Paper 70 Overview: The Evolution of Human Government

This paper examines how human government evolved as a response to the need for regulating human interactions and managing conflicts between individuals and groups. Government developed from primitive forms of social organization into increasingly complex systems with laws, institutions, and formal structures. The evolution of government reflects humanity's gradual movement from violence and force toward order, cooperation, and the establishment of rights and justice.

Throughout history, government has progressed through several stages, from the family and clan to tribes and eventually to the modern state. While early government relied heavily on coercion and the rule of the strong, advanced government systems incorporate representative processes, separation of powers, and protection of individual liberties. The paper also explores how war, social classes, and concepts of justice have influenced governmental development and how peace is ultimately the measure of civilization's advancement.

The development of government became necessary when humans needed to regulate their interactions with one another. As industry developed and private property emerged, social regulation became essential to maintain law, order, and functioning society. Government compels the coordination of antagonisms between tribes, clans, families, and individuals who naturally possess competing interests.

Government evolved unconsciously through a process of trial and error, persisting because it increased chances of survival. The tendency toward anarchy led to increased suffering, which prompted the establishment of comparative law and order. The struggle for existence literally drove humanity along the progressive path to civilization by necessitating systems to resolve conflicts and organize collective efforts.

War represents the natural state of early evolutionary humans, while peace serves as the social measurement of civilization's advancement. Before socialization, humans were extremely individualistic, suspicious, and prone to quarreling. Violence is inherent in nature, hostility is the automatic reaction of primitive peoples, and war is simply these behaviors carried out collectively. Whenever civilization becomes stressed by the complications of societal advancement, there is often a destructive return to these early methods of violent conflict resolution.

War emerged as a concept only after society developed sufficiently to experience periods of peace and to organize warlike practices. With the formation of social groups, individual irritations became submerged in group feelings, which promoted tranquility within the tribe but at the expense of peace between tribes. Early humans considered shedding the blood of outsiders to be virtuous. Some of the primary causes of war throughout history included hunger leading to food raids, scarcity of women, vanity and the desire to demonstrate tribal prowess, need for slaves, revenge for perceived wrongs, recreation or sport, and religious motivations to convert others.

In past ages, a fierce war would sometimes initiate social changes and facilitate the adoption of new ideas more rapidly than might have occurred naturally over thousands of years. Though war often extracted a terrible price, it occasionally remedied certain social disorders, albeit with the risk of destroying the society itself. The necessity for national defense has historically created many new and advanced social adjustments.

War has provided social value to past civilizations by imposing discipline, promoting cooperation, placing value on courage and fortitude, fostering nationalism, eliminating weaker peoples, and stratifying society. However, as civilization advances, the destructive costs of war increasingly outweigh its benefits. Modern warfare tends to select the best human stock for destruction rather than preservation, and industrialism is gradually replacing militarism as the driving force of society. Just as physicians once used bloodletting but later discovered better remedies, society must find better ways to advance civilization without the devastation of war.

In the most primitive society, the horde represented the primary social unit, with even children considered common property of the group. As human society evolved, the family displaced the horde in child-rearing responsibilities, while emerging clans and tribes became the dominant social organizations. Sex attraction and maternal instinct established the family, but formal government did not appear until superfamily groups began to form.

Families eventually united through blood ties to form clans, which later evolved into tribes that shared territorial communities. Warfare and external pressure forced tribal organization upon kinship clans, while commerce and trade helped maintain some degree of internal peace. The absence of a common language impeded the growth of peace groups, but money eventually became the universal language of modern trade. The early concept of friendship meant adoption into the clan, which was believed to survive death—one of the earliest concepts of eternal life.

The progressive development of peace groups began with the family, then expanded to the clan, the tribe, and finally the nation. These modern territorial states represent significant progress despite their continued expenditure on war preparations. Clans functioned as blood-tie groups within the tribe and existed due to common interests such as shared ancestry, religious totems, dialects, dwelling places, mutual enemies, or shared military experiences.

Clan headmen were subordinate to the tribal chief, with early tribal governments operating as loose confederations of clans. Clan peace chiefs typically ruled through the mother's lineage, while tribal war chiefs established the father's line of succession. The courts of tribal chiefs and early kings included the headmen of clans, whom the ruler would periodically summon to secure their cooperation. Though clans served a valuable purpose in local self-governance, they also delayed the development of larger and stronger nations.

Every human institution had a beginning, and civil government evolved progressively just like marriage, industry, and religion. From early clans and primitive tribes, successive forms of human government developed throughout history, leading to the social and civil regulations characteristic of modern times. The foundations of government were established with the gradual emergence of family units and the clan organization, which grouped related families together.

The first genuine governmental body was the council of elders, composed of men who had distinguished themselves through efficiency and wisdom. This council contained the potential for all governmental functions: executive, legislative, and judicial. When interpreting current customs, it acted as a court; when establishing new social practices, it functioned as a legislature; and when enforcing such decrees, it served as the executive. The chairman of this council was an early forerunner of the tribal chief, and in later times some tribes had female councils and women rulers.

Effective state governance emerged only with the establishment of a chief possessing full executive authority. People discovered that effective government required conferring power upon an individual rather than an abstract idea. Rulership evolved from family authority or wealth, with early patriarchal kings sometimes called "father of the people," while later rulers were believed to have heroic or divine origins.

Hereditary kingship helped prevent the chaos that previously occurred between a king's death and the election of a successor. The hereditary system was additionally supported by the concept of royal families and aristocracy, which originated from clan traditions of "name ownership." Eventually, kings were regarded as supernatural beings with royal blood supposedly extending back to divine origins. The early king was often kept secluded and considered too sacred for common viewing except on special occasions, leading to the appointment of representatives who became the first cabinet ministers.

Blood kinship determined the earliest social groups, while association expanded these kinship clans. Intermarriage further enlarged groups, with the resulting complex tribe becoming the first true political entity. Religious cults and political clubs developed next, initially appearing as secret societies that were wholly religious before becoming regulatory organizations. These groups began as men's clubs before women's groups appeared, eventually dividing into sociopolitical and religio-mystical categories.

Secret societies formed for various reasons, including fear of displeasing rulers, practicing minority religious rites, preserving valuable trade secrets, or enjoying special charms or magic. Membership conferred status as society's elite, and after initiation, boys could hunt with men instead of gathering vegetables with women. These clubs helped control adolescent young men, particularly preventing illegitimate children by maintaining sexual discipline. Following years of rigorous training, young men were briefly released before marriage and submission to lifelong tribal taboos—the ancient origin of the custom of "sowing wild oats."

The mental and physical inequalities among humans ensure that social classes will inevitably emerge. Social stratification appears in all stages of civilization between the most primitive and the most advanced, with the latter having largely eliminated such divisions. As society evolved from savagery to barbarism, human components became grouped into classes based on natural distinctions, personal abilities, chance circumstances, economic factors, geographic conditions, and social estimations.

Classes have formed according to natural factors such as kinship and sex; personal factors including ability and intelligence; chance factors like war and emigration; economic factors related to wealth and slavery; geographic factors distinguishing urban and rural populations; social factors estimating different groups' worth; vocational factors creating professional castes; religious factors from cult clubs; racial factors where multiple races coexist; and age factors separating youth from maturity. While flexible social classes are necessary for evolving civilization, rigid castes limit individual initiative and social cooperation. These class distinctions will gradually diminish through biological improvement, educational training, and religious development.

Nature bestows no rights on humans beyond life itself and a world in which to live. Even the right to life is not naturally guaranteed, as evidenced by what would likely happen if an unarmed person encountered a hungry tiger in the primitive forest. Society's greatest gift to humanity is security, which forms the foundation for other rights to develop.

Over time, society gradually established and protected various rights, including food security, military defense, internal peace preservation, sex control through marriage, property ownership, competitive opportunity, education, youth training, trade and commerce, and religious freedom. Though these rights may seem natural when their origins are forgotten, human rights are entirely social constructs rather than natural endowments. They represent evolving rules governing human competition and continue to change with each era and culture. The true responsibility of society is to administer varying rights fairly and equitably, providing individuals with opportunities for self-maintenance, self-perpetuation, and self-gratification.

Natural justice exists only as a human-made theory rather than a reality in nature. Nature provides only one form of justice: the inevitable conformity of results to causes. Justice, as conceived by humans, means receiving one's rights and has developed progressively throughout evolutionary history. While the concept may be inherent in a spirit-endowed mind, it did not appear fully formed in the worlds of space.

Primitive humans attributed all phenomena to personal agents rather than impersonal causes. In cases of death, they asked who killed the person, not what caused the death. Accidental murder was not recognized, and punishment focused on the injury done rather than the criminal's motive. Early society operated through public opinion rather than formal law enforcement, with no concept of privacy. As beliefs developed that ghosts administered justice through medicine men and priests, these figures became the first crime detectors and law officers. Their methods of detecting crime included ordeals involving poison, fire, and pain—primitive forms of arbitration that did not necessarily produce just outcomes.

It is difficult to precisely define when informal customs transition into formal laws, just as it is challenging to identify the exact moment when night becomes day. Customs gradually evolve into laws and regulations, and when long-established, undefined customs tend to crystallize into precise laws, specific regulations, and well-defined social conventions. Law begins as negative and prohibitive but becomes increasingly positive and directive as civilizations advance.

Early society functioned negatively by granting individuals the right to live while imposing upon all others the command not to kill. Every right or liberty granted to an individual necessitates curtailing the freedoms of others, which was accomplished through taboos, the earliest form of law. The entire concept of taboo is inherently negative, as primitive society was organized around prohibitions. Law represents the codified record of long human experience, with customs providing the raw material from which ruling minds later formulated written laws. Ancient judges had no formal laws to apply; when rendering decisions, they simply stated, "It is the custom."

The major struggle in governmental evolution concerns the concentration of power. Universe administrators have learned through experience that evolutionary worlds function best under representative government with a proper balance of power between well-coordinated executive, legislative, and judicial branches. While primitive authority was based on strength and physical power, the ideal government is a representative system where leadership derives from ability.

In the long struggle between division of authority and unity of command, the dictator typically prevailed. The early, diffuse powers of primitive elder councils gradually concentrated in absolute monarchs. After the appearance of actual kings, the elder groups continued as quasi-legislative-judicial advisory bodies. Eventually, legislatures with status equal to these advisory groups emerged, and supreme courts were established separately from the legislatures. The king functioned as the executor of unwritten law, or customs, and later enforced legislative enactments that represented crystallized public opinion. Popular assemblies, though slow to develop, marked significant social advancement.