The problem of inequality is becoming more urgent for many countries in the world. Scientists argue about the causes of this phenomenon and ways to overcome it. There is a universal opinion that inequality is inextricably linked with the development of civilization and is an integral part of the progress of human society. However, archaeologist and anthropologist David Wengrow (2022) offers an alternative view of this phenomenon from a historical perspective. He claims that democratic societies were characteristic of humanity both before and after the invention of agriculture. He argues that large communities of people could previously exist without a central government and top-down bureaucratic system. However, Wengrow (2022) does not offer an explanation of how oligarchic systems with modern market economies became the only way for human civilization to develop. Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) show that democratic societies were gradually replaced by autocratic ones due to the unequal distribution of technological resources. Historical experience shows that civilizations are associated with inequality due to technological advances and the development of extractive institutions of power.
Wengrow started by describing the commonly accepted beliefs about the development of civilizations. He underlines that people tend to consider this process as the transition from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural one. Wengrow describes that the invention of agriculture led to the development of private property and the division of labor. Specifically, lower social classes were forced to care for the harvest, while more privileged people enjoyed time available for experiments and thinking. This factor subsequently resulted in stratification and inequality, as well as the growth of modern civilization. However, Wengrow claims that the process described is not related to the actual reality. He states that “Actually, what happened after the invention of agriculture around 10,000 years ago is a long period of around another 4,000 years in which villages largely remained villages” (TED 2022, [2:20]). Despite technological advances and social innovations, there was no evidence of class stratification. Therefore, Wengrow focuses on the idea that there was an extensive period of human history not characterized by social inequality and class difference as modern civilization is.
People are taught to believe that modern civilization, with all the technological advances, could not possibly exist without the original concentration of humanity into larger units and the buildup of inequalities. Specifically, class stratification is considered the necessary price of development and growth. However, Wengrow underlines that there were cities and huge agglomerations of human settlements long before the establishment of ancient civilizations. He notes that there is evidence of human cities existing in different parts of the world as early as around 6,000 years ago (TED 2022, [9:00]). Those settlements showed no signs of class stratification in housing and were designed as concentric circles of comfortable houses around the community center. There was no evidence of kings or queens, palaces, top-down bureaucracy, or authoritarian power. Even before the invention of agriculture, hunter-gatherers had networks, common rituals, and public buildings. Therefore, Wengrow concludes the notion of large-scale society as highly unequal and authoritarian may be misleading. Human history suggests the possibility of the implication of participatory democracy based on consensus and cooperation in cities and regions.
There are opinions that the reason for inequalities in society is institutional differences. Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) discuss several hypotheses that were proposed by scholars as an explanation for the development of inequality. They argue that geographical and cultural differences cannot be viable reasons for class stratification emergence and persistence. They underline that “was caused by the uneven dissemination of industrial technologies and manufacturing production” (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012, 51). Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) refute Diamond’s arguments that geographic factors significantly affect agricultural productivity. The authors give examples of institutional changes that created civilizations and were dependent on technological and institutional advances rather than geographical factors. The cultural hypothesis, in Acemoglu and Robinson’s opinion, also cannot be applied to the explanation of civilization development. They claim that the reason for the process lies not in cultural differences but in “of the two places’ different institutions and institutional histories” (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012, 63). It is evident when the researcher looks at two places that are geographically and culturally close together but currently have diverse institutional structures.
The creation of extractive institutions may be the primary cause of shaping an unequal society. These types of institutions provide a small group of elites with ruling power that they use for enrichment without concern for other groups of society (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012). The authors provide evidence of the existence of such institutions even before the invention of farming. They note that this structure allowed Mays to build their civilization and grow their cities. However, they also underline those extractive institutions lead to extensive in-fighting, which further becomes the reason for a civilization’s collapse. All the most powerful civilizations of the past are characterized by extractive institutional structures and great levels of inequality. The inequality that persisted in institutional design developed further in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as major civilizations were able to take advantage of the opportunities of the Industrial Revolution (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012, 301). Technological resources became the most critical factor of class stratification, which is now more evident in poor and underdeveloped countries.
Although the researchers do not provide a clear answer on whether or not civilizations must bring inequality, they give valuable insights on the topic. In particular, Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) show that social stratification is a result of human activities rather than the natural order. Technological advanced and extractive institutions are the main reason for the development of local and global inequalities. Therefore, more developed and powerful civilizations have an opportunity to impose their structure on less advanced regions, which happened in the past and is happening nowadays. Economic and political conditions, which are the basis of modern civilizations, play an integral role in the creation of inequality within and between countries.
Some researchers propose an opinion that inequality is a rather natural condition for human society because of the adoption of a market economy. The mathematician Boghosian (2019) emphasizes that “the natural inclination of wealth is to flow upward so that the natural wealth distribution in a free-market economy is one of complete oligarchy.” Based on the compilation of mathematical models that accurately describe and predict the distribution of wealth in various countries of the world, the author concludes that inequality is the norm for the modern free market. Boghosian (2019) sees redistribution as the only way to overcome this phenomenon, which allows the circulation of accumulated wealth between different classes of society. This system, according to the author, differs from taxes since it assumes that poor people receive money while the rich pay. However, this scenario is unrealistic and optimistic for today’s oligarchic systems, which makes these findings even more troubling, taking into account the fact that the market economy is currently ubiquitous.
The argument provided by Wengrow changes people’s perception of the process of development of modern society. However, these insights do not transform the understanding of the processes of growth and complication of human civilization. The accumulation of power and wealth in the hands of the elite, which leads to the emergence of inequality from the historical perspective, results in the displacement of democratic systems. With the advent of ever-new technological advances, the widening difference in accumulated economic resources, and the strengthening of extractive political and social institutions, local and global inequality will continue to increase. The structure proposed by Boghosian (2019) of redistribution does not look realistic in today’s society, as it requires the rejection of the oligarchic system. Thus, civilization is inextricably linked with the emergence and aggravation of inequality in society.
Based on the provided arguments, it is possible to conclude that inequality is an inevitable state for human civilizations. Although the points proposed by Wengrow give valuable insights into the process of development of societies, it does not explain how people come from early democracies to modern autocratic structures. Much of human history has been about the accumulation of power and wealth in the hands of an elite. In the later stages of human development, this process began to grow exponentially after the Industrial Revolution. It is most likely that the creation of inequality cannot be avoided due to the technological progress of society.
References
Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Profile Books.
Boghosian, Bruce M. “Is Inequality Inevitable? Wealth Naturally Trickles Up in Free-Market Economies, Model Suggests.” Scientific American, Web.
TED. “A New Understanding of Human History and the Roots of Inequality | David Wengrow | TED.” YouTube. 2022. Educational video, 17:28. Web.