The gens – the extended family group – existed among the Aryan and Semitic families in Europe. In the Aryan family, it existed among the Latin (gens), Greek (genos), and Sanskrit (ganas) people before they separated from each other. From the Aryans, the Celts in Ireland and Scotland carried the Gentilic form right up to the 18th century.
The Gens in Greece had the following rights, privileges and obligations.
1. Common religious rites.
2. A common burial place.
3. Mutual rights of succession to property of deceased members.
4. Reciprocal obligations of help, defence and redress of injuries.
5. The right to intermarry in the gens in the cases of orphan daughters and heiresses.
6. The possession of common property, an archon (Chief) and a treasurer.
7. The limitation of descent to the male line.
8. The obligation not to marry in the gens except in specified cases.
9. The right to adopt strangers into the gens.
10. The right to elect and depose its chiefs.
The Iroquois American Indians, quite independently from the Europeans evolved a very similar system with very similar rules. Maybe unsurprisingly given our common needs as humans.
In Greece there were four tribes, each with 3 phratries, each of them with 30 gentes, making 12 phratries and 360 gentes. The 4 tribes coalesced into a nation at Attica.
In America, the Cherokee Nation numbered 26,000, the Dakotas about 25,000 and the Ojibwas about 15,000. Interestingly around the same number as may be found in the accidental modern equivalent, the successful average Football Club fanbase – our accidental Tribes with no sentient, mutual obligations other than to cheer the team.
But upward from a Nation, American Indians formed a Confederacy of Nations whose rules formed the basis on which, as we have said, the US Constitution was written. The white man learned a lot of Political Science from those savages.
The Aztecs did the same when they founded Mexico in 1325 A.D. A Confederacy was formed in 1426 before the Spanish conquest in 1521. There is no evidence that the Aztecs had a kingdom or empire as suggested by Spanish writers. It is easy to assume that other peoples simply mirror your own system when in fact they are “other”.
So how were these Societies transformed into “civilisations”? Into States?
In Greece, The origin of civilisation among the Asian Greeks dates from the Homeric poems of 850 B.C., and of the European Greeks from the Hesiodic poems of 750 B.C. There is a slow change from a Gentilic society, or People, to a civic order, or State. The relation of the individual changed from a personal relation to his gens to a territorial relation to his township (deme). This gradual transition occurred via the legislation of Theseus in legend to the law of Draco in 624 B.C. to that of Solon in 594 B.C. to the laws of Cleisthenes in 509 B.C.
Theseus divided the people into classes – the Eupatridae (“well born”), the Geomori (“husbandmen”), The Demiurgi (“artisans”). There was no real transfer of power from the gentes and so the system died out. Draco superseded customs with written laws (hence “Draconian”). The themes were picked up by Solon who divided people into 4 classes according to their wealth – the first were eligible for high office, the second as cavalry, the third as infantry and the fourth as light armed soldiers. The lower class were disqualified from holding office or paying taxes.
Cleisthenes, is known as the first legislator, the founder of the second great plan of government, the State. He divided Attica into 100 demes (townships), each registering its citizens (demotae) and their property and electing a demarch (with custody of the public register), magistrates and a treasurer to assess and collect taxes and work out how many troops were to be provided by the deme in service to the State. Freedom in religion was placed under the control of the people. All citizens enjoyed equal rights except in eligibility to higher office. Each deme was then assigned to a larger group of 10 demes, the forerunner of the modern county. The English corollary became the parish, the shire and the kingdom.
Already we see above how the Solon creates three military classes who pay tax and hold office. Rome then takes it a step further to form the first Military Nation State, the model on which modern Western Nation States are built.
The modern State was initiated by Servius Tullius (c.576-533 B.C.) who initiated 3 principal changes to finish the power of the Gentes. This is the moment in history when you and I lose our power to influence the future.
1. Classes based upon wealth replace the Gentes. The head of each Gens joins the top class, his new “family”, and thus became separated from his Gens. The first Ruling Class.
2. “Comitia Centuriata” replaced “Comitia Curiata” (the Roman phratric body)
3. Creation of four city wards requiring residents to register name and property.
The authoritarian State of Tullius in Rome differed from the Democratic State of the Greeks in Athens by removing the power of local self-government from the wards. In Rome, the Senate was unelected by the wards and the census was conducted by the State, and in Greece by the Deme. This is the origin of ignorance in the lower classes as information and decision making is removed from them. Local power disappears at this moment in history.
We can see how this may be thrown into reverse. The Lords can be separated from each other and become accountable to, and removable by, the families residing in their domains. Preventing them from coalescing again removes the danger of the formation once again of a ruling class. We will once more elect and deselect our own “Lords”, our Chieftains. But now, for the first time in nearly three millennia, they will represent us, not each other. And they will not be of a higher class, as the title may imply, they are simply representatives of our wishes – delegates. The American Indian Chieftain was no higher in status than anyone he represented. How refreshing.
Society in its true from was enjoyed by our very much underestimated ancestors for more than 50,000 years. Upwards of 2,500 generations lived under this system and left almost no trace on the Planet. In contrast, the Class System has been hated by the vast majority of the Earth’s inhabitants for a mere 150 generations. It is tiny in comparison to its predecessor. But it counts greed, dispossession, world war, genocide, environmental destruction, injustice, inequality and many, many other failures as its legacy. Its ultimate achievement will be the extinction of the human race.
The moment at which Society in its true form ends and its replacement, Civitas – the Civic Order, the Class System – is born is the crucial transition from equality to inequality. By undoing the Class System and returning to our former set of relations, our Other Nature, we immediately begin the process of undoing the Class System.
I will call this Movement the Ctrl-Z Movement. In returning to a System that guarantees equality, we are simply looking to undo what has been done.