Tribalism and PDAs/DROs

[Autolykos]

I’d like to put forth the thesis that tribalism was a primitive form of PDA/DRO.

Modern-day Somali tribes are essentially mutual-aid organizations based on kinship relations. Every member of a Somali tribe has at least one other member who serves to insure him in his disputes. He also has a fellow tribesman appointed as a judge (oday). Should he ever be in a dispute, this oday will sit on the court that judges it.

A Somali’s tribe has the right to disinherit him should he continue to commit offenses or fail to abide by a sufficiently severe judgement against him. However, it doesn’t appear that a Somali can voluntarily leave the tribe of his birth and join another one.

Based on the contemporary Somali model, I submit that ancient tribes were typically the same way. The details may have differed, but tribes seem to have served the purpose of a PDA and DRO put together. They protected members (and their property) from harm, both actively and through insurance, and also helped to settle their disputes.

Tribes typically occupied specific territories. One could say, then, that a given tribed owned the land that it occupied. In many cases, tribes would not allow their lands (or any parts thereof) to be sold to other tribes. To be honest, I’m not sure why this was done.

Sometimes, many neighboring tribes jointly developed standard procedures for settling disputes. Subsequent decisions from those procedures were passed on either orally or literally. This could be known as a legal system for the tribes involved.

However, oftentimes those legal systems were not tied to the members of the tribes directly. They were tied to the territory occupied by the tribes. So if a member of one of those tribes went outside the territory of the legal system, and subsequently became involved in a dispute, he could not appeal to that legal system to (help) judge the dispute.

It seems to me that this is the basis for the idea of a territorial monopoly in law. This monopoly was strengthened when one could not voluntarily leave the tribe of his birth. From what I can tell, the formation of States must have been strengthened by these two principles.

Thoughts?

[Merlin]

I fully agree, but there was one single notable sense in which tribes, now and than, are immensely different form PDAs: division of labor almost always existed only within the tribe (if not within the household alone), and didn’t extend to society in general. If you come to think about that, it completely changes the nature of the services the PDA is required to render. A modern PDA would presumably deal mostly with ‘civil’ offenses, while tribes have to deal mostly with ‘criminal’ offenses, as the division of labor and trade relations did not extend between tribes, and even very deeply within one tribe, to produce room for much civil offenses.

In this sense, the tribe was less valuable, hence more easily given up, than a modern system of PDAs would. Perhaps that’s why Icelanders had no trouble shedding their system after centuries and asking the Norwegian king to become theirs: one-shot criminal offenses could be judged by a king rather efficiently, while the modern centralized justice system is proving incapable of handling the weight of modern trade relations.

Great post!

[Autolykos]

@Merlin

I fully agree, but there was one single notable sense in which tribes, now and than, are immensely different form PDAs: division of labor almost always existed only within the tribe (if not within the household alone), and didn’t extend to society in general. If you come to think about that, it completely changes the nature of the services the PDA is required to render. A modern PDA would presumably deal mostly with ‘civil’ offenses, while tribes have to deal mostly with ‘criminal’ offenses, as the division of labor and trade relations did not extend between tribes, and even very deeply within one tribe, to produce room for much civil offenses.

From what I understand of customary legal systems, there was typically no real division between “criminal” and “civil” offenses. All or nearly all offenses were treated as torts – that is, those found guilty had to make economic restitution.

You’re right about tribes though, and I’ll raise you one. At least at first, tribes were essentially self-contained societies. They occupied distinct geographical areas from other tribes. So “society in general” initially applied only to the tribe itself. Of course, as population increased, contacts between neighboring tribes became more frequent. Subsequently what could be considered part of “society in general” started expanding beyond the level of a single tribe.

However, I don’t think it was increasing division of labor that turned many tribes into states instead of PDAs/DROs. Rather, I think that was due to the following three precepts: first, that one could not voluntarily leave the tribe of his birth; second, that the tribal law was tied to the tribal land, not the tribesmen themselves; and third, that the tribal land was considered inviolable.

@Merlin

In this sense, the tribe was less valuable, hence more easily given up, than a modern system of PDAs would. Perhaps that’s why Icelanders had no trouble shedding their system after centuries and asking the Norwegian king to become theirs: one-shot criminal offenses could be judged by a king rather efficiently, while the modern centralized justice system is proving incapable of handling the weight of modern trade relations.

The Icelandic goðorð system was not tribal in nature. Although it may have started out that way in Scandinavia, the Icelanders were apparently free to move from one goðorð to another. However, the number of goðorð was apparently fixed at 39. From what I’ve read, it was this rigidity that ultimately lead to the collapse of the Icelandic Commonwealth. (I can dig up the source if you’d like.)

@Merlin

Great post!

Thanks! It ws partly inspired by your post in your sigline, which I read and found to be very well-written and thought-provoking.