Evolution and egalitarianism — return on cooperation and coordination

Good summary of evolution and egalitarianism. The ability to cooperate and coordinate vastly increase the adaptive rate of humans in the evolutionary chain. Civilizations are the record of return on coordination.

Low hierarchy does not mean no hierarchy. Through ethnographic and cross-cultural studies, researchers have concluded that the basic template for human social groups is moderately but not unerringly egalitarian. They have found gradients of wealth and power among even the most nomadic groups, but such gradients tend to be mild. Ina recent analysis of five hunter-gatherer populations, Eric Aiden Smith of the University of Washington and his colleagues found the average degree of income inequality to be roughly half that seen in the United States, and close to the wealth distribution of Denmark.

Interestingly, another recent study found that when Americans were given the chance to construct their version of the optimal wealth gradient for America, both Republicans and Democrats came up with a chart that looked like Sweden’s.

Read it all at The New York Times: Thirst for Fairness May Have Helped Us Survive