1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

by Charles C. Mann

The celebrated anthropologist Clifford Geertz has half-jokingly suggested that all states can be parceled into four types: pluralist, in which the state is seen by its people as having moral legitimacy; populist, in which government is viewed as an expression of the people’s will; “great beast,” in which the rulers’ power depends on using force to keep the populace cowed; and “great fraud,” in which the elite uses smoke and mirrors to convince the people of its inherent authority. Every state is a mix of all of these elements, but in Tiwanaku, the proportion of “great fraud” may have been especially high.

“All these barbarians have the law of wild asses—they are born, live, and die in a liberty without restraint; they do not know what is meant by bridle and bit.”

I choose barbarian.

That one’s as much Master as another, and since Men are all made of the same Clay there should be no Distinction or Superiority among them. [Emphasis in original.]