If you’ve ever wanted to read a comprehensive and detailed account of man’s inhumanity to man, going all the way back to the Mesolithic period then “Goliath’s Curse’ by Luke Kemp is the book for you. The author Luke Kemp is a senior research associate at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge in the UK and ‘Goliath’s Curse’ represents the accumulation of his many years of study. Goliath is of course the giant Philistine warrior who was slain by the shepherd boy David in one of the best-known stories from the Old Testament.
In ‘Goliath’s Curse’ author Kemp defines a Goliath as hierarchical structured society where inequality, both in wealth and power, are maintained by violence. ‘Goliath’s Curse’ is the way that such societies continue to grow more unequal, ever more violent leading inevitably to their collapse, which is then followed by a ‘Dark Age’.
Beginning with the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic period describes how societies of that time were much more egalitarian and peaceful then later hierarchical societies would be. The main reason for this is that hunter-gatherer groups possessed no wealth that greedy individuals could monopolize in order to dominate the other people in their society. The only wealth such clans possessed were the foods that they ate, foods that quickly perished if not eaten, or stone tools that quickly worn out. In such societies no one could accumulate the wealth needed in order to gain an advantage over the other members of their group. Indeed, Kemp goes so far as to assert that the large majority of human beings have always been both peaceful and anxious to cooperate with their fellows.
In truth the evidence for this ‘Cave Man Garden of Eden’ is very scarce and countered by such studies as a recent one in the journal Scientific Reports that provides evidence that a group of Neanderthal women and children were brought to a site in Belgium in order to be killed and eaten, cannibalism in other words. In fact, there are growing reports of murder and warfare in our ape cousins, see my post of 4 September 2021 for details of a war between Chimpanzees and Gorillas.
Moving forward in time the author contends that it was the beginnings of agriculture, in particular the harvesting of grains such as wheat and rice in the Old World and Maize in the Americas that allowed the development of the first Goliaths. Unlike meat or fruits, grains can be stored for long periods of time so that greedy, selfish individuals could claim, let’s be honest, steal more than their share, making them the first ‘rich men’. With wealth came power and since grains can be stored for years, the ability to pass on their wealth and power to their sons. Kemp calls such easily stolen wealth Goliath fuel although Goliath food might be more appropriate since Goliath was a person, not a machine.
With the beginnings of metalworking came a new form of wealth, since metals were both rare and useful, making them valuable. In particular metal weapons that only a few could afford increased the concentration of violence that maintained the power of the new kings and emperors. ‘Goliath’s Curse’ spends a good deal of time discussing the Goliaths of Egypt, Assyria and Rome and ascribes the collapse of each of these empires to their ever increasing inequality, slavery and brutality. At the same time Kemp discusses the techniques that these Goliaths developed in order to maintain control over their populace, the myths of order versus chaos along with divine right of kings.
In ‘Goliath’s Curse’ the author maintains that the collapse of such regimes is very often of benefit to the majority of people. That the dark ages that followed the collapse of the Bronze Age cultures and Rome were actually times of freedom and opportunity. Again there is little evidence for this. The dark age that followed Rome, c500-1200 was a time of unending war and population decline. In fact is wasn’t until the late 16th century that Europe regained the population it had in the 2nd century during the height of the Roman Empire.
Again moving forward in time ‘Goliath’s Curse’ discusses the age of exploration, which Kemp characterizes as the age of exploitation, which it truly was as European powers colonized the world, stealing its wealth and resources while turning many of its inhabitants into slaves. Kemp argues, as others have done that the two world wars of the 20th century were in fact just the elite criminals of the world fighting over who gets the most stolen loot.
There was little change after World War 2 according to ‘Goliath’s Curse’. The people who ran the former European colonies may now be of the same ethnic group as the majority population but they are still exploiting their people for the advantage of the wealthier countries. Kemp discusses how people who are paid pennies are still digging the wealth of Africa out of the ground; blood diamonds, copper, nickel and rare earths are the new Goliath fuel. Kemp then discusses the various scenarios of how our present ‘Global Goliath’ could collapse, detailing nuclear war, climate change and pandemics along with other disasters.
Finally, after 420 pages of human brutality ‘Goliath’s Curse’ spends about 20 pages on how we might be able to kill Goliath, bringing about a true democratic revolution and a fair and equal world society. What he proposes is a large increase in taxes, including a wealth tax in order to reduce the wealth and therefore the power of the rich. At the same time, we all must get involved in the political process, not just by voting but taking a more active role in how our country is run. Very few Americans bother to do this, and we have the right to protest. Think about the ordinary people in Russia or China trying to take control of their political systems or anything like that.
The author himself isn’t very hopeful; in his opinion the likeliest outcome for the world is that we destroy ourselves with the second likeliest being a slave state. Kemp even mentions Fermi’s paradox and the possibility that all technical species may commit suicide.
As you may have noticed I have a few problems with ‘Goliath’s Curse’, chief among which is Kemp’s firm belief that the greater majority of people are fair and willing to work together for the greater good. Well, I’m sorry but Donald Trump succeeded in getting over 75 million people to vote for him by promising to throw millions of people out of this country, mostly based on racial and ethnic criteria, so there are a lot of bad people out there. At the same time, we have millions of gun owners who will never give up their weapons despite all of the evidence that they are five times more likely to kill themselves with their guns than anyone else. As I was reading ‘Goliath’s Curse’ I was constantly reminded of the old saying “The Greeks tried every form of Government and couldn’t find one that Worked!”
Still, ‘Goliath’s Curse’ is a very important book, one well worth reading. Be warned however, ‘Goliath’s Curse’ is a very dense book, full of information, much of it unpleasant. For that reason it is very much the kind of book people need to read.
I have one more thing to say, and that’s about the title ‘Goliath’s Curse’. Now the bible only has a little to say about Goliath. He was a Philistine warrior and he was very big. For all we know Goliath may have just been some poor schmuck who was drafted into the Philistine army and made their champion because he was so big.
David, on the other hand, after he killed Goliath (1Samuel17) became a paid mercenary fighting for the Philistines (1Samuel29), who then usurped the Hebrew throne from Saul (2Samuel5). As king he laid siege to and captured Jerusalem (2Samuel5) and fought innumerable wars while arranging for Uriah, the husband of his mistress Bath Sheba, to get killed in battle so he could marry her (2Samuel11).
David has become a symbol of kingship and privilege; Goliath was just some front line soldier who’s gotten a lot of bad press over the centuries. So maybe the book should be called David’s Curse!