FOI in Primitive Society

There are no formal rules for secrecy in primitive society as government is general weak or nonexistent.[1] Informal rules for secrecy might exist as the high costs of obtaining information among tribes. Tribe Huangdi defeated Tribe Zhiyou in a fight because Huangdi used some fierce animals which were fostered in his tribe to take part in this fight. The fact that Huangdi had these animals was unknown by Zhiyou as the costs of this kind of information are too high to be obtained by Zhiyou. However, there are almost no secrets within a tribe of China’s primitive society because of high costs of hiding their information. Information obtaining costs within a tribe is decreased to much degree by the fact that ‘people tend to live in crowed conditions and thus everyone knows everything about everyone else.’[2] Full transparency within a tribe is benefit for maintaining social order in the primitive society in which no investigative mechanism and enforcement mechanisms by third party, like public authorities.

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[1] Richard Posner, The Economics of Justice (1^st ed, 1981) 149.

[2] Richard Posner, The Economics of Justice (1^st ed, 1981) 148.

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