It would be good to remember that he is largely drawing from hunter gatherer societies and not just &quot;in the past&quot; as you describe his thesis.<p>While valuable to look at, these agrarian and proto industrial societies also had large amounts of coercion.<p>As I read the other posts I see too many people wanting to T&#x2F;F this thesis whereas I think it real value is as a critical tool to examine societies and the minds that have to learn to live in them.