It is critical in this discussion that the difference between voluntary cooperation and forced collectivization be noted. Too often I see these things blurred quite extensively.

Which brings me to a question for Tom: If your observations about the fundamental human tendency to gravitate toward "collectivism" are correct, how can you assert that that's the wrong way for humans to be? It's worked for two million years, and is the result, so far, of two million years of testing. Why hasn't evolution brought forth more "Libertarian fantasy societies" instead?

For two million years we have been mostly apes. When the extent of your behavior is hunting and gathering, the role of advanced reason and technology isn't really that big a deal, and the social adaptations that work well for apes will keep working for humans.

Complicated technology, cities, agriculture, complex forms of government, and everything that makes humans what they are today are about 6,000 years old. There are some trees almost this old. In geology, and evolution, this is an eyeblink. Humans need different answers now than the old tribalism. Whether or not our biology will follow along is something we will need to wait thousands of more years to find out.

If a particular ape dies in an ape tribe, nothing much changes. I don't think anybody has ever seen a particular ape whose loss has been a disaster or a blessing for its general group or species.

The minute a particular human became better at, for example, making stone points than anyone else in his tribe, things started to change. At this point, humanity tends to gravitate into three directions:

--Og the Pointmaker keeps up the good work for the good of the tribe, and asks nothing else. This works as long as the tribe doesn't take unfair advantage of things.

--The tribe keeps Og the Pointmaker shut up in a cave, and withholds food until he makes points for you. This kind of thing tends to be counterproductive, and does not encourage future Ogs to contribute ideas.

--Og gets a bigger share of the meat for his efforts. This kind of thing tends to produce a lot more ideas from other tribe members.

The first version is actually not uncommon in small tribes. Unforced collectivism works quite well in family groups and small organizations. I have often had the kibbutz pointed out to me as the only example of successful communism. When you get to larger groups, it becomes a bit more of a problem, but there are still many people who contribute voluntarily to society for no other reasons today. Not enough of them, though.

The second version is an example of forced collectivism. It's larger examples are legion in history, and its results are consistent and obvious.

The third example is a simple form of the free market, i.e, voluntary trade, and its results in modern times are also obvious.

This is, of course, oversimplified, but the basic principles are consistent. The key, in any working relationship between two people, is to look for the gun.

There have, of course, been mixtures throughout history. Roman citizens had a lot of freedom (relatively speaking) and there was a lot of innovation. They also had slaves to do the scutwork.

I was interested some years ago to find that the great Egyptian monuments were not built by slaves, but by workers who were well-paid for their efforts.