Meerkat Manor was one of those programs everybody knew about. It was popular. But it was not unique. Many books and documentaries have been written about the rigid class systems and border wars of all social animals. This was just one of the better ones.

The real lesson of Meerkat Manor, though, is precisely that. In the 1960s Meerkat Manor would have caused a revolution. Back then it was assumed that birds sing only to attract mates, that social systems were totally absent in the natural world.

Therefore Rousseau and Marx and the libertarians assumed that all human social systems, all class divisions, all wars, all divisions between different people, are entirely the result of which system we adapt.

In other words, which Book we build our society around.

As usual, the real lesson here is so basic no one gets it. Every social and political and economic ideology which existed in 1960 should have disappeared without a trace, like the Humor Theory of Galen did in nineteenth century.

But not a single iota has changed. Everybody debates the same old crap. Marx is still a Great Philosopher.

Let’s take a look at one aspect of Meerkat Manor, the struggle for the all-important top meerkat in this matriarchal society. When the old leader died of snake bite, who would take power? We could make a number of guesses, since the old leader was so powerful that she had bred a troop of over fifty.

In meerkat society, the stronger the leader, the bigger the group becomes. With Flower’s death, the troop split into sections, a lead in each.

Another possibility would have been that Flower had bred one of her many offspring that was her equal

But the real lesson here is that we all know what could NOT happen.

What could NOT happen was that the overwhelming majority of the meerkats, who were kept sterile since only the leader was allowed to have offspring, would rise up and take over.

This is the critical point, so no one sees it.

Social animals do not have revolutions.

In nature every revolt is just like what REALLY happened with Communism everywhere. The dissatisfied lionesses might join an intruding male in killing their present mate if they have grown tired of him. Then the new male takes over.

A Communist “Revolution” immediately produces a new ruling class which effectively owns all the property and uses most of it for themselves or their projects. What people do not realize is that, due to our nature, it can’t come out any other way.

Instead of looking at what we now know about animal and human nature, every system that collapses is declared by its proponents to have been somehow “imperfect.”

Mommy Professor will tell you that Socialism would work, that Marx was Great Genius. The rulers of the Soviet Empire and Cambodia just “got it wrong.”

You’ve hears that from the left a hundred times.

Every form of Wordism we have today was written when it was assumed that natural social animals had no property, no territory, no class system, all of which we now assume is impossible even in a society made up of meerkats with brains measured in milligrams.

But the instant we begin to discuss social systems, we go back to a way of thinking a person would be ashamed to take to a discussion of Meerkat Manor.