Contribution to Book
On the Evolution of the Human Capacity for Inequality and/or Egalitarianism
Pathways to Power: New Perspectives on the Emergence of Social Inequality
(2010)
Abstract
Many theories of the evolution of human social inequality are based on the necessity of overcoming the inertia of egalitarianism, which rests in turn on the assumption that egalitarianism is our default social organization at least in small groups (e.g. Smith and Choi 2007). Wiessner (2002: 234) has described this assumption as a "slate of simplicity" upon which a variety of forces acts to create inequality. She is critiquing agency theory approaches to inequality, but the assumption is much broader. Its roots lie in the concept of the tabula rasa: the notion that "people are so widely malleable by their social environment that the very concept of human. Nature must be rejected" (Giotis 2006: 377). While varying in language and formulation, it shapes theory building, explanations and expectations of the archaeological record (Wason 1994), especially for hunter-gatherers. It is also the basis of archaeological methodologies for determining the presence of inequality; inequality has to be proven, egalitarianism docs not. The absence of evidence for rank is evidence for egalitarianism (Ames 2007a). However, it is reasonable to hypothesize that human inequality is at least in part due to a pan-Primate order propensity for social differentiation, dominance, and subordination. Those can take highly variable forms from primate to primate species and perhaps from hominin to hominin species. It follows from this that there is no general "inertia of egalitarianism" to overcome, or that it is weak. In other words, inequalities are always present in human societies, as is the potential for more formal systems of rank.
I do not try to prove such a propensity exists, although I think it does, but explore some of its ramifications. This is not to advocate biological determinism, but that we must understand the creature we are. I wish to avoid and have my readers avoid the "naturalistic fallacy" (Moore 1903): the idea that "natural" behaviors, whatever those may be, are therefore inherently "good" and moral or must be accepted as inevitable. Richerson and Boyd (1999) show how societies, through what they term “work-arounds,” deal with human nature, and as Ruse puts it, “on many occasions, that which is right involves fighting that which has evolved rather than supporting and promoting it” (Ruse 2006: 239). No alleles for prestige competition have been identified. Proof will be difficult to come by; it will ultimately be indirect and take the form of a consilience of inductions and arguments to the best explanation (Ruse 2006)........
Several distinctions and concepts are basic to this chapter. These include external and internal constraints on cultural variation (Trigger 1991), dominance, and prestige (Henrich and Gil-White 2002), and attention structures and costly signaling (see below). The rest of this section discusses these ideas. The sections following examine a series of issues including the possibility that a human propensity for inequality rests on our primate heritage, conceptions of egalitarianism including about its originsand persistence, explanations for the long-term persistence for prestige seeking, the evolution of prestige technologies, and the evolution of egalitarianism. These discussions suggest that human inequality and egalitarianism may be aspects of the illusive quality of "modernity" and briefly review the relevant archaeological record.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2010
Editor
T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman
Publisher
Springer-Verlag New York
Series
Fundamental Issues in Archaeology
DOI
10.1007/978-1-4419-6300-0
Citation Information
Kenneth M. Ames. "On the Evolution of the Human Capacity for Inequality and/or Egalitarianism" Pathways to Power: New Perspectives on the Emergence of Social Inequality (2010) p. 15 - 44 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kenneth_ames/14/