Surviving Societies: The Basics

There are certain core facets that are common to every group of people that survive as an identifiable group for more than 3 generations:

1. An enforceable rule that prohibits the unrestricted killing of its own members;
2. A way to pass its belief systems from one generation to the next; and,
3. A god that supports the group's beliefs.

Items 1 and 2 with a little thought are self explanatory. However, item #3 may take a little explanation: One of the things that we learned from the Russian experiment in Communism was that even if you raise the children in state run crèches, some percentage of children will mature with "deviant" (individualistic) non-group thinking. This will lead to non-standard (deviant/criminal) behavior.

No society can so structure itself so that every instance of deviance can be caught. In fact, most won't no matter how large the law enforcement group is. The society needs some way of policing its members without actually observing each and every member 24/7. A god or gods do that very well. If you believe in an omnipresent god who knows what you are doing, and who will punish you for deviant behavior and reward you for good behavior then the state's job of behavior control is much easier.