Characteristics of “The Political” Organizations Page

Characteristics of “The Political” Organizations

Bands

1. Small groups of foragers, hunter-gatherers, kin-based,
2. Dozen or more
3. Mobile, travel long distances across their landscapes
4. Egalitarianegalitarian does not mean "equal," rather it means equal access to resources for survival societies
5. Lack of social status or hierarchy
6. No bureaucracy

Tribes

1. Larger than bands, with more members, 1 or more villages
2. Usually travels less – can be mobile or fixed settlements
3. Pastoralisma way of making a living focused on domestication of animals, which includes herding and breeding; pastoralists are mobile, meaning they move their herds seasonally or to access available water holes or better food resources for their animals and/or non-intensive foodany nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb, in order to maintain life and growth production (horticulturea type of cultivation of the soil with hand tools, not mechanized using animals or other power)
4. Specialized hunters
5. Have chief, or “Big Mana male person in the tribe who is designated as someone who may solve problems and negotiate conflicts; this person has more influence than power and has no control over people's lives; the "Big Man" can also be overpowered and ousted for a number of reasons; therefore his influence may contribute to tribal instability and he may be rejected, or even ejected from the group altogether,” more influence than power
6. No bureaucracy
7. Unstable because chiefs can be ousted for various reasons

Chiefdoms – Intermediate between Tribes and States

1. Usually rely on some kind of horticulture/agriculture
2. Led by hereditary elites, born into positions of power, hereditary
3. Chiefs had more power than the leaders of tribes
4. Chiefs are not easily rejected
5. Power is coercion and influence, except over slaves whom they can do whatever – trade, injure, kill, or leave behind
6. Very little bureaucracy – 1 or 2 levels
7. Today’s chiefdoms usually do not have slaves
8. Fixed settlement patternsof interest to historians and geographers for the insight into how a community of people (settlers) developed over time, influenced by resources and culture More, 1 or more villages

States

1. AKA civilizations with centralized governments
2. Social stratification, divisions into elite, commoner, lower-class, peasantthe word peasant was formally defined by Eric Wolf, cultural anthropologist, who insisted that peasants were no more than "rural cultivators" whose surpluses are transferred to a dominant group of rulers who uses the surpluses to underwrite their own standard of living and in turn distributes the remainder to other groups in the society who do not farm, but need to be fed because they produce goods and services useful to the society as a whole
3. Largely sedentary
4. Tens of thousands of people
5. Relies on intensive agriculturecultivation of soil to grow food plants using advanced technology; today's intensive agriculture uses mechanized equipment on large plots of land and crops are sold for profit/stored foods
6. Very complex in comparison to bands, tribes, and chiefdoms
7. Fixed settlement pattern, many villages and cities
8. Surplus of food
9. Non-food production specialists – potters, blacksmiths, weavers, etc.
10. Urbanizationthe process by which towns and cities are formed and become larger as more and more people begin living and working in the central areas – meaning non-sustainable ecosystems – need for imports
11. Many levels of bureaucracy!