Passports weren't a general concept until the end of the 19th century. Before they were mostly to allow passage to certain areas inside one country, rather than for movement between countries. There have been Identifications for Nobels and Diplomats though.

Anyways the whole concept is mostly a concept of modern nation states not of ancient tribalism.

[–] kn33@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago (8 children)

I think the point is that the tribalism led to the creation of the nations/states in the first place. I don't know enough to know if that's true, but that was my interpretation of their comment.

[–] Juice@midwest.social 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

The state is formed by the historical mode of production, its like a contradiction that is the resolution to all of the other contradictions present in market social relations. In other words the state is based on how stuff gets made, and who accumulates the value inherent in the stuff, which is in essence the congealed work that went into making that stuff.

Politics and culture is always a factor in what shape the state takes, since politics and culture are social structures and sources of power themselves, but politics is downstream from production

[–] codexarcanum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Eh, that's one view. In The Dawn of Everything, Graeber and Wengrow propose that the State arises from the intersection of three forms of social power. These are sovereignty (control of violence), bureaucracy (control of information), and politics (control through charisma and culture). Historicaly each of these has existed as the basis for societies alone and in combination without the concept of a state.

The State is a meme, a technology like religion or money, which provides a framework for the distribution and application of those 3 forms of power. It isn't the only possible framework for that, but it's outwardly destructive nature and self-propogation have ensured that the modern world is structured around a narrow set of configurations of the State.

[–] Juice@midwest.social 1 points 4 days ago

I really wanna read that book, maybe this year :) I almost stole it from my wife's cousin at Thanksgiving this year

I don't think what you're saying contradicts me, I agree my explainer is one view, one which addresses political economies, and the GrabGrow view is another more anthropological view. Unfortunately Marx never finished his anthropological works although there are a lot of notes from the end of his life that are worth parsing.

Saying it's this one thing, when it can be scientifically understood as either or both things, is more like orthodoxy which I try to avoid. Both views help to understand a complicated topic made of historically shifting dynamics and changing aspects.

What your explanation doesn't address that mine does, is what is the "social power" that congeals into these forms? It takes different shapes throughout history, but can be understood coarsely as "wealth", which is the accumulated value of human labor. My explanation better reflects the class character of the state. However if we are to try and actually affect the world for the better, as we should, we would be better equipped with both views (and likely a few others) with which to determine truth in the functioning of political economy, than one or the other alone.

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