The Rule of the Clan: What an Ancient Form of Social Organization Reveals About the Future of Individual Freedom

In any given major newspaper today, there will be a story revolving around a clan based society that is alien to Western liberal society. (By liberal I mean supportive of the individual and not liberal vs conservative party politics). Sometimes the clan name or group is not even named, but the subtext of the action, usually conflict or violence against another group, suggest that something other than individualism or nationalism is at play. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Libya are some examples of countries where there is little doubt that clans hold more power than the state, and fight for it amongst each other.But, how do these clans work? Those of us in the West, without family ties to clans, may be forgiven for having no clue of the boundaries and possibilities available in clan society. What is the concept of justice when an Afghan family, whose member hurt or killed a girl from another family, must turn over a young girl to be married into the very family who suffered a loss? Is it possible for individual values that we cherish in the West, to more or less try and pursue one's own ambitions, to co-exist with tribal rule? Why don't people in tribes just shake off their shackles and join the rest of us by espousing our liberal society?While the stories are told daily in intelligent and erudite news sources, the news does not explain the basic functionality of clans. A Western reader would be forgiven if he attributed to clans the features of a particularly close-knit family or even a Sicilian mafia situation. But, there is much more nuance, and in the countries listed above, more power than family or mafia would hold.This book shines a bright and clear light on clan society, a functioning world order that near totally conflicts with Western values. Further, this book shows how clan values do not have to be obliterated by Western liberal order; they can exist side by side, so long as people are protected under laws that put individual rights as paramount to clan rule.The change for me in reading the news was night and day. I also understand better people who I lived with in Senegal, who put the patriarch of the family first, even in terms of charitable donations. This book would be of great help to anyone who wants deeper insight into the news. More importantly, this book would help those who interact with clans on any level, and likely would help policymakers. If we envision successes in the middle east like Lawrence of Arabia had against the Ottoman Empire, then we have to have a clear understanding of the world they inhabit. The understanding would likely change our policy and might allow us to come to different conclusions about our foreign policy that are ultimately humanitarian and, in the long run, make a better case for western liberal thought.

This book does a good job of explaining how barbaric practices such as feuds and honor killings are integral parts of clan-based systems of dispute resolution, and can't safely be suppressed without first developing something like the modern rule of law to remove the motives that perpetuate them.He has a coherent theory of why societies with no effective courts and police need to have kin-based groups be accountable for the actions of their members, which precludes some of the individual rights that we take for granted.He does a poor job of explaining how this is relevant to modern government. He writes as if anyone who wants governments to exert less power wants to weaken the rule of law and the ability of governments to stop violent disputes. (His comments about modern government are separate enough to not detract much from the rest of the book).He implies that modern rule of law and rule by clans are the only stable possibilities. He convinced me that it would be hard to create good alternatives to those two options, but not that alternatives are impossible.To better understand how modern individualism replaced clan-based society, read Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order together with this book.

The book does a good job of tracing the clan and clan-like activities through the ages to present times. The author does not fall into the trap of many comparative law authors of looking very narrowly at a few examples but instead he spans the globe with most of the book. He also cross-references the various examples multiple times to emphasize his points and keep the reader following closely.The end suggests that the clan will emerge in a new form but that the ideal system is a mixture perhaps of the rule of the clan and rule of law. Of particular interest were his comments about how clans can reemerge quickly after a tribal society has been "Westernized" and how Marx and Engels tried to use clan theory to justify communism.An enjoyable and informative read. Would be an excellent basis for a short law school course.

Often, nonfiction does not hold my attention, even if it is about a topic that I thought would interest me. This book is an exception. Drawing upon others' research as well as his own, Weiner shows convincingly (to me, at least) that family-based power will govern when few or no other structures exist in a society. He helped me understand the reasons for many actions and qualities of clan-like organizations. I now see patterns in many political and cultural struggles around the world today. The book flows along at just the right pace.

While it is easy to recognize strong, albeit strictly limited, civil government as a necessary prerequisite to individual liberty. The case for the clan as the primary threat to both government and individualism is less convincing. The clan structures described all seem to flourish is fairly isolated, insular environments. It is difficult to see how they would survive, let alone prevail, in a connected global economy. Nevertheless, it does seem worthwhile to develop an understanding of clan societies as they are not yet extinct and could do a great deal of damage (Putin's Russia, Bin Laden's Arabia) before they pass from the scene.

I'm not sure that Mr. Weiner understands the word "liberal." He should, since he uses it about 50 times per page...

Somewhere a socks n' sandals boomer is feeling clever reading these failed talking points that push to undermine and destroy tge sovereignty of nations. He rails against tribalism and pushes for extreme multiculturalism, however, only in european nations. His own (Jewish) tribe is of course exempt from this. Contains all the intellectual rigor of an episode of The View. Hypocritical passe politics from a cacophony of copy/paste failed social engineers we have no longer have a use for. Toss this book in the dustbin, along with the author's Bolshevik sympathies.

Weiner writes clearly that the weaker the state, the stronger are clans and kinships groups, using the small-N sample (most different systems design)