The Economy of the Iroquois

[Nwoye]

I don't know if anyone here is knowledgeable on the subject, but I stumbled across a wikipedia entry about the economy of the iroquois. I know, it's wikipedia, bear with me.

Here's a quote:
The Iroquois developed a system of economics very different from the now dominant Western variety. This system was characterized by such components as communal land ownership, division of labor by gender, and trade mostly based on gift economics.

It seems the Iroquois, before European intervention, had a very efficient and brilliantly thought out economic system; a system which adheres to Marx's concept of "from each according to his own..." hundreds of years before Karl Marx's birth.

About land ownership:

The Huron had an essentially communal system of land ownership. The French Catholic missionary Gabriel Sagard described the fundamentals. The Huron had "as much land as they need[ed]." As a result the Huron could give families their own land and still have a large amount of excess land owned communally. Any Huron was free to clear the land and farm. He maintained possession of the land as long as he continued to actively cultivate and tend the fields. Once he abandoned the land, it reverted to communal ownership, and anyone could take it up for themselves.About the distribution of goods and trade:
The cooperative production and communal distribution of goods made internal trade within the Iroquois Confederacy pointless.

While I wasn't able to find much about the subject on the interwebz, I found several books about the Iroquois economy which I'll look into.

So what are your thoughts? I think this is a fantastic example of a functioning society based on communist principles. While I don't adhere to that ideology, I find it fascinating.

[Dharma]

I've always been interested in the aboriginal Americans, mainly because of their economic philosophy. The average dim witted capitalist's argument to this is "it is a small population, therefore it works.". Good thread.

[Diagoras]

I've done some research on the League in the past, and even a few non-anarchist authors took to describing it as anarchistic in nature. While some aspects of their society as a whole would not fit this description (the League was often militaristic towards those outside of the League, largely for economic gain), their economy and decision making processes were not too far off in many ways. The means of production were distributed according to use and need, as you mentioned, all while maintaining a complex enough economy to represent a real military challenge to white settlers for hundreds of years. Decisions for the General Council of the League were made largely by consensus, with 'sachems' elected from the tribe they spoke for, and instantly removable by the head women of said tribe. The most prominent elder women also got veto power over decisions to go to war that trumped the sachems, which I have always found interesting.

Also, one thing that annoyed the hell out of whites governments in this period was that individuals in the league were not bound by decisions of the General Council or even really the local tribal group, and could opt out of decisions for war if they did not agree with it... or more especially confusing for white governments, individuals could opt FOR war skirmishes against the will of the councils, and ride off to attack a soldier encampment or encroaching village for honor or glory, leaving the whites confused as to where blame was supposed to be assigned. Of course, the Amerindian notion of "war" was quite a bit different than the whites as well. Regardless, it was the concern for identity of the self in community with others, social mores, and other such traditions and pressures that led people to cooperate with others toward mutual benefit (yet without abandoning their own consciences) and the maintenance of a complex society at all, not threat of force embodied in a traditional state, that led to the maintenance of a society at all.

Yes, I've found the "it can only work on a small scale" argument to be rather annoying. This is especially because there is no reason for this to be the case, by the very localized yet federated nature of decision making. The Iroquois economy did not make it a functional powerhouse of a multi-state region for over 500 years with only (at its height) about 25,000 people by accident. This structuring worked to cater to local needs and local issues, while maintaining a general anarchistic/democratic system for collective determination... that lasted longer than any other "democracy" of any flavor has in history, I might add.