TWENTY-FOUR ity and Natural Law Tnutthe foe Age hd barely thasvedl earliest ancestors were all bort eq Some of then began surrendering bits of equal ir societies, which Kegan with Treeditary’ rank npared to hypertrophie growth in biol genes, It greweont of per peaked ‘Socal complexity, however, was not eansed by ntfs life free, virtue, intellect property, gest det prowess in combat Tn bilogcal evolution, population bwerease Is coder eae of suc- ‘One spocies gros atthe expense of ethers, thr brands Bes Linas succesful, ora change of environment favored #8 preesisting pres. Social evolution ss diferent. Sone of banty’s Larges) inet opto of aul change that had ethno do wih 0 nce The decision to live in permanent willages, the Five of apr ive rank Faeries, and the eveation of expansionist ings were Frequently accom nied by population grvsth Despite their obvious differences, one can point to ws NL and social exolution. Biologists used to rely largely ot ase ‘Taifferences to infer how animals bad changed over tine, Nov that we can consult their DNA, we often Hearn tt sng’ ove related, while others that look eiferent have a biologists would say that ovr knowledge of ce worked out its genetic code, ful analogies be- vardly similar species ace comunn anestor. Many of to any species is therefore incomplete wil we Ia 1 logic For social an | This the eeavon we Ii luopologsts an arlicologt, the printant af any society lee sould be 3474 848 + THE CREATION OF INEQUALITY analogous to having its DNA profile. When we do not understand society wing premises, we are left with unanswered questions. Did states with divine kings arise from rank societies where sacred authority was preeminent? Did secular Kingdon arse Fro rank societies where military force wasup. ernest? Or could any type of nomarchy arise from ans type of rank socety> UPDATING ROUSSEAU Ronsseam held that our ancestors were born without sovereign masters, go ‘emments, or laws, and that the only differences among them lay in the strength, agility, and intelligence. Those ine horized by Nat ral Lay. Mast later inequalities resulted not from nature bt fro of society itself. Toslay we suspect that our Ice Age forebears were not wholly without ters or luvs. They alnnst certainly believed themselves to have been the creations of celestial sp las of 00 behavior, Most likely or abilities heyonel powerful masters who gave m westors also bel 5. Those “old ones” had taken on the role of betas in ety’s dominance hierarchy and, when treated property, would int their descendants’ behalf with the alplias of the spirit word. Tee Age people lived an fonds whose pursuit tended to keep soci 1 mobile. Because fatwations in the food supp to forage in the territories of others, our ancestors could not afford ally make neighbors into honorary kinsmien, They do this by erat with whom they exchange such things as magical names, food, or ppartuerships allow’ one family to host another in i hha een related by blond oF ma ‘The logic of small-scale foragers has its own Rest prineiples. woul be typie we te Wife force within us spirits, places, and abjeets are sared. wlividuals dif in virtue. enerosity is one o those virtues. ‘Oller, initiated people tend to be more virtuons than youn peoplul Natural Law + 848, wrivals arrivals in a territory are obliged to defer to earlier inherently superiae to that of our neighbors nost anthropologists i a wide= ters and gatherers, yet constant social pressure ieividuals continue to be generons. Such pres- applied to Teoukd not be necessary there were genes for generosity ecorulary premises that grew aut of the fist prineiples were wot as ily shreds the alter. For example, mst foragers arc that bans > Tmt they: Frequently disagree on which specific behaviors make wots. Such variations are the raw maveral for ethn Tong-terin social change, snl greater i foragers, for example, considered sharing so import ped to store food lest they he acensert of hoarding, Such be fated with immediate-return economic strategies. Other foragers had ayed-return strategies tht allowed for drying, smoking. al storing ood Find even some molest engineering of the environment, To avoid accusations hearing, they throw feasts at which foods were shared. Tn some parts of the world delayed-retarn foraging probably st the stage Ber agriculture. For its part, feasting coferred inereased respect om the best FA commitinent to reciprocity meant that unteciprocated generasity could bndate into debt. Cifl-giving could either keep the playing field level, or be inlated to achieve the opposite rest Ttwould be nsefil to know the circumstances under which such fion occurred. A decline in sharing may be indicated be privatized storage Aonits, which archaeologists have detected in Near Easter villages oeenpied 8,000 years ago. Tnpartsof the lee Age workd foragers went beyond exchange and food sha archaeological evidence suggests that some of thein created large, Permanent groups of people who considered themselves related, whether it vas true or not. Early cans may have made use ofthe templates for patr © eal or matrilineal society that, as we saw earlier, sometimes eould be found in the gender maker Most clanless foragers worked hard to treat everyone as equals, This ethic tsually persisted within one’s clan but dil not alvays estend to other dans Some chins, for example, felt a sense of intellectual property and sought to keep their rituls secret from others. This need to protect seerets may’ have inspired nip350 + THE CREATION OF INEQUALITY CREATION OF INEQUALITY the first attempts to have leadership pass from father to son, In other eases Clan Aus willing to let Clan B perform one ofits stuals in exchange for tahableg Even clanless foragers have been known to save the hones of decvased relge tives, The enhanced importance of Khe ances 8 increased his cura {iow of skeletal parts. Some clanles foragers Init sweat horses or hachelong” huts; lan-bused societies sometimes Dnt mens houses or chamel houses Suelt huildings appeared in the Near East 9.000 vears ago, Even clinless foragers practiced initiation and bride service. tn socitieg _ ‘vith larger social units, such rituals came to ince even greater echangae of valuables, not only between faiies but also between descent groups. additions oso many levels of staal behavior helped escalate the archae cal evidence for art, susie, and dance, Jn Some regions having corporat alleged life rons eweated ew logical promises tween bride-givers and brid-takers i: one ample, Here isa second ease where Formerly reciprocal exchanges sould ‘contorted to sources of inequality i Finally, the “us versus the ipl of social substitutability ane. Some rai with e Jha heen laid for larger-scale war, What clies lead archacologists to suspect that a prehistoric soi sessed chins or ancestorased descent groups? The chies are multig eteres, widen paises or masini dl trophy’ heads, the savin from another group was i turned with trophy heads. Others re tun parties tive women ae eile sive walls, men of skulls fron burials, the Nile Valley appeared even befor fa ly agricul of the Ne ent assume, hewever, that ea original” society: There are for esample them wh sovieties livesina ess foragers represent: claness foragers (th Ihave had descent gronps or clans in the past they wore driven into margi ih as that of the Anda Jatvel sh environ casons we should probbly view clans ord asone of sever alternative social wtworking strategies rather vital second stage of foraging society: ws. For all theseInequality and Natural Lane + SS BALANCING PERSONAL AMBITION AND THE PUBLIC GOOD ‘considered the replacement of selFrespect with selF-lowe am impor- tant moment in the ereation of inequality: Tow seems obviows, howev that both serespeet and selélove were these fro the beginning, The tug dofwar between thom may hive been one of lee Age saciety’s wost significant Aogieil contradictions. With the rise of agricultural villages 9,000 years ago in the Near East -000 years ago in Egypt, an 4,000 years ag in Mexin, the environment for selfJove bal improved. Iu wuany parts ofthe world, however the adoption of agriculture did uot lead i ly to inequality. Lots of societies struck a balance between personal nthe public good, and in some regions that halance lasted well into the twentieth century: There are archaeological hints, to be sure, that many of toray’s achievement-ased societies once flirted with greater inequality, Most of those firtations, however, ened with a rex turn to egalitarian behavior. What achiovement-hased societies excelled a wus providing dividuals (those who, in Ronsseau’s words, “desired to he thought of as sup rior") with acceptable ways of inereasng their prestige. ‘Those ways included prowess in raiding or hea-taking, sill in entrepreneurial exe forship of increasingly important rituals: While all these paths cond lead to renown, prominent individwals were not allowed to become a hereditary elite ‘They could serve as role models for their chiklren but could not guarantee then the same prestige “Let uslock st tthe taking of seulps or heads. Some idealistic ethropalo- ts have chosen to downplay such violence as path to renossn, hut it was fften celebrated in native memory. "Once we had leaders who lined the walls four men’s hense with encmy’slull” some tribes lamented, “but now we are reduced to squabbling like girly men.” “An interesting aspect of achievement-based society is the not inlrequent Tink between raiding and exchange. The tee eyele of the Enga shows us that _var could be changed from blood feuds toa means of profiting frm wa rep ations. The escalation of mokas, patlateles, and feasts of merit shows ns that petitive exchange cel fl the vac It bythe clonal suppression of raiding Exchange, to be sure, is wll te slaves. Sometimes, however, fy to produce captives that one can turn ‘produces delitors that one ca force into552 + THE CHEATION OF INEQUALITY servitude. Differe ables ea ces in expertise at accunnulating and giving asvay value rubbish ; ities into Big Men, ordinary m 0 divide commun legs.” One of the most common paths to renown ritual achievement, A Tewwa valved climbing a ladder of an could rise from Warm Clown to Fully Mad Person. A Mandan won could rise from Goose society to White Buffale Cow society. An Angumi Nags could rise to the position of holy man, What none of these hievers could do was bequeath their children. ‘Many Americans will find familiar the logic of achiewement-based so All men are created equal, Work hard. play'by the rules, and anyone can up to be prominent, If one provides one's children with privileges they not really earned, they will be so spoiled that they will get their own req TV show: ‘The difference is this: the United States hal to fight « Revolutionary War et rid of heredit never did figure out how to reduce di ties in wealth, Achievementchased societies, on the other hand, usually pres sured al oftheir members to give away the valuables they had accumulated, By wh aristocracy ship? P the Near Bast, 4,000 year ago in the aul 3.500 years ago in Mexico, And what would be some of the ches chaeologists look for the building of mew’s houses, cither the larger and mon inclusive type oF the sialler and more exclusive type, They also look ccnlations of trae stems that “They analyze residences snd burials careful ing evidence tat certain fanilies’ culdren were are likely to eonelude that any obvious differences in pres achieved, not inherited. Arelaeologists esamine as many ofa soci for any evidene that banilets were obliged to eontebute tribute of larger village nearhy, Wet wo such evidence apps society is indicated. Archaeologists also ty to evaluate any evid vnnient building, with the eaveat that an oecastnal para, tone m ussve slit leadership, How did the old unter-gatherer lic come to e changed, dered som individuals more one could ine s to renown? Even foragers others and believed tssa ing on th Principle. many village societies ereated:t series of formal steps to iver virue through the learning of sired lore, Another ronte, using entrepreneurial exchange, ing three principles we sow among foragers: (1) Generosity is good: (2) Ex- changes of gilts create social bonds; and (3) The farther asvay one's trade goods come fn, the pressed one's peers wil be. Soune achieve nent- based societies, such as the Enga, tried to keep exchanges equal, using prin ‘ples such ay "Give one pig and one pig only” Others, sueh us the Melpa, ected that giving one’s neighbors more pigs than they could repay made ‘one more generons land hence more virtuous) than thes Ouce the latter principle was accepted, embarrassing one's rivals with seetacular gifts became an acceptable path 0 renown. An nanticipated cansequenceof competitive exchange was thal whole faniies and clans might bre pressured into bankrolling an aspiring Big Man, I he were defeated bya rival, they: could kiss their investinent gourd ‘The loss of face ereuted by asymmetrical exchange could lead to blood Is. andl blood feuls could increase the scalp ting. Ma ies believed thatthe taking ofa heal could ald to one’ life foree. Lead {ng warriors into combat, counting coup, or turning with captives or body’ pts ths became another route to prestige Achievement-ased societies had great stability. At varions times and places Inthe ancient work, however, selElove persisted until a hereditary cite arose. We have seen that this phenomenon ws wot the inevitable onteonve of pop lation groseth, intensive agrenfture, oF climatic improseinent, even though all those factors cou create a favorable xquaity: The key process invohed one group of Inman agents battling for yrester privilege, ‘while other agents resisted with af the strength they eould snuster. Even when one segment of society suceeeded in achieving elite status, the struggle was not necessarily ever: Some societies, sil a the K Keayak Naga, eyeled between hereditary ra for decals, Archaeologists have proposed several scenarios for the creation of he- reilitary rank. Most take as thelr starting point a society that alzeudy had 4 istory of achieved inequality, but we do wot consider At least a few societies might have gone fru through the use of debt slavery, without spending m achievement-ased villages. IF that is the ease, it will one dy be confirmed by arclueologists created by manipulate584 + THE CREATION oF INEQUALITY In those cases where rank soiety did develop out of achievement based soviety there were mane preesisting inequities that could serve as raw tates rl. Inluded were the ifferences in prestige between Big Men and bis sme: between people who hut climbed the ritual ladder snd those who had not; between the clan that arrived first and everyone else rman chosen for success by w dk Another strategy for achieving which turned needy chin members into servants and neighbor into slayee Debt could result from exorbitant bride-prce, loans to aspting 3ig Men, eg cessive tor the desperate cries of impover was route built on the prineiple that i One ofthe interesting facts of hereditary rank was tht it could be creat ‘even by hunters nl gatherers such as the Nootka, Neither slavery nor aagiculture ‘ological ches for the appearance of rank society? y a qnestion as it sounds, ec ht be ranked above others. One Hineage within each clan m he considered a chielly lineage. There might be x continu of rua b genealogical distance from the chief. There might he stepwise gradati nobility, landed gentry, and commoners. And, as if this diversty eningh, there is also Henfrews cont f oriented rank so Archacologists shld thank their lucky stars for individuallzing rank ies, the nes in which the children ofthe elite get buried with sumpluary the chiel’s conse gets bundled, smoked, or surrounded by sari s. They should also be grate fr al the symnbolieally charged po work, and jade exchanged by noble fais, ¢ the regional lve, they: Uankfilforarchacologicalevidenes that chilly m followers, or were surrounded by suellit villages to whom they sentbrd I rank societies, temples dedicated to celestial = tnen's house, Even in gr ted rank sovieties, where elites refrained from flamboyant displays, chielly Funes often lived houses with greater storage fcilites and moe exilenee of trade Rank clearly represents a loss of equalit cate, Was rank relly such a bal thing? Dowt lots of spectes have ado Ivierarcly, and doesnt it provide stability to their society? In fad lowest prinate relatives have pecking orders? ¢ rank came in so many foaud Natural Law + S58. They do, but with an important difference. Is not predestined from the moment of birth that agiven chimpanzee will become an alpha ora beta, U alpha parent nay increase the likelihood, but inthe end an individu position in the bierarely'i the result of his or her interactions with other ind Viduals And any euimp’s position can rise or fall overtime, Human cank societies are different. The chill of great Ang parents is born igo matter hows short of talent he or she may he. The ehild of oner parents wll wever become a great Ang, wo matter bows lever he oF sl is The ability to negotiate one’ positon in rank society is meh more nina wee troop. interactions in rank society: to e sure, but they are usually between rivals of high rank. Chiefly polygamy leads to situations in ‘which a mmiberof heirs have ronghly similar ranks, Some ofthe bitterest con petition is between note siblings haf siblings, and first co Another set of violent confrontations involves territorial expansion, Both chimpanzee troops and chiefly mmman societies like to take territory ava from their neighbors, Both also prefer ambushes and mmuerical superiority Some aggressive chiels, however, dare t take on larger enemy forces if they feel that their military tactics are superior. A number of Shaka's greatest vie tories cane when his oops were outnumbered. societies, war became a too for chiefly aggrandizement, When izement simply meant the aesulsition of titles (as in parts of Samoa), it did not necessarily change te basic principles of society: When a srandizement mea Tad (asin M could produce territories too larg for the manages That sot the stage fort ny of the nthe course of changing the way they’ tered their territories, created new strategies. stead of co is residence so that all provinces cod sh i support, the sa trusted governor for each province. Instead of letting each ethnic group provide its own age regiments, Shaka created state-level re ‘ments thal were loyal only to him. Instead of appointing their brothers toa ‘minister pats of their wal, some Egyptian kings chose talented commoners who ere less likely tousurp the throne, The frst kingdoms oF olga sppeared 5.000 years ago in Egypt and Mesopotamia and 2,000 years ago in Mevieo and Peru. We find it hard to date the monient of state forination, because the ereation of state often re quired several generations of aggressive rulers. And despite al the similarities scar and Hac), it principles of rank sor political hierarchy chameteristic of kingdomsS58 -THECHESTIONOF INeguALITY sve have scen in first-generation states, th table, As lateay the twentieth center: m nothing more eonyples than rank societies. What are the cues that a king his een ereated? At the regional sel archaeologists look for signs thatthe political hierarchy had at least four lee els. the upper three of which featured auninistrtors. Thoy look for the stan dardizal temples ofa state religion, as well us for secular billings whose round plans reflect couneis or assemblies, At the capital they look for pal aces built by cor.ce bor and tombs with sunptoary gooks appropriate for royalty, At Level 2 alministeative centers there may’ be smuller versions of suicl residences and tomibs, oft ing the standardized architecture of top-down administration, Another ee would be workers receipt of rations dled out with standardized bowls, gridlles, oF redeemable tokens, Some: ies the archavologst task sce easier yu kingdonts ase of wig of arto convey the agenda of it leaders. ] Fow of the rulers who created kingdoms were content with the territorag they controlled. Whenever a ded by weaker neighborgt the temptation to expand was great. Sometimes, asin the Mexican state (Oasaea, this evpansion set off a hain reaction that created mukiple fort Kingda tw other cases, as on the north coast of Per, espansion ere snultiethne empire. The key to expansion lay i nose which neigh able and which Who ereated the world fi point to Sargon of Aki, he were neither comnion nor inevie uy parts of the world sill displayed disp ev stale was Surry chest let alone pire? While many archacologsts wvhave received more ereit than be d earlier king, Lgal-zagest clas to hve held sway rom M {he Mediterrancan, And even befive Lagal-zaosi rose to power, so subjugated the wile region fron Nubia to the Levant npires. in other ws, are pro th c stenotyy les’ Tong-standing ethnocentrism, The precedent for racial, religious Earl: kinyckons and empires did more than this, of course. Many: tok away whatever vestiges of equity the individual co left In the Avtve state, even commoners sho cultivated cotton den to wear cotton inantles. Sumerian law restricted commoner mat ‘one man and one wor later sovieties the impression th was a divinely sanctioned norm, The Sumerians also strengthened @ along with empires cane‘commoners, inereasing the likelihood that it would endure privilege were to disappear Finally, empires took away the freedom of other societies hy turning them into subject colonies. To he sue, the commoners in those societies had heen treated as an underclass ex who wound up losing the most. Sometimes conquered leaders were mollfied with gifts or they were allowed to participate in the joint rule oftheir former territories. We have left the topic of colonialisi until now because few subjects evoke more passion from today’s anthropologists, That fed has hada longstanding love afar with political correctness, and many anthropology courses preach that colonialism i evil and that resistance to colonialism is good. So pervasive is this mantra that many of today’s professors reise to assign the anthropo- logical literature written in Queen Victorias era even those works considered classies. Some go so far as to-accuse the ninetcenth-century social anthropol- before they were colonized: it was their elite ogists of being complicit in colonialism, since few of them vigorously de: nounced i ‘This is political correctness times ten, Colonialism was ereated neither by anthropologists nor by Queen Victoria. Iti at least 4.300 years ol, the prod- uct of kings who sought to add land and tribute to their ealms, The Sumeri= ans, Akkadians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Romans, Moors, Aztec did not learn their eraft from anthropologists, and most oftheir leaders Queen Victoria sound like Mother Teresa Roman archaeologists do not refuse to reudl Caesar's _gronnds that he was “the tool of a colonial posser” Latin Americanists do not ignore the 1580 Relaciones Geugrficas on the grounds that the Spaniards ‘writing them liad colonized Mexico. One ean thus oppose the phenomenon of colonialism withont trashing every author who Hived in an empire. pentaries on the WHAT IF FORAGERS WERE IN CHARGE? | Archaeologists are fequently asked two questions about inequality ‘which we have tried to answer, i: How did it arse in the fist place? The see- © ond is: How ean we got rid of it? | Rousseau had his oxen ideas about the second question, He believed that | people could only be happy and fre simple enaugh to be telligible to them and small enough to enable them to take a full and eq554 + THE CHEATION OF INEQUALITY part in its government. In a huge society with a comples economy, there ond, ont of necessity, be hierarchy: and inequality: the majority of what Rousseau called “passive citizens” woukd be controlled and exploited by the “aetive few!” Some of Rousseau readers took this to mean that heredita privilege in eiteenth-century France could only he overturned by «bloody revolution “The perpective taken in this book, however, allows for alternatives to bloody revelation, IF inexpality is the result of incremental changes in social logic and if those changes can be reconstructed —might we not be able to turn society to expality just as incrementally, beginning with the most re: cent changes and working back? IF inequality conld be reversed hy identifying and retracing its steps, at least some ofthe information wonkd ced to come: feom archeology and 50= cial anthropoloy: That fact should provide both fills with incentives to wo together. We once broached this subject with Seotty MacNeish, an archae who had spent 40 yeurs studying social evolution, How, we wondered, society be madle more egaita Daniels, MacNeish replied, “Put hunters and gatherers in charge.” We are vot sure whether the suggestion came from Jack or Seotty, g1e us something to think about. Putting hunter gatherers i charge wo reduce inequality overnight. It woukl, tobe sure, require abit of getting w to, because modern society has eliminated many hal for granted, Let ns bricfh: consider what our life would be lke if we were to the hands of egalitarian hmnter-githerers or a tase fs Fegin with, there are few things that probably would not change, ‘our society had been turned over to the people m degree ofsexismn and ag ination woul! renain. Not all eved that women had the capacity to be as virtuous ased diser ian societies bel Al few of th by different culstial spirits, received its ow own ancestors, and conkd not expect other geo neighbors’ dies, religion, and bel Ire because they were wicked but becuse ther origins wereOur society’s tolerance of would extend te marriage. A man with thw oF more wives, « wife with two oF more hushands, or even a foursome such as the one in Bob endl Carol aud Ted and Alice would be accepted. We ward permit same-sex wedelings, such as those invelving Native American two-spirt™ people. Marriage would not be seen as a Int as ipin which maaimum fesbility was desi any foragers practiced infanticide, our new leaders would law abortion, Because of their belie in reincarnation (view that wry Americans, foragers felt that every “spiet le opportunities to be born, Jayss preventing chil labor. Zor onr teenagers there ‘xonld not be as many hours of video games and hanging ont at te mall, just kely, however, that our teenagers’ frenzied nmasic and inspiring high that tribal societies even among twenty bila" would have mn of chores, It Ml ving on the same a agers believed tht snewess depended partly on skill and partly on c- Ifyou think that snything bus changed, watch a dugont fall of baseball ers patting on their “ally caps Jn fact, despite their prag tion in combining magic, seience, and religion. Our belie! inthe separation of church and state woukd surprise them. At the same time, whenever their eos: inelogy interfered with the adoption of useful scientific or technotogieal in- novation, they would change the cosmology Foragers had an ethic of sharing that would alter business as we know it ‘They would never allay CEOs to earn thousands of tines what assembly-Tine workers cur, Achievement-based villagers, for thei> part, would pressure management into throwing huge feasts for the workers and t lies, They would also insist on a safety net for the less fortunate, such as the Tewa distribution of food to poor failies Hunters ancl gatherers w ie philanthropists. At the same time they would keep those generons millionaires from getting too pleased with thenrselves, They would rely on sarcastic comments sich 4s, “You call that a charitable donation? The check was hardly worth cashing, {As for people who have the opposite problem—those who have accepted h from others that they cannot pay it hack—achievement-based ile lagers would have a solution. Such people would be :urned into servants oF slaves, Jorced to work off their debt through hard labor. Don’t tell Master Card ‘contradic-seo cnear or tNequauery ‘Then there are thieves who take others’ property with no intention of ree turning i: Tralitional foragers reacted angrily to theft a with repeat offenders. They believed in capital punishment and had no eon. cept whatsoever oflong-tera imprisonment it were tlt upto the Basar, Bernie Madoff would simply have been huced énto the wilderness and shoe with poisoned arrows. How woul foragers handle the problem of illegal immigration? Th establish hao exchanges oF namesake partnerships with as the other sie of the Ta itl patience ts possible When times were hard, they would allow those partners to share in the bounty of thelr territory. On the other hhand, strangers who showed up without having establishes ship might be driven aay Our drug policies would change, Ma turulists used narcotic and hallueinogente plants, so they would not believe eriainalizing then, Atte same time, they wu not ant to see digs ued inerely for “ecreaton.” They considered then sacred plants, because thy powessed! the power to open a window into the spirit world. Such drugs woul therefore be used excusively in the eoutest of rial. While many achievements villagers were willing to massacre bur their villages, poison their wells, and turn them into ver engaged in anyth building. They nt supernatural and social lage, could be turned ito a replica oftheir own, di Consider, far ewample, Mesopotamia, We have sen that it developed re than 7,000 years ago. It as had monarchies or olgarhie O00 years. Never once inal its lent of ens, gals, ans, warlors, and military dictators as Mesopotamia vali sda democracy chy not embrace forms of goes 1 social lg, especially when that gover side. The aggressor doing the impos sion of demoeracy requires forat least dos, there i compel n not to do so, One day we may preserving the word's reservoir of diverse social logic was just reserving its biodiversitythat led to socal ineqat ples of social loge. Does th we species? Ori si From time to K scientist or society would work hetter if we grounded our values in science a stead of religion. This idea appeals to anyone fed up with regi of diversity, or its frequent disdain for science. ‘The problem with the idea is its underlying assumption dat our ancestors, xpuired rel act is that even the first nother has argued that our oxic ine intolerang Degan with logie and principle of hnntergatherer lagi we search forthe source of those first principles, we do uot meover an earlier, tions of celestial spirits. Cosmologies are built on sacred proposition lenged despite the fact that there is no empirical evidence to support xen among the most pragmatic hunters snd gatherers, this is where logic ‘exids; Cosmological propositions ean be validated only by steong envi Decanse they del validation by logic or evidence. And while anthropy doubt the existence of genes for eligion. uo one doubts that we have genes for notions, Our emotions also play role in the subordination of ovr self the good of the group, Some evolutionary biologists have a proble dividual humans subordinate their selFinterest in this wa Afterall, subord- nation of selFinterest fits poorly with the notion that natural selection oper. ates a th val, rather than the group, level. What is not clear is the ‘degree to which individuals handicap themselves when they subordinate self terest by giving away food or valuables. Their generosity will almost cer ly result in their being considered superior in virtue, and this superiority ‘an result in more mates and offspring than if they behaved selfishly In other words, as long as our belivior results in leaving behind more off spring, it may not matter whether that behavior was direeted by genes, by uterest for when i inl iby unverifiable sacred propositions2+ TH ATION OF INEQUALITY INEQUALITY AND RESISTANCE “There can he no more exciting story for an archaeologist than the way new societies we theory, has the potential to Tanwever, ive or six ways of organizing penple work so well that strikingly similar soeicties have appeared in different regions ofthe world, We recognize those sox archaeological record, whether they arose in Africa, Asia or the Americas, ‘The similarities ang sockets in different parts ofthe work were nt ost even assed that these societies constituted n inevitable sequence of stages. through which all human gronps had passed ‘on their way from foraging to civilization, No one believes such a thing today vet, some of today’s anthropologists would even deny’ that recognizable types of societies exist Such denials are every bit as misgided as one prede= itdid. As we luave see cessors | “Today we know that even when two regions happened to go through sinilar stages, their social history did not proceed atthe same rate Just look, for ex ample, at the Near Bast aud Mevico. Both regions began to domestiate plants at the endl of the tee Age. perhaps 10,000 years ago. ‘The Near East fave rise to villages with ritual houses 9.000 years ago, ‘The: process took on= erin Mexico in part hese eae corn was not as preuctive as wheat and Frarey, There the fest villages with ritual houses did not appear until 3.500 Once Mexico hal deweloped aehiew the transition to stratified societies and first mon, archic states in Mesopotamia arose hetssven 5,500and 5,000 years ago, some 4,000 to 3,500 vears after the Fist villages. The first imonarchies oF oligarchie slates in Mexieo arose 2,000 years ago, barely: 1,500 yeas after the frst villages. Why did i take states more tan tiie as long to develop in the Near East? Mexico, hastening the shift from "tra- clitional” to “stratifical” society in Goldinan’s terms? Were the efforts to pre= serve a level phiving fee! more suecessfi in S Mesopotamia, prolong ing the period of aehievement-hased leadership? What coles did sacred authority, expertise aud military prowess play in speeding or sling peal dhanige? Were societies with exclusionary ritual honses more likey to give ise tu lcreditary elites than those whose ritual houses were open to al? in a monolithic sequence of stages shased vi nalons was ane snore capi. The Aes or ol Did mtitary Forex play a greater rokoog Law + $63 Archaeologists will not be able to answer these questions until they hive better ways of reconsteucring the logic of ancient societies, We wold lik beable to work ont scenarios for a wide variety of societies, providing plausi- ‘le explanations for why exrtain varieties appeared so frequently and kasted so Jong, We suspect, for example, that comples societies could only arise after changes ia logic hd reduced the pressure to suppress selFinterost, Some families or descent groups were then Fre to place their less successful neigh- bors in a position of disidiantage: They justified their superiority by cli special relationships with the vory beng wh had ison mas dee laws of behavior inthe frst place We are struck, however. hy the faet that each ex quired the overcoming of resistance: There se ‘ongoing struggle between those who desired to be superior and those who objected. That is undoubtedly why some of our most complex and stratified societies formed in a erueible of intense competition among clans, chiefly Hncages, and ethnic groups born free, Ronsican declared, yet we see hint everywhere in chains uve onirancestors to thank for that, They had dozens of chances to resist lity, bu they di mat always have the resolve, We ean forgive them for admiring virtue, entrepreneurial skill sand bravery. We simply wish they had not accepted the idea tha: those qualities were hereditary American society, of course, has abolished hereditary privilege, but today wwe make entertainers and professional athletes into an aristocracy. Many of ts so deeply in debt to ennilate them, buying eomtesstoys that we do not need celebrities surtond themselves with the exprvalent of chielly entor rages we amake do with vardmen and undocimented 1 Forbidden from mtiating their subjects like Bem chiefs, American aris tocratssetle for hitting their servants with cell phones andl cout hangers. Ce lebrities case into rehab fr crimes that would land most of us in jail Pre ol from practicing elelly polygamy; they accumulate imultiplé cocktail waitresses insted. What can the rest of us do to avoid becoming an underclass? We & member that Natural Law perinits inequality only in strength, Intelligence, and we can resist. The Maliyaw subclan could not bec Avatips lite as long as the other subcans fo a Hopi aristocracy as long as the other clans objected, The Man ed to let certain families accunnilate all the tribe's valuables. The Kaclin periodically told their thigh-eating ehiels to get lost, And, once i on oF exit re= o hee Weajorty takes buck the privileges of the active few We may never be entitled to stump . work to increase cour virtue. Andi is no one’ fault but our on ifwe allow aur sociely to ereate “nobles by wealth” We can resist just as surely as any self-respecting !Kung would do. So the next time a pampered star tells y last film made huis $20 lion, tll him which charity to give it. ‘Then explain that you have not wet hut that you and your dog have discovered that the DVD makes a great Frisbes goods, bot we