The Benefits of Inequality 254
New submitter MutualFun sends this article from Science News:
Which would you prefer: egalitarianism or totalitarianism? When it comes down to it, the choice you make may not be as obvious as you think. New research suggests that in the distant past, groups of hunter-gatherers may have recognized and accepted the benefits of living in hierarchical societies, even if they themselves weren't counted among the well-off. This model could help explain why bands of humans moved from largely egalitarian groups to hierarchical cultures in which social inequality was rife.
Agrarian shift caused mass underfeeding (Score:1, Informative)
In the archeological record, we can see people got smaller and weaker when they moved from hunter-gatherer societies to agrarian ones where assets were not shared on a more equal basis.
But, live in your Ayn Rand fantasy if you must.
Just stop pretending Science supports it.
Math loves to be Anthromorphized! (Score:5, Informative)
Terrible summary and title.
From TFA:
Our model predicts that the transition to larger despotic groups will then occur when: (i) surplus resources lead to demographic expansion of groups, removing the viability of an acephalous niche in the same area and so locking individuals into hierarchy; (ii) high dispersal costs limit followers' ability to escape a despot. Empirical evidence suggests that these conditions were probably met, for the first time, during the subsistence intensification of the Neolithic.
So availability of resources to a minority and the inability to escape cause large despotisms, much like CO2 and Greenhouse gases cause global warming. Climate science should be renamed "The Benefits of Global Warming". Or after a man's parachute fails to open he "realizes the benefits of gravity in assisting his painless disassembly".
I know it would be odd to ask for editors to, uh, you know, edit.
Gini coefficient (Score:4, Informative)
This is a naive article. For a better analysis, see "How Asia Works" [amazon.com], which is a comparison of the coastal Asian countries, how they developed, and why. Development requires several phases. One is raising agricultural productivity. There's the heavy-handed approach, which comes in the communist form of collective arms and the capitalist form of big plantations. Then there's the light approach, which involves lots of little services like tractor rental and agricultural agents. (The heavy-handed approach works well only for flat land. Hill operations require too many local decisions.) There's thus a visible relationship between what a country looks like and its Gini coefficient. [wikipedia.org]
The second phase of development is about industrialization. Where investment goes really matters. Market forces do not direct investment towards overall economic growth, but toward short-term profit. The successful "Asian tigers" all had very directed investment controls, and how well countries did relative to each other depends on how well investment was directed.
The book has lots of country-by-country comparisons, both statistical and on the ground. It's worth a read.
Re:Why would this surprise? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Or... (Score:4, Informative)
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
False dichotomy (Score:4, Informative)
Which would you prefer: egalitarianism or totalitarianism?
The question makes little sense - for one thing, egalitarian is not the opposite of totalitarian - to quote Wikipedia:
- "Egalitarianism ... is a trend of thought that favors equality for all people"
- "Totalitarianism or totalitarian state is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible".
Arguably, the opposite of egalitarianism is elitism; there isn't really a good word for it that I could find. The same holds for totalitarianism - no good antonym, but democratism might be close enough. These concept occupy two, independent spaces, although it may be that totalitarianism is found more with elitism than with egalitarianism.
The other problem with this question is that they are not binary concepts, but define a continuum - IOW there are different degrees of both scales.
When it comes down to it, the choice you make may not be as obvious as you think. New research suggests that in the distant past, groups of hunter-gatherers may have recognized and accepted the benefits of living in hierarchical societies, even if they themselves weren't counted among the well-off. This model could help explain why bands of humans moved from largely egalitarian groups to hierarchical cultures in which social inequality was rife.
There is nothing new in this. Even back in the day, when we can imagine that humans lives like the other, large apes in small groups, there would have been leaders - alpha-males or -females. Or in family groups, one or both parents would have been in charge. This makes sense, since a more experienced, older adult makes better decisions than a younger one, and a physically stronger individual is able to take what he/she wants as well as offering better protection against attackers etc.
But what recent research of the Egyptian culture actually shows is, that hierarchical society developed, not because hierarchy is inherently better, but because the alternatives were worse. If Egypt hadn't been surrounded by desert, people would have moved away, and hierchical society wouldn't have been established that early. Compare to North Europe, where it is possible to live more or less everywhere, and hierchical societies seemingly didn't arise until much later, when population density got high enough.