[P2P-F] introducing radical anthropology, a blog series

Sat Sep 10 18:15:21 CEST 2011

provocative certainly, the Patriarchal Counter Revolution seems to be a  
bit conflating. I would expect that shifts in domains and dominance shift  
also in the historical flow of time and space.

The place of origin of currency by tokens based on fixed value was a major  
democratizing event. The earliest preserved use of coins was was by Lydia  
in the Mediterranean terminus of the Silk Road. The dominant basis in the  
region for exchange was an oligarchic gift/tribute economy. The  
democratization of the Athenean/Attic economy in particular by way of  
Solon's counsel allowed the agora to develop as an open space/a'la  
commons. There is some interesting material on network based nations and  
their ports of call. The democratization of the currency and economy  
allowed small scale merchants to sustain as well. This also includes the  
establishment of brothels, which has an ambiguous role in reducing the  
oligarchy.

Understand here that the anthropology of someone like David Graeber is  
mostly focused upon the origins of the recording of debts is in also in  
the sphere of MMT to the extent that he focuses upon the recording of  
debts as in by units and monetary equivalents. It is the in payment of  
taxation that sovereign currency can act. The wealth of Croesus was  
possible only through the city state of Lydia being able and willing to  
protect and regulate economic life there in the then current hub of the  
western parts of Eurasia. Cyrus the Great and the legacy of the Persian  
Empire was that they were a pluralistic society in most ways.

The participation of the Navy of Samos, Phoenicians, and others in the  
retributive invasion of Attic Greece by Darius, as retold by Herodotus,  
tells me that the targeted Greeks were the oligarchical gift economy  
loyalists who considered merchants to be thieves. The Ionian revolt which  
led to the Persian attack upon Attic/Mycenaean Greece resulted from their  
supplying weapons and support to various city states in Anatolia/Asia  
Minor in resistance to the Persian Empire.

The details of the culture is open to all sort of speculations as a  
Lysistrata model of change as much as a culture organized on a hunting and  
gathering economy might substantiate. It would seem that in a tribal  
perspective that each and every participant of the community has a place  
in the process. That Hera/Juno declares a domain as does Dionysus and  
Janus seems productive, though less assertive.

thanks for the link,

Tadit