The limits of Political Power: between the anarchy and the Leviathan

Abstract

The study rearranges the original propositions of the book “Society against the State” the anthropologist Pierre Clastres, specifically aiming to systematize the principles, rules and criterias that would show the presence of the state-minimum in the indigenous communities of the rainforest. In this sense, the research program organized in this study considers the logical possibilities of change in political power assuming the extremes of anarchy and Leviathan, as suggested by the book “The Limits of Liberty...” of the author neocontratualista James Buchanan (1975). Using this methodological work, the study develops the hypothesis of the state-minimum and reviews the intellectual tradition of the tribe and cacicado concepts that are discussed specifically in the work of anthropologist Pierre Clastres. In the end, the study systematizes the research program about the state, describing the four epistemological principles that characterize his functional structure of work.