Poznámky ku knihe autorov Allen W. Johnson & Timothy Earle. Ide o zrejme často citované dielo, malo by predstavovať súčasný reprezentatívny pohľad na vývoj sociálnej organizovanosti ľudských spoločenstiev od jednotlivej rodiny po štátne formy.

Úvod (Introduction)

• Zhoda v tom, že ľudská spoločnosť sa vyvíja od ranných malých tlúp po neskoršie veľké spoločnosti.
• Pozorované tri vzájomne prepojené evolučné procesy:
  
  • subsistence intensification — intenzifikácia živobytia?
  • politická integrácia
  • sociálna stratifikácia

Boas oddelil rasu od kultúry, pretože indivídum:

take on the cultural characteristics of the communities in which they are raised, whatever their racial backgrounds.

Teda predpoklad vrodenej rovnosti všetkých, bez ohľadu na evolučnú minulosť. Popieranie evolúcie. Každá kultúra je u neho týmto jedinečná, nemá minulosť.

Service, on the other hand, took a more ecological perspective. He did not see how leaders could dominate the political process unless they provided real value to their followers and subjects. Uncontrollably greedy and aggressive individuals, after all, are often killed off in egalitarian societies. Leaders organize war parties and defenses, build and maintain irrigation systems, store food as famine relief, and manage intergroup trade. People allow them a greater share of community wealth precisely because they are necessary to the well-being of community members. In this version of multilinear evolutionism, a leader’s success would vary depending on local need for the organization of labor and the control and development of resources.

Typické pre antropocentrické nazeranie je to posudzovanie užitočnosti, či neužitočnosti lídra pre ostatných.

A more productive approach is to acknowledge that the resort to aggression to achieve one’s goals is part of our biological heritage and that what is to be explained is how aggression is expressed under varying circumstances. Then it becomes clear that aggression takes forms appropriate to the social and political systems in which it occurs.

• Usmerňovanie agresie. Agresia ako organizačný faktor, zvyšujúci komplexitu
• V malých tlupách agresia neviedie k cyklu krvnej pomsty
• Medzi tlupami treba organizovaný útok ⇒ vyššia miera komplexity

Podla substantivistu Polanyiho (1957) si ľudia sprostredkujú tovar tromi úplne odlišnými spôsobmi:

• recipročná výmena
• redistribúcia
• trhová výmena

Chýba tu evolučný kontext. Ako by sa zrazu obavili tri formy?

As we shall see, the behavior described in our case studies is seldom in conflict with these basic principles. But because they are basic, and more or less universal, they alone cannot help us understand the patterned differences we find among types of human societies. Human nature is distinguished by its malleability to different necessities. To explain these differences in human behavior, we need a theory encompassing patterns of adaptation characteristic of particular combinations of population, environment, and technology.

Správne si všíma, že čisté motivácie popísané evilučnou psychilógiou nestačia na popísanie správania, pretože sú síce záakladom, ale kultúry sú rôzne.

As problem solvers, leaders manage the economy to the advantage of constituent families, increasing the benefits of participation in the political economy as population pressure grows. Saying the same thing in other words, the cost to the household of not participating in the political economy becomes unbearable-in and lands, what farm family can turn its back on the elites who control the irrigation water? We visualize the evolving political economy as expanding like a bubble. For families inside the bubble the benefits of participating in the political economy exceed the costs; for those outside, the costs exceed the benefits.

• Rozširujúca sa bublina ekosystému mémplexov.
  

Always in search of new sources of revenue, chiefs seek to expand their territorial control by conquest.

Nevypovedaný predpoklad, že základná motivácia je chamtivosť. Rovnako môže ísť o prestíž, o dokazovanie oprávnenosti vodcovstva.

Štát je od osobnostnej štruktúry tak vzdialený, že:
* na jednej strane môže byť preto spoločný pre príbuzne málo spoločné skupiny jedincov, a teda môže zahŕňať veľké populácie,
* na strane druhej ovšem k tomu potrebuje násilie, teda mémy moci.