Tgace
Grandmaster
Well. I did "do my own google" and almost every educational resource on egalitarian societies states that they pretty much only work on small scale and predominantly on a system that uses social pressures to hold people down to their "equal" roles...not something I think will ever work on a modern scale (theres a reason society developed out of them) or would even want to attempt.
http://www.thekennedylegacy.com/c4a.html
http://www.thekennedylegacy.com/c4a.html
http://www.capital.demon.co.uk/LA/sociological/myth.txtHelmut Schoeck, in his book, Envy, A Theory of Social Behaviour, goes on to explain that egalitarian societies fail to prevent envy because there can never truly be an "absolutely egalitarian society. . ." In fact, egalitarian societies increase the feelings of envy. Since its citizens expect to all be equal, they envy anyone who has any advantage or talent superior to their own. The tendency to give American children exaggerated feelings of importance and the right to never have to suffer injustice makes them more vulnerable to the emotions of envy and revenge. They easily resent anyone who surpasses them or ridicules them. In their exaggerated sense of having been wronged, because they feel so very important, they justify their acts of revenge.
THE BONDS OF SOCIETY
These models have been criticised for their `evolutionary' nature.
They assume that there will be an inevitable movement from a
primitive to a more advanced form of society. This ignores the
inbuilt stabilising mechanisms of primitive society which conspire
to preserve the status quo.
These stabilising mechanisms are best illustrated by reference to
the egalitarian/band society. The egalitarian society has no forces
of overt social control. There is no army, no police force, prisons
or state institutions. This however represents no libertarian "state
of nature". On the contrary, the egalitarian polity is the most
heavily governed and anti-individualistic of all societies. The
bonds binding society together so firmly are those of magic,
superstition, taboo and powerful social obligation.
In such a society, maintained by a complex web of taboos there is no
need for government institutions to maintain the law as the breaking
of taboo is met by lethal supernatural sanction. Certain New Guinea
tribes, for instance, until recent times believed that individuals
involved mining stone for tool making who worked harder and gained
more than their fellows would suffer from the deadly vengeance of
the mine's tutelary spirits.
As well as being pinned down by a web of taboo the individual in the
egalitarian society is further restricted by the force of kin group
obligation. In the egalitarian society the kin is the primary
political/ social unit. The kin group acts to support and give
identity to the individual. If, however, an individual starts to
rise above the tribal norm and assert his individuality, then the
kin group acts to pull him back. Increased social obligation
dissipates his resources and energies. The individual is forced to
carry the dead weight of society on his back.
Such restraints acted to hold an egalitarian society stable in
Aboriginal Australia for 25,000 years.