Social Hierarchical Analysis

In charting the origin of social hierarchies and control systems, many radical theorists take a materialist stance, and attribute authoritarian behavior to surpluses resulting from agricultural production and other aspects of the civilization process. The fact that some non-agricultural, hunter-gatherer societies developed hierarchical social structures offers a critical contradiction to the materialist view, and presents the key to understanding the origin of hierarchy. Anarchists, whether we wish to abolish all the cultural artifacts of Western civilization as inherently oppressive or to retain certain aspects of civilization, would do well to learn the partial extent to which civilization and hierarchy are concomitant.

Civilization being …show more content…
Rather, hierarchy is a result of a people’s social strategies, but agriculture and other technological progressions allow nascent hierarchies to become much more complex, authoritarian, and violent. Even worse, the military advantages that inhere in agriculture — such as higher population density, disease resistance from living with animals in sedentary communities, and metal tools — allow civilization’s more developed hierarchies to be spread by expanding nations and conquering …show more content…
Complex foragers are more dependent on a small range of foods, and thus vulnerable to the vagaries of climate and other natural changes, and also more sedentary, thus unable to spread out their ecological impact. 10,000 years ago, the climate changed again, and the territory of cereal and nut populations began shrinking. The complex foragers were faced with a choice: adapt to changes in the environment by reverting to a simple forager strategy, or artificially preserve the abundance of their key foods by saving and planting the seeds. Some groups did choose to become simple foragers again, while others developed horticulture and