Pierre Clastres

"The savage refuses to work"

"Society against the state"

"Power is the capacity to make others obey"

"Primitive societies have solved the problem of power"

"The chief is a man who speaks"

"Language is the first form of power"

"Hierarchy emerges when some men can command others"

"Equality is the natural state of human societies"

"The state is a machine of oppression"

"Law creates crime by creating transgression"

"Exchange is the basis of society, not domination"

"The gift creates obligation and binds communities"

"Primitive peoples understood what we have forgotten"

"History is the story of inequality's expansion"

"Writing is a tool of domination"

"Oral cultures preserve freedom through conversation"

"The shaman heals by listening, not commanding"

"Warfare in primitive societies is ritualized, not total"

"The tribe regulates itself without rulers"

"Kinship is the original form of social organization"

"Death is integrated into life, not denied"

"Shamans dream society into being"

"The indigenous understand time differently than moderns"

"Nature is not separate from society"

"Land cannot be owned, only inhabited"

"The forest is a living partner, not a resource"

"Myth preserves social structure without coercion"

"Ritual maintains equilibrium without hierarchy"

"The council includes all voices equally"

"Consensus is possible without voting"