Why class societies are the rule, not the exception | Hacker News Reader

Why class societies are the rule, not the exception

futurity.org

39 pointsmarchustvedt30 comments

I think people in social sciences tend to ignore the most obvious factor: military power. A successful campaign needs rapid coordinated efforts, which are best delivered by hierarchical models. And if you suck at war, chances are that your civilization won't stick around for very long.

>A successful campaign needs rapid coordinated efforts, which are best delivered by hierarchical models.

This may be an argument for the superiority of militarist states (e.g. Assyria, Prussia), but it's anachronistic for the study at hand, which deals with the type of situation prevailing in e.g. the pre-civilization and pre-organized army Neolithic.

I'm sure Neolithic tribes liked a good quarrel as much as anyone, and the models do scale down. My group of brutes has a charismatic, fairly specialized leader with good tactical skills and huge biceps; he imparts clear, undisputed commands on the battlefield and knows how to plan a nightly raid on your women. Your group of brutes is a bunch of equal individualists, with no real specialization and where each brute does his own thing, resulting in endless diatribes about "why should we defend your cave and let my cave get raided?". Maybe you have an outstanding hunter, but he can't leverage the others as easily and effectively as my uber-leader... until the tribe is so beaten down and numbers are dwindling so much that they cave in to the hierarchical model and let Best Hunter be the boss.

I'm generalizing here, but there's so much we don't know about those times...

The key word in your example is "undisputed". The successful group that you describe must have previously adopted a system of beliefs that elevates some individuals over others. (It's a system of beliefs, and not sheer physical force, as even the strongest individual can be overpowered by a coalition of the disgruntled.) For the purposes of this paper's model, it doesn't matter whether the distinction is based on strength, beauty or purported magical powers.

Here's the paper:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...

The crucial idea:

> Our simulation results support the hypothesis that socioeconomic stratification may have spread due to its effects on the demography of small groups—i.e. by demic diffusion—rather than cultural adoption. [...] In variable environments, stratified groups migrate more and are less likely to go extinct than egalitarian groups.

The main contribution of the paper seems to be the identification of a survival advantage for unequal societies in unstable environments.

To make this more concrete, imagine two neighboring villages A and B, hit by a catastrophic crop failure that has reduced harvest by 50%. In village A, there is a strong ethos of equality; the dwindled resources are divided equally, and basically midway through winter everyone dies of starvation.

In village B, the inhabitants strongly believe, on the contrary, that tradition (gods, spirits, ancestor cults etc.) orders the elevation of some above the others. The favored individuals get their normal full share of the reduced harvest, and the un-favored get none. This results into an immediate 50% mortality; but the favored survive through the full winter.

After a series of adequate harvests, the B population increases enough to split off a migrating group that takes over the (now abandoned) site of village A. The ethos of inequality is taken with them, and thus spreads at the expense of egalitarianism.

Here are a couple of alternative scenarios:

- village A invades village B for food (the fact that out-of-touch aristocrats occasionally send an army of unwilling soldiers at the gates of A is another possible reason)

- village B consumes more food than village A, simply because aristocrats like to eat, so it starves first

- in village B, servants die of starvation, the ruling class is incompetent to feed itself

- villagers of village B simply walk by foot into village A, leaving their oppressors to care for themselves

- there's a revolution in village B, making it, effectively, a village A2 (possible catalyst: shortage of food)

in other words, i don't think that's why. however, i haven't read the article, so maybe their arguments are more convincing than yours.

The idea that social inequality automatically involves an incompetent, idle class of aristocrats giving orders to wretched underlings, who do all the work, is a straw man. All that's required, for this model at least, is an order of precedence in the distribution of food at harvest time (an agricultural equivalent of preferred stock, if you will). This is irrespective of how the food was produced, of the relative size of portions, and of whether anyone takes commands from someone else. A very simple example of such social stratification would be e.g. a "pecking order".

my point is that unequal distribution of food in case of a natural disaster is not an absolute factor, it's only one of the possible scenarios that affect the preservation of a system.

Yes of course there are lots of other factors, and history itself is a series of accidents. The point of this paper is that, all else being equal, a stratification in the distribution of food seems to improve the resilience of agricultural societies.

The reason this may be important, in my view, is that it offers a model for what may have happened in the Ubaid period, when previously egalitarian agricultural societies became gradually more stratified, and finally transitioned into the beginnings of our civilization.

The traditional, Marxist explanation is that agriculture generated a production surplus, which was illegitimately seized by upstart elites. This paper's alternative model indicates incipiently hierarchical societies might actually have had a survival advantage, under the conditions of the period.

Perhaps I should read the paper to see if they're generalizing or not, but I'm too lazy to; if it was a wikipedia page - perhaps I would.

If we're talking hierarchy generally rather than (more) distinct classes - which are not prone to (positive) change - I'd concur that it is more successful in general. For the reason of being able to emphasize the collective needs I suppose, though a question of mapping talent to positions remains (and unmapping).

The traditional, Marxist, explanation does not contradict this paper's model. If the traditional explanation is true, and I don't see why it couldn't be, this paper merely adds to it "and that gave the society as a whole a survival advantage".

I lie that, but I think the article implies that unequal societies encourage migration:

> unequal sharing of scarce resources created more incentive to migrate in search of additional resources.

In other words, societies where some have less encourage the lesser havers to move in search of better opportunities. So you are right, with the added benefit that even in other times, the lesser are encouraged to migrate and spread.

I find myself constantly amazed at academia's ability to pretend that ideas that have been around for centuries are suddenly new and original.

Just because the idea isn't new doesn't mean it shouldn't be scrutinized for reasons. It is entirely possible that class based societies existed for other reasons then what we assume. In this case our assumption turned out to be correct.

Now, how do are you going to convince koreans that sleeping under a fan isn't going to kill them?

I'm talking about refusing to acknowledge past thinkers on an idea even when the new stuff is parroting old stuff. A prominent example is professor Romer's Ted Talk.

The "idea" (actually this is the output of a mathematical model, but ok) that stratified societies are both more stable and have a greater tendency to spread out than non-stratified societies has been around for centuries? I guess I missed that. Care to enlighten me?

Also, some people work harder than others.

News at eleven, "Horatio Alger myth continues to appeal to fairness bias", "Middle class continue to toil under the mindset that they are temporarily embarrassed millionaires".

Raw numbers collected over decades of research disprove this handily. While working hard is a factor, there are other phenomena which will just as easily impair upwards social mobility. There's a reason they call it "poverty trap"

For an introduction, take a gander at Gladwell's books.

Malcom "igon value" Gladwell is probably not the person one wants to cite on an empirical or technical matter.

http://monkeysuncle.stanford.edu/?p=541

  Pinker’s term: “The Igon Value Problem” is a clever play 
  on the Eigenvalue Problem in mathematics.  You see, 
  Gladwell apparently quotes someone referring to an “igon 
  value.” This is clearly a concept he never dealt with 
  himself even though it is a ubiquitous tool in the 
  statistics and decision science about which Gladwell is 
  frequently so critical.  According to Pinker, the Igon 
  Value Problem occurs “when a writer’s education on a 
  topic consists in interviewing an expert,” leading him or 
  her to offering “generalizations that are banal, obtuse 
  or flat wrong.”  In other words, the Igon Value Problem 
  is one of dilettantism.

As for the Horatio Alger "myth", the modern incarnation is the internet startup. Look at YC. There is just no dispute that smart people working hard can put a few million in the bank after several years of all out toil in the Valley.

>There is just no dispute that smart people working hard can put a few million in the bank after several years of all out toil in the Valley.

This statement is either utterly nonsensical and backed up by nothing or it's circular in nature (i.e. "How do you know they're hard working and smart? Because they put a few million in the bank", "Why were they able to put a few million in the bank? Because they're hard working and smart").

Not that I'm a fan of Gladwell in any respect, but his gaffe shows that he never took linear algebra, which is true of almost everybody who didn't go into hard science or engineering.

"in the valley" suggests that geography matters as much as the smarts and the hard work. What other assumptions have you missed?

He's ridiculing the people who holds the blind belief in the valley startup as a sure way to wealth, not promoting it.

I am well aware of his flaws. I actually placed a higher weight on the accessibility of Gladwell's work. He might not be an economist/sociologist who studied the problem, but the fact that he is able to introduce difficult concepts to a larger audience with his writing is a plus to him and not a minus.

Are you actually under the ridiculously naive impression that hard work = success? I thought that had been satisfactorily disproven years ago.

That's a pretty strong statement without any proof to back it up. What is this satisfactory proof that this "has been disproved years ago"?

For instance, academic success is about 60% socio-economical background, 15% professors, which lets only 25% to individual variation. Similar data can be found in many domains, like the importance of geography on a country economic success, etc.

--wazoox, 2011. I guess these are more 'facts' out of the sky.

No, I didn't drop a link farm because I figured most people would already knew this. I mean, it doesn't even pass the common sense test: if hard work = success why aren't most, say, Mexican immigrants loaded?

I suppose it depends on what you mean by success. But by the most common definitions (e.g. being rich) hard work isn't the main factor or even required at all (e.g. inherit millions from your parents requires how much effort? Basically not dying).

I watched my dad hold down two jobs and come home and work into the night providing his family with the things we needed. The first career job I had made more than he's ever made in his life and that job was mostly standing around.

Sadly, how we really wish things were has nothing to do with how they actually are.

Thinking smart is a part of working hard. When we say work, we mean something that provides value, not something that requires a lot of physical effort.

I can "work" very hard pushing stones uphill like Sisyphus, and I probably won't get rich as a result.

A major reason why inequality exists is because the work ethic required for long-term thinking and planning is a model of behavior which children acquire from their parents through learning, observation, and imitation. Children from families where parents do not consider long-term goals worthy of pursuit are hugely disadvantaged.

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