On Tribes
John Robb has been thinking about tribes. So has David Ronfeldt. So has Seth Godin.
Why?
John Robb writes:
If you are like most people in the ‘developed world,’ you don’t have any experience in a true tribal organization. Tribal
organizations were crushed in the last couple of Centuries due to pressures from the nation-state that saw them as competitors and the marketplace that saw them as impediments. All we have now it is a moderately strong nuclear family (weakened via modern economics that forces familial diasporas), a weak extended family, a loose collection of friends (a social circle), a tenuous corporate affiliation, and a tangential relationship with a remote nation-state. That, for many of us, is proving to be insufficient as a means of withstanding the pressures of the chaotic and harsh modern environment.
The advantage of tribal structures in my view, compared to hierarchies, markets and networks discussed by Ronfeldt revolves around the certainty of 
mutual trust as a psychological motivator, especially vis-a-vis “outsiders”. Loyalty to all members of the tribe ( primary loyalty) is paramount which is not the case in hierarchies ( loyalty flows 
upward, downward not so much), markets ( nonexistent) or networks (potentially non-reciprocal loyalty to hub). As such, tribes function very well at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which means they are good insurance for physical survival. It does not matter if the tribe is one of blood or cultural heritage or artificial political, religious or military brotherhood. Militiaman, monk or gang member is irrelevant; what matters is the establishment of unreserved mutual trust as a core of personal identity.
The implicit trust present within the tribe and the flexible sense of authority gives individual tribesmen room for individual initiative to react, knowing “the tribe has their back”. They are a more centralized unit of power than a network but more fluid and mobile than a hierarchy. A tribe is a safety net or a bodyguard. Great enterprises require something else as an organizational form but behind a great enterprise should be at least some kind of life preserver.
Addendum:
Col. Pat Lang – “ How to Work With Tribesmen“
March 10th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
"markets ( nonexistent)"
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Overstatement. Depends on the market. Suppliers and purchasers have a reputational interest to protect and relationships ot preserve and being loyal is often rational.
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Consumers have little reason to be loyal, which is the whole point. Price, quality, service, eye appeal, what have you, drive consumer choice and sellers of consumer goods are supposed to scramble to meet those demands.
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So, as always when we talk about "markets", or especially that libertarian diety "The Market", you usually have to ask "which market?" to provide a sensible answer.
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Without regard to the foregoing, John Robb’s point, that the webs of trust and cooperation, without strong primary loyalties, will shred in the face of major threats and disorder, leading to a mass of atomized citizen-consumers being easy prey for gangs and terrorists who have strong primary loyalties and are willing and even enthusiastic to kill (or even die) as a way to assert their identity and gain more tangible benefits.
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So far, the self-organizing and resilient free societies have done well.
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I tend to think we will see a reassertion of religious faith and religious communities as sources of primary loyalty in the "armored suburbs" of the future. I see no other candidates.
March 10th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
"Armored suburbs" sounds like the burbclaves of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash or the arcologies of various ‘cyberpunk’ mega-coporations. You really think it is going to be like that? I’m not saying they won’t exist but they would be the rare exception based on socio-economic classes (gated communities writ large), and not the norm. It seems to me that the movement is in the other direction with communities becoming more open to incorporating many cultures within themselves. Indeed, physical and cultural diaspora in many cases leads to increased resiliency for those peoples and memes.
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By the way, I thought The Strongest Tribe was an excellent read. I highly recommend it.
March 10th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
"You really think it is going to be like that?"
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I don’t know. If I could predict the future, I would sitting on a yacht somewhere, with a cool drink in my hand.
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If Robb is right, then all Hell is going to break loose, the nation state will become bankrupt, unable to police and protect its citizens, renege on its insupportable financial promises, become purely predatory on behalf of its clients, and become nothing more than the biggest gang in town, more overtly than it is now.
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In that case, if the collapse happens, the state, the economy, the legal system, and most of civil society, at least for some time, break down. In that case, most people living at the time of the collapse will die. The people most adapted to the new conditions will be people with strong primary loyalties, like gang members. Elements of the US military may form defensible enclaves, even though their pay checks bounce, then stop coming at all. Other armed groups may also manage to create defensive redoubts. Those of a more law abiding disposition, but unwilling or unable to form viable groups for self-defense, will be prey for the more cohesive and aggressive groups.
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Mark has written about warlords on this site several times. It will be a great time to be a warlord. There is a lot of loot in North America. Being head of, say, the Mara Salvatrucha gang when the US Gov goes out of business would be glorious indeed. You could be like a Visigothic king once the USA becomes a failed state.
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Some people with better moral values will hopefully succeed in forming resilient communities, as Robb has written about. These "good guys" would create networks for defense and trade, and hopefully, reconstitute civilization on some worthwhile basis. Those who lack access to these communities, who do not belong to the primary loyalty community, will be screaming for admission outside the razor wire, but will not be admitted, and will be driven off with sniper fire. That is the "happy" side of Robb’s dark picture: A few groups manage to keep things going. I would think some groups of Mormons may have the cohesion to ride out the disaster, for example.
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Of course, Robb may be all wrong about this stuff.
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If I were about 22 and single, I’d hope he was right, just because I like the Mad Max movies.
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I am 45 and have kids, so I hope he is wrong.
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I do not think we have anything like the social cohesion we had at the time of the First Great Depression. If this does turn into GDII, these will indeed be interesting times, very painful, however they actually play out.
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I got the phrase "armored suburb" somewhere, I did not originate it.
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I also see Neal Stephenson here, but I think of the mature form of communities in the post-state world, depicted in The Diamond Age.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
That’s a pretty dark future. Even if you get to The Diamond Age you have to go through Snow Crash first (they exist in the same fictional world).
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Since this is reality and not fiction I’d prefer that we work for the best of all possible outcomes. I understand the risk of the disaster, and we should make ourselves as resilient as neccessary, but if we put all of our energy into preparing for that outcome alone it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Yeah. Science fiction dystopias have a way of not happening. Thank God.
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People have a pretty big stake in keeping something like the status quo stumbling along, and that is pretty much what is going to happen, barring big, nasty surprises.
March 10th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Something I’m curious about and don’t often hear discussed is what caused tribal loyalties to wither away in Europe. I’m not so sure that the nascent nation-state crushed them so much as that their having been crushed was a formative requirement for the nation-state. Rome had tribes but they had largely vanished by imperial times, leaving not much more than naming conventions.
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Groups like the Bretagnaises and Basques aren’t tribes–they’re nations.
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I speculate that Christianity and Roman institutions had something to do with it.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Very Gibbonesque, Dave.
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Population scale is one of the critical factors. Greek tribalism shfited to politics when population reached a certain size. Chiefdoms become monarchies. Hard for a tribe to be "tight" when members become both strangers and competitors – new mechanisms are required to mediate social relations and status
March 11th, 2009 at 1:14 am
That may be but it clearly isn’t dispositive. Look at Iraq. Its population may be half that of the entire Roman Empire let alone Rome itself and tribes are still active and powerful there.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:27 am
True, population is only a factor. Iraqi tribes are very large by tribal standards and they contain "strong" and "weak" ties in terms of tribal affiliation. Strong affiliations tend to be among rural subtribals and new arrivals to large towns or cities. Sort of like the variance strength of religious observance. For example there are a lot of people in this country who call themselves "Catholic" but only go to mass once or twice a year, or perhaps not at all. Then there are hardcore Catholics for whom mass once a week is insufficient and they take a very active role in the laity of their paish or diocese.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Thinking more on this I wonder if it would be possible to, in a sense, re-tribalize (in a very American way of course) our close and extended family groups. Not quite the ‘amored suburbs’ where I would imagine mostly unconnected households behind some sort of security barrier (no real trust there), but rather networks of compounds or connected/semi-connected residences owned by family ‘corporations.’
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Though I really haven’t looked into it, this is something that I have considered as a very long-term possibility for my own family, though not in terms of re-tribalization. I would imagine that it could be made legally and financially very attractive (and we capitalists are always looking for a competitive advantage), especially for the middle-class. There could be other advantages to arrangements like this as well such as providing for health insurance, elder and child care, even the ability to stretch a dollar by creating something of an economy of scale for things on the lower rungs of Maslow’s ladder.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
"no real trust there"
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No. The thing would only work if there were some basis for trust. That is why I think they would be based on religious communities. But shared citizenship could become a basis for mutual trust. Medieval towns were like fraternities, and the citizens (the word comes from "city") had rituals regarding joining, and expulsion, and each city had a charter from the king with particular liberties enumerated, and citizens had certain rights and privileges that were unique in their chartered city. I could imagine the restoration of something like that.
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With modern technology, a new Hanseatic League of armored suburbs organized along these lines could cooperate for trade and defense.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
"With modern technology, a new Hanseatic League of armored suburbs organized along these lines could cooperate for trade and defense."
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If the doom and gloom disaster were to come to pass I would think the type of organization you are describing could be very successful, at least as long as there is a stronger bond of trust between the people within than without. However, what I was thinking of was a somewhat re-tribalized yet open and connected organization formed now in our increasingly connected and distributed world (creating a stronger organization to act as anchor for a primary loyalty that insn’t unduly exclusive) that might act as an extra hedge of resiliency to diffuse the shock of a major ‘black-swan’ system disruption and prevent the need for such exclusionary systems as the ‘armored suburb’.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
A re-created Hanseatic League has been a theme in a lot of science fiction over the years.
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"…a stronger bond of trust between the people within than without."
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That can be accomplished, based on historical evidence.
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"… somewhat re-tribalized yet open and connected organization formed now in our increasingly connected and distributed world …"
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People do want to feel some personal connection, but they do not want to suffer the constraints of a strong group identity. The early Christians had very strong bonds based on elective joining rather than genetic family/clan/tribe affiliation. The problem is that people wanted, of course, to have the benefit without the burdens. However, as Rodney Stark points out, the intermittent and unpredictable Roman persecutions culled out the free riders.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
It seems something that is being missed in this discussion (and something that Robb continually missed or disregarded when I used to read him regularly) is the notion of voluntary institutions. By this I do not mean church, politics, tribe, or corporation. I am referring to the various associations, leagues, unions, etc. that developed over the past 200-300 years. I take it no one here is a member of the Rotary, 4H, etc. or a member of the Masons, Shriners, etc. Wasn’t this one of de Tocqueville major "take aways" after visiting the U.S.?
Regards,
TDL
March 12th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
TDL:
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I don’t think Robb is missing anything.
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How much utility will those associations be if the police and the army all walk off the job since their paychecks are bouncing, and they are taking their guns and using them to defend their own families? How much utility will those associations have if the power goes off and the water goes off due to sabotage, and the only organized, armed groups that are anywhere to be seen are gangs which are demanding protection money, and using occasional random acts of exemplary cruelty and violence to show the cowering now defenseless suburbanites that they are in charge now?
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Primary loyalties have to be strong enough that you would risk your life for the benefit of the others. Masons? Shriners? Lovely people, I’m sure. How many would intervene if a gang of Crips were, say, applying a blow torch to the genitals of some fellow member of their voluntary institution, in a high school gym, in front of all the people in the neighborhood who have been herded in there, so they can be shown who is in charge now?
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What if a US Marine were in that situation? His brother Marines would use whatever means were necessary and at whatever risk to themselves to stop it, right?
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How about a fellow member of the Mara Salvatruccha drug gang? Probably, some of them would shoot their way in there, or inflict brutal vengeance which would deter it in the first place.
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Would a Pashtun let a fellow Pashtun die like that and do nothing, or not risk life and limbe seeking revenge on the group that did it?
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Are you part of a group that would protect you if the cops and the army went away forever? How many people would you face a slow, painful death to rescue? Wife and kids, maybe? Anybody else? Other people in voluntary associations you belong to?
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Not many of us are.
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If conditions worsen enough, very basic forces come into play, and the vast majority of Americans are generations removed from the kinds of forces that could secure their lives in that environment.
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Robb’s next book, the one I am eagerly awaiting, is supposed to be about resilient communities. I am very interested to see what he has to say about forming primary loyalties among the citizens of these communities.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
What I was suggesting is that there are countervailing forces and a deeper complexity in social interaction than the clear delineation between a primary loyalty or a secondary (or whatever the appropriate term is) loyalty that is often presented in these types of discussions. The more complexity (as well as the fact that there would have to be a massive step down in the standard of living for bold acts such as a Crip applying "a blow torch to the genitals of some fellow member of their voluntary institution, in a high school gym, in front of all the people in the neighborhood") does not make for good stories.
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What also has to be taken into consideration is that most of these gangs (if not all) fund their activities through the sale of illegal drugs. If the political order began to fray and the bills weren’t being paid to the protection services of the state, why would these specific commodities remain illegal? Remove the risk premium and you remove the ability of these groups to fund their acquisition of power. This is merely another countervailing force.
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Taking this further, if municipalities, states, national governments can no longer provide protection services (or any other number of services) who is to say that private vendors will not step into that role? Again, another countervailing force.
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The 4H, Shriners, etc. were merely examples of other types of loyalties that can and do exist. One historical example that comes to mind is the demise of the James-Younger gang. They, the J-Y gang, acted in the manner suggested (brazenly violent with complete disregard of authority, specifically the Northern variety,) however, they were not brought down by the Pinkerton’s, U.S. military, or any police authority. The J-Y gang was brought down by the citizens of Northfield, MN. Americans might not be tough as they were 130 years, but the point remains that another type of social force/bond repelled chaos & barbarism that day; it was not the nation-state and it was not some type of primary loyalty.
Regards,
TDL
March 13th, 2009 at 1:04 am
I actually agree with you.
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Free societies are much more resilient than they look, have very deep reserves of social capital to draw on, and can come up with work-arounds to deal with disasters, whether from enemies, mother Nature, or self-inflicted mistakes.
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My point though is that what Robb is saying is that there would come a point where the level of anarchy got so bad, that there would be nothing left but primary loyalties, since all the other stuff had been wiped out by global guerillas hollowing out the state and destroying the power grid, etc.
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As Robb put it in a recent post, the future is boring and no one wants to live in it.
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I disagree, but my thinking is close enough on the subject that I can understand how he gets there.
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Instead, we are going to become a very boring, Europeanized welfare state, with most of what we do subject to surveillance, scrutiny and control "for our own good". It will be a world epitomized by Obama in his bicycle helmet, and everyone driving crappy, slow cars with small carbon footprints, and constant hectoring about diet and exercise. Even the Global Guerillas, even the Jihadi terrorists, cannot save us from that outcome.
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I am glad I am old enough that I won’t too much of my life living in that world.
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Seeing that boring and pretty much inevitable future blow up and having the Mad Max movies happen for real is the not so secret fantasy for a lot of people.
March 13th, 2009 at 1:29 am
"Seeing that boring and pretty much inevitable future blow up and having the Mad Max movies happen for real is the not so secret fantasy for a lot of people. "
A lot more appealing as well…
Regards,
TDL
March 13th, 2009 at 3:51 am
@Lex: Very lucid response.. Might I ask you a question? You are probably familiar with Martin van Creveld’s <i>Rise and Decline of the State</i>. What do you think of the latter half of his thesis- that the decline of the state is happening and inevitable? You have stated how you think the world of the future will turn out but have not stated why you believe in such a future. Perhaps you could explain (or provide us with a link of where you <i>have</i> explained) the logic behind the rejection of Creveld’s argument?
March 13th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I think Van Creveld is probably wrong about places which have deeply rooted states.
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Where Western imperialism left-behind some half-baded version of a state, usually leaving just the buildings and desks of the bugging-out colonial administration, like in sub-Saharan Africa, there has never been much "there" there, and it has in some places already gone away entirely. Where the state has been nothing but a vehicle for some small group of families to maintain political power, like parts of South America, it may go away, or it may hang on as a front for the racket it has always been.
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Western Europe is the heartland of the state. The modern state was born their and I dont’ t think it will die out there.
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The Chinese state? China has had a state of some kind for thousands of years, interspersed with anarchic periods. Hopefully they will not suffer one of those any time soon.
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The Anglospheric state has generally been less intrusive and less ambitious in its aims. As people like Obama try to make the American state into something more like what what they have in, say, France or the Netherlands, the effort will fail and people will eventually reject it. For example, we are absolutely incapable of imposing a health care system on ourselves like the one theyhave in Denmark. As these efforts fail, we will see a lot of turmoil. The question will be whether we end up having a nonfunctional version of the European welfare state jammed down on us forcibly — most likely — or whether we can rediscover our Anglospheric/American cultural and political and legal and economic roots in ordered liberty, and our genius for decentralized, distributed, inductive, ad hoc, bottom-up, open-ended, voluntaristic approach, including in the operations of our government.
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Prayers are humbly solicited for the second of these outcomes.
March 19th, 2009 at 8:43 am
[…] On Tribes […]
November 30th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
It seems like business is still getting hit hard. Is anybody seeing an upswing in their respective niches? Health reform seems like a mess. I generate long term care insurance leads and annuity leads for the insurance industry, but volume has been terrible in the last two months. I am afraid the worst is yet to come, but maybe it is just my attitude.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Several years ago I read, The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic Development in the Horn of Africa, by Michael van Notten. This book does a nice job of reviewing Somali tribal economy/justice systems. The author offers some interesting methods of integrating our disparate systems. Here is the product review from Amazon: "This book details many striking features of Somali customary law. It is compensatory, for example, rather than punitive. Instead of being imprisoned or otherwise punished, law breakers are required to compensate their victims. A victim seldom fails to receive compensation, moreover, because every Somali is insured by near kin against his or her liabilities under the law. Being based on custom, Somali law has no need of legislation or legislators, hence is happily free of political influences. Even so, the author points out areas in the law that are in need of change. These do not require legislation, however; many desirable changes, such as ending restrictions on the sale of land and enhancing the status of women, are implicit in economic development. As for the Somali political system, not only is there no need to set up a democracy, the author clearly shows why any attempt to do so must inevitably produce chaos. This book by a trained and sympathetic observer shows how, viewed in global perspective, Somali law stands with the Latin and Medieval laws and the English common law against the statutory law that originated in continental Europe with the modern nation state. It explains many seeming anomalies about present-day Somalia and describes its prospects as well as the dangers facing it. Born in Zeist, the Netherlands, in 1933, Michael van Notten graduated from Leiden University in Law and was admitted into practice in Rotterdam. He later served with a New York law firm and directed the Institution Europaeum, a Belgium-based policy research organization. In the early 1990s, he became interested in the prospect of Somalia developing in the modern world of a stateless society, and for the next twelve years, he studied Somali customary law. A keen analyst of the intricacies of clan politics, he traveled fearlessly in war-torn Somalia. He died in Nimes, France, on June 5th, 2002."