Where Did This Idea Come From?
We finished chapter two of The Dawn of Everything, examining a foundational assumption most people never question: that humans progressed from hunters to herders to farmers to civilization. This material was for History of Humanity 2023, after starting chapter 2, “Wicked Liberty.” The next class began The Ice Age.
You don’t have to look far before people assume that hunters become herders become farmers become civilized people. It’s one of those ideas that feels so natural we forget someone had to invent it. Graeber and Wengrow argue that’s exactly what happened—Turgot developed this progression in the 1750s not as a discovery based on evidence, but as a response to Indigenous critiques of European society (60-61). The framework became foundational to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and has shaped how we think about development, progress, and inequality ever since.
Key Concepts
- The assumption that hunters become herders become farmers become civilized people was not discovered—Graeber and Wengrow argue it was developed by Turgot in the 1750s as a response to the Indigenous critique (60-61).
- Turgot’s stages of hunting, herding, farming, and commerce shaped Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (61).
- Kandiaronk on religion: “if it were possible that God had lowered his standards sufficiently to come down to earth, he would have done it in full view of everyone” (53).
- Kandiaronk on punitive law: “What kind of human, what species of creature, must Europeans be that they have to be forced to do good and only refrain from evil because of fear of punishment?” (54).
- The Wendat had differences of wealth, but wealth did not translate easily into power over others—Kandiaronk connected European punitive law to an acquisitive economy (56).
- Graeber and Wengrow draw on the Indigenous scholar Barbara Alice Mann in arguing that Lahontan’s dialogues genuinely represent Kandiaronk’s arguments.
- Schismogenesis—Gregory Bateson’s term from Naven (1936)—describes how small political differences escalate through argument into unbridgeable divides (56-57).
- The “noble savage” and the “stupid savage” are two versions of the same move: erasing Indigenous peoples as serious political thinkers (73).
A Myth That Won’t Die
The durability of this hunters-to-herders-to-farmers myth is remarkable. In all my years of trying to help people rethink this progression, it’s been extremely difficult to dislodge. Even the revisionist critique—Jared Diamond’s “Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” arguing that agriculture was humanity’s downfall—doesn’t escape the trap. Both the progress narrative and the decline narrative accept the same basic framework of inevitable stages. They just disagree about whether moving through them was good or bad.
Three big questions emerge from this material. First, how do we define freedom when some people have vastly more wealth and power than others (76)? This remains a lively political issue, with people claiming the mantle of freedom while potentially taking it away in other aspects. Second, we need to take seriously what Indigenous peoples and Indigenous intellectuals tell us—something anthropology has done better than many disciplines, though not always well enough. Third, understanding how the stages framework shapes our assumptions about development matters because it still underlies contemporary debates about inequality and social organization.
Kandiaronk’s Challenge to European Society
Before examining the economic stages myth, we need to understand what provoked its invention. Kandiaronk, a Wendat diplomat and intellectual, offered systematic critiques of European society that couldn’t easily be dismissed. On religion, he pointed out that Christians are divided into endless sects, each convinced they’re entirely right and all others are hell-bound. If God had really come to earth, he argued, it would have happened publicly: “For myself, I’ve always held that if it were possible that God had lowered his standards sufficiently to come down to earth, he would have done it in full view of everyone, descending in triumph with pomp and majesty and most publicly” (53). On law, Kandiaronk asked: “What kind of human, what species of creature, must Europeans be that they have to be forced to do good and only refrain from evil because of fear of punishment?” (54). His arguments connected wealth accumulation to coercive law: the Wendat had differences of wealth, but wealth did not translate easily into power over others, and Kandiaronk traced European punitive law to a system encouraging people to be selfish and acquisitive (56).
Skeptics have long claimed that Lahontan simply invented these dialogues to criticize European society without being jailed for it. Graeber and Wengrow, drawing on the Indigenous scholar Barbara Alice Mann, argue that Kandiaronk—a renowned debater who likely visited France and was known for outwitting Europeans at every turn—is genuinely represented in the dialogues. Other scholars take a middle position: Lahontan added his own gloss, but glimpses of the Indigenous critique come through. Taking Indigenous intellectuals seriously means listening to Indigenous scholars like Mann on this question rather than dismissing the debate from the outside.
Schismogenesis and Political Division
Gregory Bateson’s concept of schismogenesis, introduced in Naven (1936), helps us understand how political divisions develop (56-57). You start with small differences between people, but as you argue, you exaggerate your positions until you’re convinced the other person is your exact opposite. We can see this in contemporary debates about freedom, where the same word justifies completely contradictory positions. Understanding schismogenesis helps explain how Democrats and Republicans, once described as two versions of a fairly conservative party, now believe they occupy entirely different realities.
Inventing Inevitable Progress
The stages framework emerged in an exchange with one of the eighteenth century’s best-selling novels: Françoise de Graffigny’s Letters of a Peruvian Woman, which portrayed the Inca as a redistributive state where everything was better. Graeber and Wengrow recount that Turgot wrote to Graffigny objecting that in such a system everyone is equal only in poverty—and a few years later proposed that societies progress through stages of hunting, herding, farming, and commerce. That progression appears in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (61).
The framework did powerful work. If societies naturally progress through fixed stages, then Indigenous critiques become irrelevant because they come from an “earlier stage.” European inequality becomes justified as necessary for progress. Alternative social arrangements become impossible because you can’t skip stages. The question “could we organize society differently?” gets answered before it’s even asked. Graeber and Wengrow argue this wasn’t science—it was a response to a political challenge, dressed as natural law.
They also argue that Enlightenment thought created two related myths that both dismiss Indigenous intellectual contributions. The “noble savage” suggests Indigenous peoples lived in blissful equality but lacked capacity for complex political thought. The “stupid savage” suggests they blindly followed tradition without reflecting on social possibilities (73). Both accomplish the same goal: erasing Indigenous peoples as serious political thinkers whose critiques might actually challenge European social arrangements. The hunters-to-herders-to-farmers framework reinforced this erasure by providing a supposedly scientific basis for dismissal.
Escaping the Flip-Flop Trap
Much debate about human social organization has been trapped in an unproductive flip-flop. On one side, Hobbes and the progress narrative: people in a state of nature were nasty, brutish, and short-lived, and we needed government to bring us out of the war of all against all. On the other side, Rousseau and the Indigenous critique: we once lived in equality and freedom, and agriculture and private property brought our downfall. Then the economic stages respond: fine, there’s inequality, but that’s how we got civilization. Then the revisionist critique in the 1960s: actually, hunter-gatherers only worked 10-15 hours a week and life wasn’t so bad—what Marshall Sahlins called the original affluent society. Then Pinker responds: everything’s getting better through Enlightenment, reason, and progress—claims Graeber and Wengrow address in the “Farewell to Humanity’s Childhood” chapter.
Everyone just keeps going back and forth between these deterministic positions. In the next chapter, Graeber and Wengrow offer a different way of thinking about societies that doesn’t just flip-flop between egalitarian paradise and necessary hierarchy. What if human societies have always experimented with different forms of organization, made conscious choices about equality and hierarchy, and created diverse political arrangements that don’t fit neat evolutionary stages? That’s the possibility they want to open up—and why challenging the hunters-to-herders-to-farmers myth matters so much for how we think about what’s possible today.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Kandiaronk?
Kandiaronk was a Wendat diplomat, orator, and intellectual whose critiques of European religion, law, and wealth were recorded in Lahontan’s dialogues. Graeber and Wengrow, drawing on the Indigenous scholar Barbara Alice Mann, argue the dialogues genuinely represent his arguments—he was a renowned debater who likely visited France.
Where did the idea of hunters to herders to farmers come from?
Graeber and Wengrow argue Turgot developed the stages framework—hunting, herding, farming, commerce—in the 1750s as a response to the Indigenous critique of European society. It then shaped Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (61).
What is schismogenesis?
Schismogenesis is Gregory Bateson’s term, introduced in Naven (1936), for how small differences between groups escalate through argument until each side defines itself as the opposite of the other (56-57). Graeber and Wengrow use it to think about how societies define themselves against their neighbors.
Did Lahontan make up his dialogues with Kandiaronk?
Scholars disagree. Skeptics claim Lahontan invented them to criticize European society safely. Graeber and Wengrow, following Barbara Alice Mann, argue they represent Kandiaronk’s actual arguments; a middle position holds that Lahontan added his own gloss but genuine Indigenous critique comes through.
What is the difference between the “noble savage” and the “stupid savage”?
Both are ways of dismissing Indigenous political thought (73). The “noble savage” imagines blissful equality without capacity for political reflection; the “stupid savage” imagines blind obedience to tradition. Either way, Indigenous peoples are erased as serious political thinkers.
Course Navigation
This lecture was part of History of Humanity 2023, examining The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Previous: Indigenous Critique. Next: The Ice Age.