“Naturally, to an affluent Englishman, reared amid servants, a society never far from starvation will seem starkly egalitarian. There will be no opulent displays of status, no gross disparities. But social hierarchy can assume many forms, and in every human society it seems to find one.” Robin Wright (18)
In today’s democracies, while there is scant legal/explicit favoritism shown to individuals of upper status — no special laws on the books for billionaires only — informal favoritism continues. A man or woman need to wear no jeweled crown for special treatment. Fancy clothes and an automobile crowned with a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament might do it. Yes, you, to the front of the line. Here, sit at best table in the restaurant. You, you with the Ford sedan, just who do you think you are?
While status is largely informal and established through symbolic means today, it continues to represent access to resources. Why, for example, you a person want to make friends with the popular guy (high status)? Access to babes, access to parties, access to wealth and the lifestyle it brings. Good food, good drink. And a network of other individuals who may increase one’s access to desired resources.
Taking food as an example here: With equal access to resources, what value is there in status? Relevantly, when food is equally scarce or equally abundant, hierarchies don’t seem to thrive. Abundance, however, is rarely equally distributed. Many anthropological investigations have posited a historical relationship between abundant, non-perishable food stores and highly stratified societies.
“When further intensification of agriculture was needed to support a growing population that could not be supported by a social organization based on extended families such as the teri, chiefdoms evolved.” (19)
Only where there is something to control can big men or women become big, thanks to their ability to wrest control from others. Whatever the source of their power: muscle, advantageous relationships, persuasive talk and impressive behavior and ornamentation . . . .
Surely in our enlightened society, we longer link status with access to food? Um, ever check out the menu difference between first-class flyers and those on the other side of the curtain? Prime rib for one group, peanuts for the other. That is a sign of status. In first class, if not more food, you get better food.
In his book on the subject, Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Christopher Boehm notes,
“Thus, a hunting and gathering way of life in itself does not guarantee a decisively egalitarian political orientation; nomadism and the absence of food storage also seem to be needed.” (20) [bold mine]
Absence of food storage as a historically important variable in the occurrence of more egalitarian social groups? In the following quote from her book on egalitarian behavior, notice how Margaret Powers presents the relevant variables in a reversed order:
“As anthropologists use the term, an egalitarian society is one in which all members are considered to be of equal intrinsic worth and are entitled to equal access to, and share of, the goods, rights and privileges of their society. Within the structure of the society, individuals have a high degree of autonomy. The fundamental immediate-return foraging system eliminates power relationships, and inequalities of possessions, prestige and status. Indeed, Woodburn emphasizes strongly that no other way of human life permits so great an emphasis on equality.’ (21) [bold mine]
In a sense, Powers has put the cart before the horse. Many people today probably presuppose that first comes a society’s values, then comes their behavior and organization. The opposite may be closer to the truth. As we shall see with female sexual independence.
On the very next page of her book Powers again presents the consequence before the cause.
“There is no superior-inferior ordering based on physical dominance or other sources of power such as wealth, hereditary classes, military or political office in these foraging societies.” (22)
Without the most basic of resources to hoard and steal, what is there to inherit, or need to police? Foraging societies are poor societies in terms of the customary measure of wealth: the accumulation of valued resources. And food is a basic resource that can be accumulated and traded for access to other valued resources, other signs of wealth. Such as weapons, jewelry and wives. More on the wives part just a bit later.
As for the accumulation of food, in agrarian societies this is a necessity. Food needs to be collected and stored in abundance to last the year long. Is it possible for agrarian economies to be egalitarian? It seems that communism is one way of putting the variable of values ahead of the cart of a group’s economy, a way to deal with agrarian-age surpluses so that hierarchies don’t spring up. You might call communism a formal or imposed egalitarian state.
Now to sex. What does food have to do with sex? Well, besides that fact that primates are documented exchangers of the former for the latter? With ability to control and hoard one resource comes the ability to influence access to another resource: females. And while sex with females appears to be the resource, this is only proximally so. Ultimately, the drive is all about progeny.
In her book on the evolution of human morality, Robin Wright notes that “monogamous marriage has often taken root in societies with little economic stratification.” (23)
At least historically, wives were costly. A male needed great resources to support many wives and the many more offspring generated. That kings and not peasants had multiple wives may seem at first blush about the simple privilege of status. But what it comes down to is access to resources. Friends in high places. And food, glorious food. Guaranteed nourishment, even in times of drought. Those, and not a simple seat at the head of a table, is what status provides a sign of. And delivers more often than not.
Why do woman find older men and rich men to be attractive, even if those men are married? Because both types of men are more likely to have access to valued resources than young men. As long as resources matter, well, Wright put it this way:
“So long as a society remains economically stratified, the challenge of reconciling lifelong monogamy with human nature will be large.” (25)
As long as some men have more muscles, more money, more possessions, more social power than other men, it is unlikely we will live in a sexually egalitarian world. The recent “sex scandal” involving Tiger Woods and his many mistresses is a perfect case in point. Why were those women attracted to Mr. Woods? Sure, he is good looking. And strong. But then there are the resources he commands. Tiger is a powerful man. And power is attractive. Not for the power itself, but for what it can and does deliver. Bill Clinton and his many affairs is another case in point. Governor . . . President of the United States . . . That’s sexy. Attractive. But the question is, what lies at the end of the rainbow of attraction?
Monogamy is attractive to men when it ensures that the resources they put into their home and offspring will go to raising their own “seed.” If men can cheat and sew it elsewhere without having to “pay” the cost of providing for their offspring . . . some will. Perhaps many.
Monogamy is attractive to women in that it insures assistance and some amount of resources in raising children, actual or potential. But what if they have a man, but the opportunity arises to mother a child with better genes, with traits more likely to grant offspring access to future resources and a better prospect for their own, and, in part, to their mom’s genes? Some women will cheat.
For a long time women were considered second-class citizens. That has changed, and is changing. Women are now becoming as educated and as employable as men. The result: they don’t need to access essential resources through men, but can do it directly. Themselves. Very relevantly so, in countries where women are less dependent on husbands, where they are more secure on their own, we find that marriages are less secure. Divorce rates rise. If the resources the husband provides aren’t absolutely necessary, he becomes more expendable.
In my opinion, female fidelity is on the decline and will continue to decline not because the cart of their morality has veered off track, but because the horse of their social and economic environments has changed.
Three final points about the pragmatic circumstances that “foster” the ideals of egalitarian societies.
1. I’m not sure that complete economic equality would lead to a hierarchy-free society. At least in terms of informal hierarchies. For social status can consist of more than wealth. And status is an instinctively important variable in human behavior, even when the signs of it are quite subtle. There may always be more popular (higher status) individuals, even if the resource they have better access to is merely social.
2. As Christopher Boehm has mentioned, one of the great equalizers among men has been the development of weapons.(24) One man need not overpower another physically today. Muscles matter less in a world with muskets and more. In a sense, the bell curve of power has had its tail chopped off. A male with a weapon is as dangerous as an alliance of males without. So cannot be controlled as easily.
2a. Of course, guns don’t kill people, motives kill people. Over what? Resources. The vast majority of homicides in this country are committed by one person who knows the other. What incites the conflict between individuals? Money, some times. Mates, many times. Status, often, too. Threatening the status of an individual can get you killed. So don’t diss the dude that takes his status seriously. Even the low status man may engage in an honor killing if facing a lowering of his already low status.
Why is status so important? Not merely because it can get us into the latest edition of Who’s Who. Rather, status equals social standing. Which means better access to resources. Including advantageous relationships.
4. Finally, the thought has occurred to me that Jesus could be considered a more egalitarian prophet. Again, is it the cart of his values that drove the prophet’s teachings? Or did the horse of his times determine that he had no property of his own to promise his followers? That he had no associations with the rulers to entice allegiance? What did Jesus have? This: The egalitarian promise that in a world to come the meek would sit atop an inverted hierarchy.
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(18) Wright, R., The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life, Vintage, NY, 1995, p. 237
(19) Ehrlich, P. R., Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect, Island Press, Washington, D.C., 2000, p. 250
(20) Boehm, C., 1999, p. 88
(21) Power, M. The Egalitarians: Human and Chimpanzee, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1991, p. 41
(22) Power, M., 1991, p. 42
(23) Wright, R., 1995, p. 105
(24) Wright, R., 1995, p. 106
(25) Boehm, C., Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999.
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