Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology

Society Aguinst the State Essays

in Political Anthropology

Pierre Clastres

Translated

by Robert HurleY

in collaboration

with Abe Stein

Z-oNI]

IIO()KS

NE'W 1989

YORK

Contents

:i:'J::::"'." rzz6 Prospect Avenue Brooklyn, NY rrzr8

Copernicus and the

Savages

7

A1l rights reserved. Sixth Printing'

2007

Originally published g 1974 Editions de

as

Exchonge ond Power: Philosophy La Socjitd contre I'dtot

lndependence and

Minuit

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in

a

photocopy-

The Bow and the

the

49

Basket

1o

1

ing, microfilming, recording, or otherwise (except

for that copying permitted by Sections ro7 and ro8 of

What Mokes lndians

Lough

1-29

the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission

from

The

Duty to Speak 15

1

the Publisher. Prophets

in

the

Jungle 157

Printed in the United States of America. Distributed by The MIT

Press,

Of the One Without the

Many

16 9

Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England

Of Torture in Primitive Societies lf f Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-5q96

Society Against the rsBN 978-0-942299

ot-+

Indian chieftainship 27

Demography

Elements of Amerindion

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical,

Exogamy

of

State

1

89

77

Copernicus and the Savages

Someone said to Socrates

that a

certain mon hod grown no better in his trovels.

"l

should think

not," he said. "He took himself along with him." 14ontaigne

Can serious questions regarding power be asked? A fragment

of

in all ages, as long as mankind has existed, there have also been human herds (clans, Beyond Good and Evrl begins: "lnasmuch as

communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches), and always a great number who obey in comparison with the small number who command - in view, therefore, of the fact that obedience has been most practiced and fostered among mankind hitherto, one may reasonably suppose that the need for it is now innate in everyone, as a kind of formal conscience which gives the command: 'Thou shalt unconditionally do something, unconditionally refrain from something'; in short, 'Thou Shalt."'[Jnconcerned as he often is about the true and false in his sarcasm, Nietzsche in his way, nonetheless, isolates and accurately defines a field of reflection once

consigned to speculative thought alone, but which for roughly two decades has been entrusted to truly scientific research. At issue is the space of the political, at whose center po rer poses its questions: new themes - new in social anthropology - o[a growing number of studies. That ethnology so belatedly developed an interest in the political dimension of archaic societies - its preferential object, after all - is, as I shall try to show, something not alien to the very problematic of power. It is, rather, evidence of a spontaneous mode, immanent to our culture and therefore very traditional, ofunderstanding the political relations that prolif-

infbrmed discussion of the latest vvork in animal biologl,

-

a

discus-

sion not at all academic, although predictablc in its outcome

-

the

"The critical examination of acquired knowledge rcgarding social phenomena among animals, and in particular

ans\ rer is clear:

rergarding thcir processes of self:regulation, has shown us the absence oltany form, even embrvonic, of political power..." (p. 212).By clearing this terrain, the author has secured his incluirv against the risl< of exhausting itself in that direction. He can then turn to the scicnces of culture and history in order to examine the "archaic" lirrrns of political power in human societies. The thoughts that

erate in other societies. But the lag is being compensated for, the

lirllolv nere especiallv prompted bv a reading of those

deficiencies made good. There are now enough texts and descriptions so that one may speak of a political anthropology, measure its findings, and reflect on the nature ofpower, its source, and the transformations history fbrces upon it, depending on the types of society in which it is exercised. It is an ambitious project, but also a necessary task, one accomplished in J. W. Lapierre's substantial work, Essoi sur le fondement du pouvoir politique.t It is an undertaking all the more worthy of interest since this book assembles and applies a body of information concerning not just hr.rman societies but the social animal species as well; moreover, its author is a philosopher whose mind is brought to bear on the data provided by the modern disciplines of "animal sociology" and ethnology. It is then the question o{'political power and, quite justifiably, J. W. Lapierre asks first whether this human lhct corresponds to any vital necessity; whether it unfblds from biological roots; whether * in other words - power has its birthplace and raison d'etre in nature and not in culture. At the end of a patient and

t() l)()wcr among the Savages. 'l lrc range of societies corsidered is impressive r'vide enough , to ilisl;el anv doubts the exacting reader might have as to the exhaus-

1. J. W. Lapierre, en-Provcncc.1968

Lssoi sur le

fondcment du pottvoir politique, Publication rlc la lrar:ult(

rl'Aix-

pages

devoted

tiv('nature of the sampling, since the analysis is based on examplt's takcn from Afr-ica, the three Americas, the South Sea Islands, Silrt'ri.r, ancl so on. In short, given its geographical and typological v,rlicty, an all but complete anthology of every diflerence the "primitivr"' worlon it. In orrlcr to L:scape the attraction of its native earth and

14

)\

to furnish the answer; our aim has been merely to state r'r.hy previous answers are unsatislactorv and on u,hat condition a correct alls\\,er is possible. This is the same as delining the task of ageneral, not

a

attain real freedom of tlrorrglrt, irr

,,r', lr,t lo Prrll itself away from the fbcts of natural history irr rllrir lr it r orr(irlrr,s to flounder, re[)ection on power must eflbc t r "lrr.lior r.n t lit," r'onvt:rsion: it will then

Exchange and Power

perhaps succeed in bettt.r'rrrrrlt.r'st,rrrrlirrg llrt.world of others, and consequently our own. 'l'hc: p,ttlr ol ils r'rrnvr.r'sion is shown, moreover, by a contemporary mirr