ABSTRACT
Since the Enlightenment, Western scholars have tended to organize societies along a progression from hunter-gatherers to states, each associated with certain technologies, modes of subsistence, and form of governance that allow larger and more complex polities to form. The case studies in this chapter, Jenne-Jeno and the clustered cities of Mali’s Niger Delta, the Pomo of the California coast of North America, and the Akha of the highland massif of Southeast Asia, are used to question this model. They show how anarchy, a philosophy based on unrestricted liberty, can create atomized societies that, under the right conditions, are nonetheless remarkably effective in coordinating long-distance exchange, conflict adjudication, mutual defense, and other enduring challenges of collective action. Since anarchist societies were often explicitly organized against the state, their organization and associated ethos provide insights into how global governance might occur in the absence of intergovernmental organizations like the United Nations.
