and Maya were not all that advanced either. Not one civilization in the western hemisphere had developed the wheel yet when Europeans arrived.
For a good look at life in the western hemisphere before Columbus see War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage by Keeley.
JonBostwick: Like wise, in Medieval Christian Europe people believed that God had created an orderly world and sought to describe it.(many of the most learned scientists were monks) But in the Islamic world it was thought that while God behaved in a certain way today, he might change his habits tomorrow, at least no human was in a position to claim that he would not. In which area did science advance, and in which did it stagnate?
Science has developed greatly in the Islamic world (i.e. algebra).It's even argued that the scientific method is based on the ideas of Muslim scientists
The Morning Star:In my opinion, they didn't change for the same reason the Steppe people didn't change for thousands of years. What they did worked and left them wanting for nothing; until some real competition came along.
Agreed. It makes no sense to assume that, given well-defined property rights, civilization will inevitably grow, or that civilization is objectively preferable to its alternative (subjective value and whatnot).
Diminishing Marginal Utility - IT'S THE LAW!
Some indian states were very advanced. It just kind of depends. They never really had high demand for increased technology, they just lived off the lands. They had wide open spaces, low populations, and surplus natural goods, so living was comfortable-enough. But that's just kind of my guess. It seems like its not until scarcities show up, that civilization takes root.
Thank You - Brandon
CorporateGhost: JonBostwick: Like wise, in Medieval Christian Europe people believed that God had created an orderly world and sought to describe it.(many of the most learned scientists were monks) But in the Islamic world it was thought that while God behaved in a certain way today, he might change his habits tomorrow, at least no human was in a position to claim that he would not. In which area did science advance, and in which did it stagnate? Science has developed greatly in the Islamic world (i.e. algebra).It's even argued that the scientific method is based on the ideas of Muslim scientists
Europe was in the dark ages for a long length of time while the Islamic world flourished with advancement in science. At the time the Islamic world was much more of a free-market with little regulations on trade. Just look at Al-Andalus as an example. The advent of powerful rampant statism in the Islamic world is what led to a halt in scientific advancement- not the idea that a human would not know what God is up to.
After some research on mises it seems that the indians were basically anarcho-socialists (or to avoid semantic arguments that seem to inevitably stem from this word, voluntary socialists). This is a great surprise to me -so for thousands of years not one indian really felt like making a wheel or forging iron? Indians must be extraordinarily unambitious and it focuses me on this question:
Is it true that tribal people's tend to be voluntarily primitive?
Or as still others here say -are they somehow oppressed by involuntary hierachies?
As for the debate about muslims and chrisians I would have to say that it was institutions that altered the economic prospects of these countries and not just bad ideas. Bad ideas may be a necessary condition for a culture to collapse but bad institutions are sufficient alone. Indeed, granting the position that ideas corrupted the muslims they still had a way around this and this was that they held science and religion in two distinct spheres allowing one to progress without the aid or disadvantages of the other.
fakename: After some research on mises it seems that the indians were basically anarcho-socialists (or to avoid semantic arguments that seem to inevitably stem from this word, voluntary socialists). This is a great surprise to me -so for thousands of years not one indian really felt like making a wheel or forging iron? Indians must be extraordinarily unambitious and it focuses me on this question: Is it true that tribal people's tend to be voluntarily primitive? Or as still others here say -are they somehow oppressed by involuntary hierachies?
You must not apply European social standards to primitive societies. In the case of the American Indians, it may literally be the case that they did not know of any other way to organize society than the anarcho-socialist way. What kept them primitive was the fact that they did not have any tradition of private property or social science to tell them to do things any other way. If you look at Western civilization, primitivism lasted for literally tens of thousands of years until the first capital-accumulating civilizations sprung up. It may have taken tens of thousands of year more for the American Indians to do the same.
This does provide a lesson of what kind of society the anarcho-socialists want to bring about: a world of primitive material well-being where the population has been significantly reduced from its current level. This is why the honest anarcho-socialists first want the state to destroy capitalism, and most of the population that it supports, before bringing about the anarcho-socialist system. If it must compete with capitalist society then it will be unsustainable.