[extropy-chat] A Stateless Civilization?

[Technotranscendence]

Sadly, Thomas J. Thompson's "An Ancient Stateless Civilization: Bronze
Age India and the State in History" is only currently available in the
print edition of _The Independent Review_ 10(3) [Winter 2006].  Anyhow,
I recommend it even if I'm not completely satisfied with Thompson's
argument for Harappan civilization being stateless...  But he offers a
compelling case given the limits of the evidence.

If he's right, this would be a whole civilization and the stateless
period seems to have lasted about 700 years.  I've noticed a tendency
among critics of anarchism to claim that no society of any appreciable
size has remained anarchist for long.  When one points to Medieval
Iceland, one problem is, of course, that even though the stateless
period lasted about three centuries, Icelandic society during that time
never formed cities -- it was an essential non-urban or pre-urban
society.  Well, Harappan civilization did.  So, if the stateless thesis
is correct, it presents an interesting case of a long lived, _urban_
civilization without a state.

Regards,

Dan
http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/