Value
J.McLaughlin Homepage
In the beginning, families were independent economies. It meant that the family had to take responsibility for all its needs, and family members had to cooperate and share the duties in a way that ensured survival, prosperity, and comfort. The family had to get food, water, clothing, shelter, healthcare, and learning. Over time, these independent families discovered and invented more efficient and safer ways to fulfill their needs. This enabled them to get some leisure time and accumulate wealth. As primitive technologies evolved families realized that they are good at certain tasks and suck doing the others while the family nearby is bad at the tasks they do well and does great in tasks they are not good at.
These families came in contact and decided that each would only do the tasks they were best at, and then they would exchange their products and services to get better outcomes. This worked much better among a small group of families. Naturally in these interactions some disputes happened, as was the case within each family, and these disputes were resolved mostly amicably with the help of a third family. As more efficient families started accumulating wealth, every now a then violence and theft happened, as well. As it was a small community, getting the perpetrators and enforcing restitution used to happen smoothly and swiftly. Suddenly, one powerful family with many members and weapons stood up and said that disputes, violence, and theft were becoming more common. From now on, they will take care of these problems, and all the families in the community will pay them a fee or tax for the services rendered by this family.
Other families protested. They believed they were doing fine and did not need to pay someone tax regularly for these services. This was mainly a problem for the families that were not very productive and wealthy. Paying a tax would be a substantial financial burden for them. The powerful family said that the opponents are compromising the safety and security of the whole community or tribe and will be dealt with accordingly. They even nominated one of their elders as the chief of the tribe. They also made rules regarding the special privileges of the chief family and how the chiefs must be respected and regarded by everyone. Their words will always be final. Weaker ones gave up quick and being outnumbered the everyone gave up and accepted the rule of that family, one at a time.
It seemed to work fine for a while. After sometime the serious problems started surfacing. This family kept increasing the tax and frequently perpetrated violence. was unfair in mnay disputes, was gathering an army of cronies to keep others under its thumbs and in return was providing unfair advantages to cronies. Just like the ruling family, some cronies would not work at all. Ruling family told members of the tribe these lazy people were unfortunate and the more fortunate mambers must help them. So, the tax was increased again. They also came up with the idea to conquer other families and tribes in the neighborhood to increase their wealth by stealing their products and wealth and by enslaving them.
For conquest they had to organize warriors and train them. So, the tax was increased again. It was now breaking the backs of the less productive families. Conquest started a new wave of conflict, violence and wars. Bloodshed started happening on regular basis. Plus, the members of tribe were now continuously living under the threat of an attack, as other tribes were retaliating and doing the same. Lots of males got killed in these wars. this seriously reduced the productivity of the tribe. This made it harder for women to find a mate and build a family. Surviving men and their families asked for huge dowries to merry these women. Multiple wives became a common thing, as well.
Due to reduced productivity and larger families made of multiple wives, poverty hit the tribe, leading to starvation and famine. Increasing shortages also caused massive frustration and rise in crime and violence. The ruling family, of course, was blaming everyone else and everything else except themselves. Criminals, cartels, murderers, thieves, multiple wives and lots of kids, and, of course, foreign enemies. This was also causing lots of division in the tribe. Depending upon their beliefs, learning, experience, information, knowledge, and circumstances, different individuals believed more in different aspects of the stories being told by rulers and their crony propagandists.
Some wanted a heavier hand on criminals. Others wanted to obliterate the enemies. Yet others wanted stronger armies. Some wanted more welfare. Some wanted a ban on more kids. Some wanted to end polygamy. Some members of these groups of different viewpoints were more passionate and emotional about their views than others. Hence, the division kept getting worse and worse. For an objective observer this was a dire situation. But, the ruling family looked at it from a different perspective. Quarreling people were very good for them. More divided people were better it was for their rule. However, they could not avoid the ultimate consequences and fate this way.
Soon some members of the tribe started proposing that the ruling family has failed them. So, they needed to be dethroned and replaced by a better family. In the meantime a member of the ruling family took advantage of the situation and killed the ruler.
Replacing one ruler with the other and one ruling family with the other went on for quite some time. But the problems never went away. Those actually kept getting worse after every subsequent change. Finally, some smart, intelligent, wise and knowledgable people got to the root cause of the problem. They realized that the fundamental problem is not crime or war or welfare or lazy people or violence or big families. The fundamental problem was authority. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. To solve the problems, we must take away all authority and power over others and make every individual free and sovereign.
