Tag Archives: capitalism

Cooperation and Competition: Clovis Hunters and Gatherers

 

The Clovis people were the first that have been identified to come to the western hemisphere across the land bridge from Asia. There may have been others that preceded them, but they have not been identified.

Clovis hunters passed on their hunting skills and knowledge to the generations that followed. The Clovis men required intimate knowledge of their homeland so that their descendants could also survive the harsh conditions there during the tail end of the last Ice Age. As David Hurst Thomas explained, “This is why men wanted to stay put, insisting that the wife must leave her family and immediate homeland. The way Clovis men saw it, their familiarity with the land spelled the difference between life and death.” This attitude became part of the lasting heritage of Indigenous people in the Americas. A close connection to their environment—the land—is a vital part of their culture and identity. This attitude has been passed down for generations by all kinds of Indigenous peoples.

In Clovis society labor was usually divided along lines of gender. It was likely in part determined by physiological differences and also age.

As David Hurst Thomas described it life of Clovis people was closely bound to their roles in hunting and gathering:

“For physiological reasons , adult women are mostly responsible for nourishing and socializing infants and small children. These physical constraints led foraging women to do things that did not interfere with childcare and that could be performed near home. Yet even in male-dominated Clovis society, women provided critically important every everyday sustenance by cooking and collecting stationary resources such as plants and firewood. Women probably also took care of the meat after the hunt. Many times, their daily caloric contribution must have spelled the difference between survival and catastrophe.’

Not only that, as Yuval Harari showed, the gathering part of such societies was actually often more significant than the hunting as it provided for more sustenance. Yet Clovis society revolved around what men did. No surprise there. Men always seem to have a strong desire to be at the centre of most civilizations, whether justified or not. But really both genders played crucial roles in Clovis societies. As Thomas reports,

“Other biological factors must have charged adult men with the primary responsibility for safeguarding the home. The Clovis life style centered on the male hunter.  Those stalwarts felling six-ton mammoths must have been richly rewarded in ritual and folklore, in tribute and in station. But in truth, it was the primary male-female symbiotic bond that enabled Clovis society to survive.’

There is another factor that contributed greatly to the success of the First Americans and that is one that many moderns discount. Many people in the west, shaped by the economic forces of capitalism and its imposition of an ideology of competition have ignored the important role of co-operation. Humans are social animals.

The world famous Harvard scientist E.O. Wilson has called these the eusocial creatures. These are creatures that have learned that by containing multiple generations, these organisms are prone to employ altruistic acts as part of their division of labor. They are what he called “technically comparable to ants, termites, and other eusocial insects.” Wilson emphasized of course that that there are fundamental differences between humans and insects, such that most humans compete with each other in the force of reproduction.

Many people have noticed that in places of difficult living conditions such as the far north of Canada, the ability to co-operate is essential to survival. Rugged individualism does not work well in such places. To some extent the Clovis world in North America during the last Ice Age was also such a place. As David Hurst Thomas said,

“Another survival secret was their absolute dedication to reciprocity. Regardless of who killed an animal, or who harvested a plant, everyone was entitled to a share. Even the most esteemed hunter failed sometimes, and this prudent practice of sharing yielded all from short-term setbacks. Great honor was accorded to those who provided best and to those who share most willingly. Food hoarding was a public and criminal transgression.”

These attitudes were passed on to subsequent descendants of the First Americans. Later such attitudes evolved into what others have called the World with One Spoon, gift giving and the potlatch and most recently egalitarianism.

As far as researchers can tell, the Clovis people continued to grow and prosper but eventually they died out. Many of the later Indigenous peoples were however descended from these earlier humans—the First Americans. And many of those early traditions were carried forward.

Why waste time talking about Trump?

 

Some have raised many important issues in messages to me as a result of my blogs. I could bore you with a long diatribe. I tend to that to people. So I will bore you with a shorter diatribe. Some will say not short enough. So be it.

To begin with, as has been suggested by others, I don’t think it is useful to waste a lot of time haranguing Donald Trump. Frankly, he is not worth it. Yet he is the American President and as we know, every time the US coughs Canada gets a cold. As well, it scares me just to think he has his finger on the nuclear button. And it is a big one you know. And it works.

More importantly, about 50 million people voted for him and many of those still like him.  This really scares me. Many people just want to see Trump go away. I do. But that will not end much. Who will those 50 million support the next time? Someone even worse? Trump is just a symptom of a disease.

I think Trump is a demagogue with authoritarian tendencies. Similar potential leaders have had significant support all over Europe. This is an international phenomenon.

If you have time, I urge you to read a marvelous (and short!) book by Timothy Snyder called On Tyranny. Snyder is an expert historian who is familiar with how tyrannies have arisen in the last century. Remember that Hitler was elected before he became a dictator. He did that by preying on the fears of people and finding scapegoats.

Part of the reason so many people voted for him, I believe, is that people, particularly in the US, have for more than a hundred years been accustomed to making important decisions without the benefit of reason. They have made decisions on the basis of faith, rather than reason. They are used to doing that.

Kurt Anderson has written a book on the subject called Fantasyland. So far I have just read a brief summary in Atlantic magazine. I am waiting for the paperback. Sometimes it hurts to be a cheap Menno. His thesis is that Americans have spent 500 years making important decisions on the basis of fantasies rather than reason. They believe on the basis of what they want to be true, rather than on the basis of what the evidence supports. Trump is just part of that process. Many people, particularly people who are unemployed or underemployed, believe Trump can help them, even though the evidence does not support that conviction. Yet they believe it. They have abdicated their reason.

A lot of people are in despair. Around the world. That is understandable given how the lot of most people has seriously deteriorated in the last 40 years, while the lot of the elites has risen sharply. Inequality has risen by astonishing amounts. Rich people have done amazingly well while ordinary people have seen their incomes decline.

The people who have not done well and daily see how well others have done, because the modern media makes sure that everyone knows, are filled with resentment. Resentment is an explosively dangerous force. It is blind to reason. Near home a few years ago a dairy farmer was mad at his wife who wanted a divorce and got so angry that he burned his barn down with all of the cows inside. And he did that  after cancelling his fire insurance. If he could not have it all no one else would have any of it. It was totally irrational. People consumed with resentment can do that.

About a year ago, a man in Alberta who was facing a divorce from his wife, murdered her and their children. If he could not have his family no one could. So he killed them all and then killed himself. Again it made no difference how irrational this was. People blinded by resentment can do that.

People in the modern world are not only resentful of their loss of money, and status, they are deeply insecure. Capitalists, as we all know, have been forced in recent recessions to lay off workers. That is hard and it is profoundly unnerving to those laid off. This has happened over and over again. As a result many people, particularly after the most recent recession feel a deep sense of insecurity. Even though capitalism has produced amazing wonders, it is deeply flawed if it needs to create such misery. Such a system is broken.

This has happened all over the world, but particularly in places like Appalachia, in the US. Many there are resentful and desperate. They justifiably gave up on both Obama and Hillary Clinton. Who can blame them? But they turned to an unlikely source for help. Donald Trump. A billionaire that had no empathy for them. As I have said before, “Trump has the empathy of a turnip.” But at least he heard them. Clinton was deaf. No wonder people turned to Trump over Clinton.

I have little doubt that his supporters will be disappointed in Trump. He is no savior. Voting for him was also deeply irrational. Many people in the United States wanted a personal wrecking ball who would destroy the system. I have met such people on my current trip to the United States. There are surprisingly many of such people. It did not matter who would be hurt by Trump’s actions. It did not matter that he would not help them. As we know he has done nothing for them. He has drastically reduced taxes on the wealthy and unsurprisingly very few people still believe that the way to help poor people is to give money to rich people. That is what Trump and many Republicans believe.

I am not trying to create class divisions as one person suggested to me. As Warren Buffet, hardly a leftwing radical, said, ‘for the past few decades we have been in a class war and my class has won. The rich people.’ The class war, if there is one, or was one, is over. Donald Trump is just the culmination of that process.

I fear that rich people in the US in particular have seized the government to their own advantage and are blind to the damage they have done. They have got temporary benefits as a result, but do not see how the resentment is building up and how dangerous that can be. How will the resentful people explode next time? Who will be the next wrecking ball? This is one of the reasons I say that capitalists are the greatest danger for capitalism.

I really think, the rich people have done a massive disservice to everyone–not the least to themselves! And not least to the system that brought them such prosperity. I am not a revolutionary. They are.