Humans (including Neanderthals, Denisovans, etc.) existed for millennia in small hunter-gather groups. Each group made up its own behavioral rules and language or grunts. About 10,000 years ago, some homo sapiens put down roots and invented agriculture. These farmers no longer roamed around exclusively looking for wild food and game. These agricultural pioneers created communities and were inevitably forced to develop rules for living together. What kind of rules did these early communities and collections of communities develop to live together? We can only guess.
The Original Default Option: Anarchy
As much as some modern people idealize the past, life in the Paleolithic Age was not an idyllic Garden of Eden. Life was challenging before the invention of agriculture and after. In reality, whether in a community or not, life was grueling. Aside from environmental challenges, there was significant conflict between and within “peaceful” communities and marauding bands from the “warrior clan.” The warrior clan tended to create anarchy and chaos rather than stability and peace. We do not know how much violence existed in the Paleolithic Age, but since several human species became extinct, I doubt it was a peaceful period. On the bright side, homo sapiens must have developed a modicum of friendly and nurturing habits WITHIN their extended family units; otherwise, homo sapiens would have also become extinct.
Anarchy, even in modern times, is the absence or rejection of existing standards of civilization. If your neighbor has something you want or you think it is yours, you take it. The victims of your actions will likely seek revenge or restitution, but it is your free choice to live or die in anarchy. In simple terms that all Americans can understand, anarchy is the Wild West without any agreements or legal guardrails.
By definition, anarchy has no laws or binding agreements. American history is filled with instances of communities and movements that have reverted to anarchy yet appear to have a veneer of democratic respectability. In the 1800s, many anarchists were labor activists and anarcho-communists. More recently, there are countless examples of people who choose to live outside the constraints of the law. Examples include the Neo-Nazi gangs, the Oath-Keepers, the lawless reign of Alex Murdaugh and his family in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina, organized crime syndicates, and the Portland protests of 2020, which were transformed from peaceful protests into violent confrontations.
Option Number Two: Autocracy, Protection from Anarchy
Our world history books are filled with autocrats, kings, dictators, tyrants, and kleptocrats who “protected” their communities from the external warrior clan and the “Wild West” culture. They provided a haven from anarchy; they offered order. Additionally, they unilaterally extracted taxes or required their subjects to perform labor. However, in return, these “protectors” restricted the fundamental human freedoms of religion, politics, economics, personal liberty, and movement in the name of “civilization” for their protected communities.
Most autocracies follow from a period of anarchy. In modern times, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Mao, Castro, Lenin, and Putin rose from the ashes of anarchy and societal collapse. When societies begin to fail, opportunistic extremists attack institutional foundations and burn down the already crumbling house. The knee-jerk reaction to the real or imagined chaos and anarchy is the desire for a strongman to enforce order and punish the “bad people” while rewarding the “good people.” Autocrats succeed when they enforce their order over the chaos and have the implicit support of their protected populations. However, in the long run, humans tend to desire individual freedom over the shackles of autocratic “protection.”
There are many types of autocracy, including communism, oligarchy, monarchy, military dictatorship, kleptocracy, theocracy, aristocracy, etc. Among the defining characteristics of autocracy are a limitation of individual rights, the inability to remove ineffective leadership without violence, and the unequal application of “law.”
Option Number 3: The Invention of Large-Scale Democracy
There have been many short-lived proto-democracies and small, localized versions of democracies throughout history, but large-scale, long-lived democracy is a recent phenomenon. Athenian and Roman models of democracy inspired American and European Enlightenment thinkers, but since the old models did not survive, modern democracy had to be reinvented. Since democracy is not a natural or inevitable human development, a society can quickly revert to anarchy or autocracy. In later articles, I will discuss three separate cases in the development of modern democracy.
The Dutch Revolt, which shall be discussed in more detail, started in 1566 but did not result in a perfectly functioning large-scale democracy. After the Inquisition-minded Spanish were driven out, the Low Countries reverted to a collection of provincial political entities. Moreover, they eventually became the three separate countries of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Parts of what is now France and Germany were part of the Low Countries.
Nevertheless, the Dutch Revolt became an inspiration and roadmap for future large-scale democracies. It is no geographical or historical accident that the English Revolution of 1640 occurred so near the Dutch Revolt. The Dutch Revolt did not directly cause the English Revolution but did not retard it.
Benjamin Franklin called the Dutch Revolt America’s “great example” and “a proper and seasonal mirror into the history of democracy.” Another writer labeled the Dutch Revolt as the establishment of the first modern republic and the American Revolution as the second. However, most believe the Dutch Revolt was only partially successful as a democracy.
The English Civil War was another attempt at large-scale democracy. Like the Dutch Revolt, it was two steps forward, one step backward. The English King was beheaded, but an authoritarian Lord Protector was not a perfect democratic replacement. A less autocratic monarchy was restored later.
The American Revolution helped create the world’s first large-scale democracy. In the aftermath of 1776, there was no cultural mandate for a monarch to protect or control the lives of Americans or even a figurehead monarch. The US Constitution created a system of checks and balances to limit the possibility of a dictatorship or dictatorial regime. Except for the flawed slavery-inspired elements, the US Constitution was remarkable for its time. Even though the original US Constitution did not afford equal rights to women, African Americans, and other groups, it was robust enough to allow for modifications [maybe too slowly] over time, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, in order “to create a more perfect union.”