Comments on: Çatal Chattel No More

By: Roderick

Roderick — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:06:49 +0000

Well, “free, equal, and peaceful” could be accurate even if the standard of living was abysmal. “Happy” might not apply if we’re using strict Aristotelean standards, but it might well apply if it means “reasonably contented” or perhaps “significantly more contented than previously.”

By: Axel

Axel — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:12:18 +0000

But that’s what MacLeod suggests (‘free, equal, happy and peaceful…’)…

By: Roderick

Roderick — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:52:25 +0000

I don’t think it’s being defended as an ideal society — just as a successful overthrow of a nasty state that didn’t replace it with another state. As always, stateless societies should be judged by comparing them with states of comparable economic and cultural development.

By: Axel

Axel — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:02:27 +0000

According to Lawrence Angel (Angel, Lawrence J., Early neolithic skeletons from Catal Hüyük: demography and pathology, in: Anatolian Studies, Journal of the British Institute of Archeology, London, 1973) a significant number of inhabitants seem to have suffered from malnutrition, malaria and other diseases.
I am neither a medical scientist nor an archeologist, so I am not able to estimate Angel’s work; moreover I may be biased towards MacLeod because of his stance on Israel.
I might be wrong, but to me it sounds like another quest for some ‘Golden Age’…
And anyway: do we advance libertarianism by burying our dead in the kitchen?

By: Soviet Onion

Soviet Onion — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:59:52 +0000

Don't forget this earlier interpretation of the Indus Valley civilization. Similar positive evaluation, but with a more explicitly market anarchist twist.