I suspect you’d enjoy The Dawn Of Everything, an anarchist-tinged anthropological survey of the different nonlinear paths stateless societies and state formation have taken. Or, well, it discusses a wide range of related topics, with lots of creativity and decent enough rigor. I haven’t finished yet.
I do agree that states can be seen as a game-theoretic trap, though. Once you have some centralized social violence or institutional monopoly on power, for a huge range of goals the easiest way to achieve them becomes “get the state/king/local bigwig on your side to impose what you want.” Not direct problem-solving or building up consensus. Just fighting over control of the leviathan, powerful but blunt and low-bandwidth. So in that sense, it’s pretty useful to have robust norms curbing power imbalances before they reach that tipping point.
I believe the book is rather fresh, haven’t read it yet. But reading Graeber was always fun and thought-provoking, I’ve even exchanged few emails with him back when it was still possible. On the rigor side though I am not that convinced :)
I haven’t seen the latest book, but the older ones I’ve seen were written in the traditional anthropological way, mostly as collections of anecdata. That’s not an objection specifically against Graeber. Anthropology was always done that way. But rigor-wise it doesn’t compare to more modern stuff, like, say, Joe Henrich.
In this one there is plenty of archeological evidence as it is co-authored by D.Wengrow who is a Professor of Comparative Archaeology.
I believe Graeber could benefit from a more insistent editor. His writing sometimes seems like ‘stream of consciousness’ and outside of the constraints of academic distinction.
On the other hand, his work and ideas circulate well beyond the discipline or anthropology and well beyond academia which allowed him to write in his own way I guess.
I suspect you’d enjoy The Dawn Of Everything, an anarchist-tinged anthropological survey of the different nonlinear paths stateless societies and state formation have taken. Or, well, it discusses a wide range of related topics, with lots of creativity and decent enough rigor. I haven’t finished yet.
I do agree that states can be seen as a game-theoretic trap, though. Once you have some centralized social violence or institutional monopoly on power, for a huge range of goals the easiest way to achieve them becomes “get the state/king/local bigwig on your side to impose what you want.” Not direct problem-solving or building up consensus. Just fighting over control of the leviathan, powerful but blunt and low-bandwidth. So in that sense, it’s pretty useful to have robust norms curbing power imbalances before they reach that tipping point.
I believe the book is rather fresh, haven’t read it yet. But reading Graeber was always fun and thought-provoking, I’ve even exchanged few emails with him back when it was still possible. On the rigor side though I am not that convinced :)
I highly recommend the dawn of everything as well. It is probably the most recent, up to date book on stateless societies.
Why do you have a problem with ‘rigor’ side in his books?
I haven’t seen the latest book, but the older ones I’ve seen were written in the traditional anthropological way, mostly as collections of anecdata. That’s not an objection specifically against Graeber. Anthropology was always done that way. But rigor-wise it doesn’t compare to more modern stuff, like, say, Joe Henrich.
In this one there is plenty of archeological evidence as it is co-authored by D.Wengrow who is a Professor of Comparative Archaeology.
I believe Graeber could benefit from a more insistent editor. His writing sometimes seems like ‘stream of consciousness’ and outside of the constraints of academic distinction.
On the other hand, his work and ideas circulate well beyond the discipline or anthropology and well beyond academia which allowed him to write in his own way I guess.