I don't have much say on this because i don't have the qualifications to say anything. The question sounds chicken or egg dilemma but... Can anybody tell me which came first based from your country's experience? I'll let you handle the details....
I don't see them as mutually exclusive. Without some economic progress, people will be remain poor making peace and order difficult. Without some peace and order, economic progress will be difficult.
Economic progress makes peace a lot easier. People get robbed because someone needs money, not because people enjoy robbing them.
I would think that in order to have a good economic foundation you would need to have a society that wants it to happen so a consensus of citizens must be had to insure a sound economic plan is made. If it takes peace to bring this about then so be it but stability must be maintained to keep the society intact over a long period of time or else that society will surely fall into chaos and economic ruin.
People don't use money initially - they barter with goods. To barter fruit for meat for fish you need order, which is possible only by force, this then brings peace. Eventually the army stops being paid in fish and is paid in "money" (usually gold).
Peace and order are inseparable from economic progress because they are both components of it. The creation and maintenance of civilization depends on peace within its boundaries. If there were no such peace, we would all have to devote a significant portion of our energy and other resources into protecting ourselves from each other. With that drain on the economy, it would be difficult for it to make positive progress. The same is true of order. At the level of today's information-based economy, but even in an industrial economy and even in a preindustrial Bronze or Iron Age economy, "business" consists of complex time-displaced transactions between large numbers of people who aren't personally acquainted. The only way to keep these transactions fair--which is essential for economic progress or else surplus wealth or "capital" will be destroyed by accident--is to record them. Money is nothing more or less than a record of who owes how much to whom for goods and/or services rendered--in normalized units. Barter only works in primitive societies, probably pre-civilized--no building of cities. The transactions in a city are A) too complicated, beyond the capability of barter between exactly two people, or even a small number of them, and B) time-displaced (you want me to perform a song tonight at your daughter's birthday party, but the jug of wine I'm willing to take in trade won't be available until next summer). Keeping track of who owes what to whom--especially in a city where they don't even know each other personally--requires the invention of recordkeeping. As far as I can tell from what I've read, every writing system evolved from the hash-marks of merchants and traders. The first information that mankind simply had to record in order to keep civilization running was business information.
Native Americans had no "armies" to uphold society so amongst themselves they bartered for goods between themselves in a friendly manner many times. There were times of course when trading wasn't possible and then the stronger took from the weaker.
I agree the two go hand in hand. I thought the OP was referring to modern economies such as China. Which is more important to a 3rd world nation looking to progress to 1st world statue? I'd say stability is a key factor as to why modern corporations invest heavily in China. With that stability came economic prosperity. Yet, under communism China was very stable, though very poor too. Native Americans didn't have armies? That's not the why the Vikings painted them (as they turned tail and got the hell out of dodge).
I would say progress comes first. Any nation is a nation of its people. And it's with the people that everyone wakes up and puts in a hard day's work. Compare a Chinese worker to a French worker. Only with an abundance of resources (from hard labor) can a nation become wealthy and propserous. And only then can they share the wealth and set up a conglomerate of like minded nations, and only then can ethics become an issue.
The Native Americans only had warriors that were a part of their tribe. Those men were the ones who went out and found food and killed it for their tribe to eat. If their tribe was attacked they would defend it or if they needed something from another tribe they sometimes would forceably take it from them, but they traded with others most of the time.
Did they ever organize their warriors to specifically attack a neighboring tribe with the purpose of conquering and enslaving them? Who were the wealthiest Native Americans (most economic prosperity) and why?
Yes. Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_the_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas Tribal societies have far smaller gaps between rich and poor than our society and, by our standards, all tribal societies are very poor ("poor" refers to material possessions). The wealthiest tribes were probably (not much evidence) those that traded furs with the French and English in northern North America. Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_fur_trade Prior to the fur trade, arctic and desert tribes were probably the poorest because of limited resources. In Canada (the only spot I know much about), I would guess that the West Coast tribes and the Iroquois Confederacy were the richest. But, the difference between the richest and the poorest wouldn't have been much.
All of North America north of the Rio Grande was still in the Stone Age when the Europeans arrived. The Olmec/Maya/Aztec civilization had not spread northward. However, in what is now the eastern USA, many tribes had advanced out of the Paleolithic Era (the Early Stone Age in which humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers) into the Neolithic Era--the Late Stone Age characterized by the invention of the technology of agriculture. Agriculture both permitted and required building permanent settlements, within which people were able to not only produce more food than their nomadic ancestors, but produce more goods and services of many types such as houses, pottery, furniture, art and wine. Neolithic tribes are invariably wealthier than Paleolithic tribes for the precise reason that their technology allows them to create more wealth. The eastern North Americans had already taken another step forward, by linking their agricultural villages into trading networks. This effectively creates a larger community, so that division of labor and economy of scale can be expanded to encompass more people. This results in even more efficiency and specialization. More types of goods and services can be produced, and so there is even greater wealth to share among the people. This is the first step toward civilization. Unfortunately they were interrupted before they were able to take the idea any further. Nonetheless, they had already established a large area in which peace was common and this, too, increases wealth. People who are not preoccupied with protecting themselves against each other have more time, effort, attention and physical resources to put into their civil tasks, so they produce more.
With out economic stability civil unrest builds and look out. This is true through out history and has been one of the things that drive revolution. Lets all eat some cake now . Taste it good as we continue or assault on business in the name of reductionism . Some insider trading for you all and anybody listening the last time I spoke " How those commodities working out " Pretty good if you got in when I made the prediction aye. O.K. here you go straight from the top of the ladder at G.E. 15 to 20% more drop in real estate value. You heard it here first , so give Me credit when it happens . Yeah Baby
Yes to the first question. I'd say the largest tribes were the wealthiest and certain tribes grew and shrank over time.
