[extropy-chat] A Stateless Civilization?

[Dirk Bruere]

On 12/4/05, Technotranscendence <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> Not even a city-state?

Dirk
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