The Deep Root of Our Social Problems

By Chas Holloway

The host of woes that plague society today – crime, excessive taxes, slavery, poverty, famine and war – have existed since the dawn of recorded history.

Many people think the answer is tougher controls, harsher penalties, longer prison sentences and a more brutal police force. In sum, a stronger central authority. The trouble is, tough centralized control is what humankind has tried since the beginning of history, and it’s never worked.

Here is an excerpt from the book, History Begins at Sumer by Samuel Kramer, describing a civilization four-and-a-half thousand years ago in an ancient Mesopotamian city-state called Lagash.

“The inspector of the boatmen seized the boats.  The cattle inspector seized the large cattle and the small cattle.  The fisheries inspector seized the fisheries.  When a citizen of Lagash brought a sheep to the palace, he had to pay 5 shekels if the wool was white.  If a man divorced his wife the King got 5 shekels and the Executive Officer got 1 shekel.  If a perfumer made an oil preparation, the King got 5 shekels, the Executive Officer got 1 shekel, the Palace Steward got 1 shekel.  Even death brings no relief.  When a dead man was brought to the cemetery, palace officials made it their business to tax the family quantities of barley, bread, beer, and furniture.  From one end of the State to the other, there were tax collectors…”

There was centralized control in this ancient city-state, and the people resented it, all except, of course, for the palace employees. The clay tablets on which this passage was inscribed, discovered by a French archeological expedition in 1878, reveal that a new king came to power, named Urakagina, and he removed the taxes.

“There was then no tax collector.  Urakagina restored freedom to the people of Lagash.”

This is the first recorded use of the word freedom in history and it was in the context of individual liberty versus centralized control. These ancient Mesopotamians, like us, tried to control their society by using strong central government. As a result, the authoritarianism became harsh, bureaucratic and corrupt.

This is the same problem we have today in “modern” America. There is no record in 4,500 years of recorded history that this problem – of how much control is good and how much control is bad – has ever been solved.

In fact, the damage that the State inflicts on society has only gotten worse, and we’re now at a point where, because of the rise of technology, the inability to solve this problem could destroy us all.

Some 37,000 people were killed during the American Revolutionary war. During America’s Civil War, 650,000 were killed. World War One killed 8.5 million. World War Two killed over 70 million. These numbers are rough estimates but they illustrate the correlation between the rise of technology and the destruction that the State can inflict on civilization. One glance at these figures and it becomes clear that our very existence is at a crisis point.

The next global war could wipe out all of humanity.

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