The Spread of Inequality

Abstract

The causes of socioeconomic inequality have been debated since the time of Plato. Many reasons for the development of stratification have been proposed, from the need for hierarchical control over large-scale irrigation systems to the accumulation of small differences in wealth over time via inheritance processes. However, none of these explains how unequal societies came to completely displace egalitarian cultural norms over time. Our study models demographic consequences associated with the unequal distribution of resources in stratified societies. Agent-based simulation results show that in constant environments, unequal access to resources can be demographically destabilizing, resulting in the outward migration and spread of such societies even when population size is relatively small. In variable environments, stratified societies spread more and are also better able to survive resource shortages by sequestering mortality in the lower classes. The predictions of our simulation are provided modest support by a range of existing empirical studies. In short, the fact that stratified societies today vastly outnumber egalitarian societies may not be due to the transformation of egalitarian norms and structures, but may instead reflect the more rapid migration of stratified societies and consequent conquest or displacement of egalitarian societies over time.

Birth-Order Differences Can Drive Natural Selection on Aging

“…; Rogers et al. ). Consequently, some form of sibling inequality was likely present across the historic continuum of ecological and economic environments (Borgerhoff Mulder and Beheim ; Gibson and Gurmu ).…”

The evolution of inequality

“…Instead, we construct a possible synthesis by identifying factors that underlie associations between other variables hitherto considered to be causal in their own right. We deal only indirectly with explanations that emphasize technological innovations, intergroup conflict over resources, and the cultural transmission of inequality within or across societies . In our view, such explanations, by focusing on the population‐level emergence of inequality, leave unanswered the fundamental question of how individual strategies adjust to allow for the evolution of inequality.…”

“…We focus on evolutionary explanations of independent emergences of persistent institutionalized inequality (PII) in small‐scale, relatively egalitarian societies. Although PII is relevant to cultural evolutionary models of inequality, we only indirectly consider its diffusion or imposition from larger, more complex, and stratified societies . Our explanations center on the relative costs and benefits of inequality to individual reproductive success (RS) or other plausible fitness correlates.…”

Conflict, Evolution, Hegemony, and the Power of the State

“…4 Take, for example, the largely geographically isolated region of China: bounded by jungles 3 Ely uses a model similar to the one used here, but similar results using more biologically oriented models have been around for some time. For example Aoki [1] uses a migration model to study eciency, while more recently Rogers, Deshpande and Feldman [45] There are also, however, two glaring exceptions: except for brief periods neither the subcontinent of India nor, following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area of continental Europe were subject to a hegemonic state.…”