Status and Behaviour -2

The general tendency in the history has been towards formation of hierarchies with an equally natural tendency to oppose it. The two opposing forces are working at the same time. This also explains the need for great movements against hierarchy which often led to bloodbath.


With the discovery of agriculture, which was a stupendous change in the history of mankind, the institution of private property came into existence. The stage of hunter, food gatherer required that the small tribes moved in search of food from here to there. This movement of people from one place to another place obviated any need or desire of a man to claim a piece of land as his own. It was not certain that the tribe was going to be back to that place in near future. And there was no use of land as private property. It yielded nothing that he could use directly and which was under his control. All the food he gathered was from the trees or shrubs that he did not know how to plant. The nature planted them for him from place to place in a natural way. He could claim any particular tree as his own. However, one trait was possibly there which prepared the ground for future private property institution. The finder was the keeper. Anybody who found a particular food could consume it himself. And keep the rest for others in tribe. Later it translated into private property where first user of the land was the owner. With the discovery of agriculture the human society was able to produce regularly more then its immediate needs. It was no longer necessary to go everyday for hunting or for food gathering to forests. The grains being dry in nature were not immediately perishable like fruits and meat. Thus, food could be stored for a longer period. The development of agriculture technology was in fact an important step of man towards the control of nature. Now the man was no longer chasing the nature in the form of hunter and food gatherer, he could now control it. His food supply was no longer controlled by the whimsical acts of nature. The man now could clear the forest, prepare the field, sow the seed; when the crop maturee he could reap and store it. And clear as much as forest as he needed it. This led to a settled life. There was no longer any need to move from place to place in search of food. Now he could live near the land giving him the food. Also being settled meant that he could no longer act or move in a random manner. Some kind of order was needed. To prevent two men fighting to cultivate the same piece of land; it was necessary to allot them the land. It was absolutely necessary to avoid the violence. The random desire to cultivate any piece of land meant invitation to violence. Or stronger men pushed the weaker men out of the prime land. However, it was necessary to identify a man with a given piece of land to maintain peace. Randomness was not going to work; some kind of order was needed; the agriculture itself required an organized way of operating. The durable identification of man with a specific piece of land led to the notion of belongingness that developed in the notion of private property. Some authority was needed to implement the order and thus a king like authority emerged which was strong enough to safeguard people’s claim to land. For this the authority extracted some part of food surplus. This authority also needed warrior men who could fight with the marauding tribes who still had not learnt the technology of agriculture. Or the society had to agree to give the plunderers a share of the crops whenever they came. The defenders of society obviously needed a part of surplus produced by the society. It was possible since the cultivators were producing more than they needed. Obviously those who controlled the people and defended the land were more powerful than the owner cultivators. Or the one who had more land came to be more powerful. In a sense the hierarchy was developed. At the top was the man who controlled the men not the land. With the warriors or soldiers under his control he could change the ownership of the land. Then there were his courtiers and the owners of the land and then came the actual cultivators. These owners and cultivators could have been the same if the piece of land in question was small. But if the land was large enough then the owners and cultivators could be different. The cultivators were having lower rankings. Naturally, those who were low in ranking had low powers and those high in ranking had high powers.


Another group of people, which came into important existence, was the group of shamans or later day priests. A man is not only a social being but he is also a curious and thinking animal along with being physically weak and nurtures a fear of unknown powerful things. He needs reasons and explanations for the events in the nature. The shamans and later religious people were able to convince the people of the supposedly higher live powers behind the natural events and also the existence of life after death. The natural powers like lightening, rain and other had a terrifying effect on people’s life. So the people supposedly in contact with the God and spirits came to be powerful and thus authoritative. Super natural things had a very important place in the life. The people supposedly connected with super natural powers came to acquire the supposed super natural powers. It was another group of influential people which extracted the surplus from the cultivators. Societies having faith in super natural powers paid their shamans and priests handsomely in kind. These shamans and priests traded in people’s natural fears.


Thus the people connected with temporal power and others connected with super natural powers extracted their share and had the highest status in the society. However further labor specialization took place with advancement in technology. Many more occupations came into existence. These were carpenter, forger, weaver and potter etc. These people got their share of produce in exchange of their services or goods. These were the lower ranking people similar to cultivators.