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Power and Knowledge, 17 Aug 2007
E. Gellner analyzes the `Structure of Human History' alongside three axes: the division of labor (fighters, priests, workers), the economic evolution (hunting/gathering, agrarian and industrial society) and the concepts of coercion (power), cognition (knowledge) and production (manufacturing).
While in hunting/gathering clans everything is intermingled, a division of labor becomes necessary in an agrarian society. The produced surplus must be stored and protected: `You own what you can defend' and `Property is Power'. Those who could defend (the rulers) used the prestige of religion for the legitimation and the cohesion of their power base.
An agrarian society is authoritarian (wealth for the rulers, poverty of the ruled) and characterized by oppression, superstition and economic stagnation. Its philosophical proponent is Plato.
Within one of the agrarian societies (Western Europe) a unique industrial and scientific revolution took place. E. Gellner cannot explain the cause(s) of this revolution. (For MHO, see the end of this review).
The upheaval is characterized by the separation of cognition from authority and religion (Descartes). Authority is replaced by liberalism; religion by empiricism and rationalism (D. Hume: `superstition is the enemy of civil liberties'). Knowledge (innovation) is Power. The proponents of this revolution are the Enlightenment (Les Encyclopédistes) and the Progress (Darwin, Marx) philosophers.
E. Gellner's vision on complex modern societies is far too optimistic: the maintenance of public order is not relatively easy. There is no push towards a more homogeneous humanity. He hoped that `a certain moral climate would prevail which would feel repugnant that anyone should be deprived of nourishment, medical attention, shelter and education.'
This book is a little bit too abstract, but it remains still a very worth-while read. I prefer, however, Jared Diamond's `Guns, Germs and Steel'.
N.B. Max Weber's thesis about the eruption of the industrial revolution (the link between Protestantism and capitalism) is still widely accepted. However, this link seems to be more an affair of coincidence rather than consequence. The main reason of the forceful development of the merchant society could be the loss of the stranglehold on monetary matters by the Church. The Church controlled 75 % of all monetary means in the Middle Ages (W. Manchester: `A World only lit by Fire') and drained them largely into unproductive investments. Once the stranglehold was broken (indeed, in protestant countries) the merchant class could freely build its commercial empire.
One illustration: when Antwerp was attacked in the 17th century by the Catholic Spaniards, its merchant class fled to Amsterdam.
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