“When Adam plowed and Eve spun, who was a nobleman then?” asked the priest John Ball. Together with Stanislav Drobyshevsky, we understand how power appeared and developed in ancient society
Man is a social being, in many respects that is why he is reasonable. The rationality of a person is due to communication with other people, it gives us the opportunity to see that we are all different. However, where there is dissimilarity among people, a hierarchy appears.
From the hierarchy, in turn, comes power. Take, for example, the first people: someone hunted, someone built, someone kept the hearth. To make it all work smoothly, you need someone who will manage or command – this is power. It is good if the government does not manage for itself, does not pursue any selfish goals, does not forget about the needs of the team.
Those societies that have managed to find a balance in management between personal and collective benefits become the most successful. For example, they can learn from neighbors, do not give up new professions, enrich their language and adopt more successful methods of management.
Everything is like animals
Already in ancient times, people developed a society, but there was no control of individuals as such – unless someone especially active appeared who could lead the rest. However, it is difficult to call this power, since there is a hierarchical division into alpha, beta, gamma and other individuals in animal packs. At the same time, the animals themselves are autonomous, even if they live in groups, just being in a pack is beneficial for them – it is less likely that predators will eat or that an individual will die of hunger. Being in a team is really helpful, but the hierarchy can also be very rigid and limit development, because it is better for the top of the hierarchy that nothing changes.
There are precedents among baboons when the leaders specially led the flock to graze on less good terrain, because there the “subordinates” would be concerned with survival and would not encroach on the place of the leader.
At the same time, chimpanzees, for example, have a human, hominid kind of power. That is, it is replaceable and is no longer determined by innate properties – the size of fangs or physical strength – but by intelligence. So, in a flock of chimpanzees, an individual with congenital pathologies, old or without some part of the body, but able to manage the group, can become the main one. Conversely, there are individuals who really want to become leaders, but they lack intelligence. It also happens that someone does not really want to become a leader, but because of his sociability gains authority, even if he does not formally lead the group.
An interesting example can be found in the forests along the Congo River, where two species of chimpanzees live – common and pygmy, bonobos. They live in approximately the same forests, but ordinary in the north, and dwarf in the south. Common chimpanzees are more hierarchical and aggressive. They often kill each other, but use tools. At the same time, pygmy chimpanzees are more egalitarian and kind, but hardly use tools.
The rise of civilization
There are several stages in the development of society. The first, the main one, is when there is a herd, but there is no leader, like lemurs. Then a large community appears, where there is some kind of control, a leader that can change – this is the level of monkeys and, most likely, Australopithecus. This is followed by a community without a clearly defined leader, but with the heads of the family, where agreements between groups appear and the group already acts as the owner of the territory – and these are just people.
From the moment of the emergence of the productive economy, when the collectives expand and include more than fifty people who define their community on some basis, there is a powerful breakthrough, a central administration appears. Then, as a rule, in all civilizations, the centralization of power intensifies and gradually becomes excessive, up to absolutism.
It turns out that the most advantageous management system is based on the distribution of roles, and now it is this that prevails in all countries.
Who is the head in this house
Patriarchy and matriarchy never existed in their pure form; these are purely philosophical concepts that arose in the XNUMXth century from hypothetical ideas about the life of ancient people. It is clear that any human society consists of men and women who have different biological roles. A woman first bears a child for nine months and is limited in movement, and then she still feeds and carries it on herself. And the man supports them, provides them with the necessary resources. It is rather meaningless to consider that one of them is the main one, since all the same, the purpose of all this is offspring, ensuring the multiplication of genes. If all the extracted resources do not go to the next generation and increase the diversity and number of genes in it, then this population simply dies out.
In this sense, everything is controlled by children, because everything happens for their sake. Extreme and matriarchy, and patriarchy are losing, because they do not have the ability to support offspring.
Our days
Our modern political, social hierarchical organization is a direct consequence of all previous states, from Purgatorius through Proconsuls, Australopithecus, Pithecanthropus and down to us. We are the center of all the successes of our ancestors. Modern systems are not perfect, but they are the most perfect systems that have been created so far. They can be even better, and just as the Pithecanthropus social system has evolved, so will ours. However, this evolution depends on specific conditions – that is, if the conditions change, then the social system will change, and not the fact that for the better from the point of view of modern people.
At the same time, this will be an ideal system for descendants, because it will guarantee their survival. If they have a lot of resources, a lot of energy, and a lot of opportunities to be tolerant and calm, then they will be like that.
The system arises from necessity and from previous states, from traditions. And depending on the specific conditions – the availability of resources, territory, culture – it develops and changes. Therefore, different systems will appear, they will compete with each other.