Inequality has long been a key study for social anthropologists. Across every society, there are issues of hierarchy (class, status and power) that determine the social and economic order and which, at its extreme, creates the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. One of the mantras, however, over the last few years has been that the world, spurred on by globalisation and new technologies that are helping to accelerate progress, is moving towards equality: that humankind, whatever its gender or race will be equal in the future. Although there have been many advances in the last two centuries, for example, in areas of human rights and economic growth, the present-day reality still reveals great inequalities.
Communication technology today is amazing and we are able to converse across countries - have Facebook friends in a dozen global locations. We would expect, quite reasonably, that this would increase opportunities for equality. Paradoxically, this does not seem to be the general case and the data suggests social inequality is measurably on the increase. What is going on and can anthropology help us understand that, despite social and technological advances, why the goal of equality appears to be so elusive?
Even before written historical evidence we know from archaeological excavations that Stone Age people, over 30,000 years ago, had an established hierarchy where the more powerful and wealthy were buried with luxury grave goods, like jewellery and art objects, and the lesser members of society were put in bare graves. However, these societies we can surmise, through our knowledge of existing similar hunter-gather peoples, were relatively more egalitarian than now, as they were nomadic and had little property to compete over. With the Neolithic (New Stone Age) an ‘agricultural revolution’ took place around 10.000 BCE, with pastoralism and the cultivation of crops, and people became sedentary and started to acquire property: the ownership of land, tools and crops. As some in society acquired more property and the wealth and power that went with ownership, so distinct hierarchies emerged and there was a major separation between aristocrats and commoners. This social structure was endorsed by the theology of the state as the ‘natural order’.
With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the weakening of religion, there were challenges to the established order through free thinking and ideological movements, like liberalism and communism. The next century became an age of revolution when the existing order became undermined or overthrown; for example, the 1917 revolution in Russia and, after WW1, the dissolution of monarchies and the old orders across Europe. Yet as one hierarchical elite disappeared other ones were formed. The Tsar and Russian aristocrats may have been eliminated following the1917 Revolution and yet a new hierarchy has emerged in Russia to replace the previous one, with President Putin (soon to be ‘lifelong President’), the ‘Tsar’, and his ‘aristocrats’, multi-millionaires, the so-called oligarchs, lording it over the people who are relatively little better off than their ancestors under the previous monarchy. Another example of this phenomenon of one hierarchy being replaced by another spring to mind through my personal experience. Many years ago I made my first visit, on behalf of a UK university, to China. When I arrived in Shengyang, the main city with a population of over 8 million, of Liaoning province, I was taken to a magnificent place to stay, with marble floors and glass chandeliers, set in a beautiful country park. When I inquired why this place was so grand, I was told that it had been formally been built as a private meeting place for the elite of the Chinese Communist Party and had, because the Party had a new venue, been converted into a hotel just before my arrival. So, while much of China was then in comparative poverty, the new rulers were ‘aping’ the luxury of past emperors in the Forbidden City: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (“the more it changes, the more it's the same thing”).
Are hierarchies, elites and, therefore, the concomitant social inequalities part of an immutable human condition and, if this is the case, why?
Accepting the process of evolution, as described in Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, we are part of the order of Primates, belonging to the family of Great Apes, along with gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees. Our nearest ‘cousins’ are the chimpanzees with whom we share at least 96% of the same DNA. Through ethology (the study of animal behaviour), we have learnt much about chimpanzee behaviour. The hierarchy of their social structure is based on dominance by alpha males and females and each member of the group fits into the hierarchy. There is fairly constant competition for the top spot as young males contest the position of the old alpha male. The natural rationale for this arrangement is, in Herbert Spencer’s expression, “the survival of the fittest". The competition to be the dominant male and female is to ensure control over reproduction and the passing on of the alpha genes.
Although we might blanch at the thought, much of human society mirrors our chimpanzee cousins’ behaviour: in the past, the sexual license of rulers were indicators of their political dominance, status and power and there are plenty of examples today of alpha male world leaders: Putin, Kim il Jong, Erdogan, Duterte, al-Asad, Chi, Trump and so on. Linked to the individual competition for political power there are hierarchies who demonstrate their status through class and control of resources.
Just to return briefly to globalisation: at one level the global village offered opportunities of equality but in reality, a new hierarchy has emerged, those who are the key players in the digital world, controlling data and, therefore, knowledge, and who have become the present-day elite. With the growth of artificial intelligence and the replacement of humans with computers and machines, much of the population, as they lose their traditional jobs, are being left behind. While the digital bosses become billionaires, the unskilled are being made redundant (and seemingly irrelevant), sinking into relative poverty.
[In a previous blog, Tribalism versus the Global Village I explained how these fundamental changes are fueling tribal popularism.]
The point is that, although humans have come a long way and the behavioural distance between us and other great apes may seem immense, much of our emotional and unconscious behaviours (basic instincts) are still linked to our evolutionary past. Of course, this does not mean we cannot change and adapt our behaviour as a species. Adaptation is happening constantly but we need to remember this will not happen overnight. It is generally a long-drawn-out process and we should not become too despondent if the incremental changes seem painfully slow. Hierarchy and inequality will be very persistent and require rationalism and patience to lessen the disparities across societies, let alone eradicate them altogether.
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