A-Infos (en) Chile, R. Libertaria: Pierre Clastres' *Society Against the State* (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The challenge lies not in romanticizing indigenous forms, but in 
recognizing the plurality of political structures and learning from 
their strategies of social organization outside the logic of the state. 
--- Capitalist modernity-which, in our region, began with the arrival of 
European invaders in the late 15th century-gradually shaped several 
ideological constructs that persist to this day. On one hand, liberal 
ideas emerging from Europe established the concept of the "individual" 
as a subject autonomous from their social context-someone who, through 
personal effort and achievement, can master their own destiny and 
distinguish themselves endlessly from others, even while sharing the 
same territory, class, ethnicity, or gender. On the other hand, the 
capitalist social order presented itself as the only possible world, 
rendering the social injustices at its core invisible and promoting the 
narrative that current state institutions-which control our lives-are 
neutral and historically immutable.

This same liberal, capitalist perspective has permeated how other 
peoples across the globe are understood and treated. Europe-and later 
the United States-rose as global powers from whose vantage point the 
rest of the world is viewed and evaluated; consequently, other 
geographic regions-and especially the peoples of Africa and Latin 
America-are perceived as backward, underdeveloped, or simply inferior. 
An ethnocentric worldview took hold, creating a divide between the 
center and the periphery that justified-first through religion and later 
through science-the imposition of profound global injustices and 
inequalities.

The conquest of the Americas by various European powers resulted in the 
extermination and/or subjugation of many indigenous peoples. The Spanish 
and Portuguese debated whether the inhabitants of these territories were 
truly human or possessed souls capable of Christianization-discussions 
aimed at justifying their enslavement, alongside that of the people of 
African descent forcibly brought over to exploit natural resources. In 
every conquered territory, violence and exploitation against subjugated 
peoples were justified in different ways. To this day, the dominant 
perspective regarding indigenous peoples remains pejorative and 
ethnocentric; while their heroic past may be acknowledged, their 
contemporary cultural expressions are reduced to mere folklore. 
Meanwhile, those who identify as members of these peoples face pressure 
to shed their identity, abandon territorial claims, accept private land 
ownership, and assimilate into the individualistic citizenship model 
characteristic of nation-states. The underlying assumption remains that 
these are "backward" cultures that must hasten along the singular path 
of capitalist modernity.

Pierre Clastres
For this reason, *Society Against the State*-written by the anarchist 
anthropologist Pierre Clastres (1934-1977) and published in 1974-is 
considered a landmark work in 20th-century anthropology. It critiques 
the Western ethnocentrism that continues to justify the global 
inequalities of the capitalist system, specifically by challenging the 
linear conception of progress that tends to relegate indigenous 
societies to an "earlier" stage of social development.

Specifically, Clastres's research demonstrates that the State is not a 
universal destiny for all cultures but rather a specific historical 
form. Within this framework, the political division between those who 
rule and those who obey is not inherent to every society; instead, it is 
the result of a particular historical process: the emergence of coercive 
power.

With the exception of the great Inca, Aztec, and Maya empires, most 
indigenous peoples of the continent were characterized by social 
structures in which hierarchies lacked coercive capacity-meaning there 
was no standing body of warriors to enforce the will of the elites. 
While the indigenous chief did exercise political power, this power did 
not rely on a monopoly of force (which could give rise to state-like 
forms) but was instead grounded in collective recognition, the power of 
speech, conflict mediation, and acts of generosity toward other members 
of the group. There arises the possibility of societies that, despite 
possessing social hierarchies-and the attendant injustices-did not 
construct state forms of domination. The homogenizing horizon of 
capitalist modernity is not an inescapable reality, but rather an 
imposed form among other possibilities.

Unfortunately, Clastres does not develop a systematic definition of 
"political power"; instead, he operates with an implicit notion that he 
subsequently organizes through the distinction between coercive and 
non-coercive power. This creates ambiguities, as the political power he 
observed among native peoples-despite lacking coercive capacity-did 
reproduce hereditary hierarchies based on prestige, tradition, or 
charisma. In other words, by prioritizing coercion as the decisive 
criterion, Clastres tends to underestimate symbolic dimensions of power 
capable of generating obedience and hierarchy without the need for force.

Secondly, his assertion that "society controls the chief" appears weakly 
substantiated, as he fails to identify concrete mechanisms used to 
remove chiefs and install new structures. Despite these limitations, 
Clastres's contribution is pivotal in denaturalizing the association 
between social development and the creation of the State as a form of 
political domination. It is not merely a matter of imagining a stateless 
society, but of recognizing the past and present existence of social 
forms that-while reproducing hierarchies-do not consolidate coercive 
mechanisms, thereby decisively broadening the spectrum of possibilities 
for social organization.

By questioning the universality of the State as a political form, 
Clastres's research can be read in dialogue with decolonial approaches 
that challenge the imposition of European epistemological frameworks 
upon diverse historical realities. Thus, Indigenous societies cease to 
be objects of a narrative of backwardness and instead become subjects of 
their own political rationality, possessing their own specificities and 
contradictions.

From an anarchist perspective, we acknowledge the contributions of 
Pierre Clastres's anthropology, yet we also recognize its 
weaknesses-such as the underestimation of symbolic power and the 
idealization of certain forms of equality within the groups studied. 
Relevant here are subsequent contributions demonstrating how domination 
can operate without the use of force *per se*, as well as research 
revealing more conflict-ridden internal dynamics within Indigenous 
societies. From this perspective, the challenge is not to romanticize 
indigenous forms of social organization, but to recognize the plurality 
of possible political forms and learn from their strategies of social 
articulation outside of state logics.

https://revistalibertaria.cl/la-sociedad-contra-el-estado-de-pierre-clastres/
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