People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy

Front Cover
Kahn & Averill, 1990 - Anarchism - 162 pages
Anarchy, as the absence of government, is neither chaos nor some impossible Utopian dream. In fact it is a very common form of political organisation and one which has characterised much of the human past. People Without Government describes briefly the anarchic political structures of a number of these societies. True they are mainly small-scale hunting, gathering and horticultural groups. However, the social organisation of certain large populations with complex relations is also sometimes anarchic. Thus anarchy applies to a broad spectrum of different kinds of societies.

Contents

Preface by Alex Comfort 73
11
On the Nature of Anarchy
15
Some Observations on Procedure
35
Anarchy among HunterGatherers
39
Anarchist Gardeners
55
Anarchist Herders
83
Anarchy in Agricultural Societies
93
Anarchy in the Modern World
108
Do Anarchic Politics have a Message?
121
Bibliography
151
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