-- On 16 Feb 2005 at 0:30, Justin wrote:
Judging from social dynamics and civil advancement in the animal kingdom, monarchies developed first and property rights were an afterthought.
Recently existent neolithic agricultural peoples, for example the New Guineans, seldom had kings, and frequently had no form of government at all other than that some people were considerably wealthier and more influential than others, but they always had private property. This corresponds to the cattle herding people we read depicted in the earliest books of the old testament. They had private property, wage labor, and all that from the beginning, but they do not develop kings until the book of Samuel, long after they had settled down and developed vineyards and other forms of sedentary agriculture: Judges 17:6 "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes" Thus both our recent observation of primitive peoples, and our written historical record, shows that private property rights long preceded government. Our observations of governments being formed show that governments are formed primarily for the purpose of attacking private property rights. You want to steal something like land or women, you need a really big gang. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG of/pZSLkKATIjG0fWzPvEZnxIsBE/Q0Se80Gx178 4LGYWiIfc2+Us4l38hwPX8mK0CR7hBpVkJ952v8/D