In the paleolithic era, which accounts for most of human
history, few differences of wealth, power, or social status
separated individuals from one another. Hunter-gatherer
communities lived mobile lives, moving from camp to camp and
carrying all their possessions with them. Individuals or families
might possess lightweight objects, such as ornaments or weapons,
but they did not accumulate large amounts of material goods
because they simply could not lug them around.
Much more important to these communities were their intangible
possessions: networks of family and friends, knowledge of
the environment, rights to use land, and rituals. All these
elements of culture were easy to carry around. Besides, hunter-gatherers
knew that they did not have to store up goods because the
food and other materials they needed were all around them.
The idea of personal wealth had little meaning.
When settled agricultural communities emerged about 10,000
years ago, however, the rules began to change. Unlike foragers,
who collected their food when they needed it, farmers harvested
their crops once or twice a year and then had to store them
in granaries. Because they stayed in one place most of the
year, farmers had no problems storing things. But as individuals
began to accumulate stored wealth and to live in larger, denser
settlements, they had to confront the question of who had
the right to consume supplies of wealth. An individual might
wonder, "Can I just break into my neighbor's grain store if
I feel hungry?" The idea of personal "ownership" became more
important and more complex.
In principle, people might have thought that everyone should
have an equal share of whatever was available. In small farming
communities, rough equality in access to resources was probably
workable. In modern times, this ideal of whole societies sharing
resources has been at the core of the ideology of socialism.
In no community, however, were resources distributed exactly
equally. In practice, as members of societies accumulated
more and more wealth, distribution of resources became more
and more lopsided.
Today, the allocation of the world's wealth is more uneven
than ever before. Some individuals and groups have become
extremely wealthy, while others have become poorer. Today,
these disparities are global.
In 1998, individuals living in the world's richer countries
spent on average about $16,000 on consumption. In South Asia
and sub-Saharan Africa they spent about $350. As a recent
United Nations publication puts it: "It takes roughly 5 hectares
[12.35 acres] of productive ecosystem to support the average
U.S. citizen's consumption of goods and services versus less
than 0.5 hectares [1.23 acres] to support consumption levels
of the average citizen in the developing world." [World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying
Web of Life (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute,
2000), 23.]
Beaver Cleaver and His Family
"Leave It to Beaver," a popular TV show that
ran from 1957 to 1963, comically depicted the life
of an affluent middle class American family of the 1950s. www.fiftiesweb.com/families.htm
Why has wealth been distributed so unevenly since the appearance
of agrarian societies?
Why have some people lived in astonishing luxury and others
in grinding poverty? This is one of the most important questions
we can ask about the history of the past 10,000 years.
In the last 10,000 years, the distribution of wealth and
the exercise of power have been closely linked (See Key Theme 3). As people started living together in large communities,
they had to accept leaders to coordinate the activities of
the group as a whole. Those leaders had to be given power
over people, but they also needed control over the community's
wealth in order to manage large projects, notably construction
and warfare.
In studies of many different types of human communities,
anthropologists have shown that, as groups get larger and
more complex, their wealth tends to get distributed more and
more unequally. In rural villages of no more than a few hundred
people, inequalities cannot be that great. Even in them, however,
some families tend to have access to more wealth than others,
perhaps because they work harder, have bigger families, or
control better land.
In larger societies, households may willingly give up some
of their wealth to priests or chiefs, who then reserve part
of it for group tasks such as pacifying the gods, building
monuments, or fighting neighbors. In this way, leaders end
up controlling more wealth than most other people do. Leaders
may even treat some people as their property, that is, as
slaves. (For most of history, human labor has been the main
source of energy. Therefore, controlling slaves was like controlling
oil or coal today.)
Eventually, leaders started using the wealth they controlled
to pay for personal bodyguards, attendants, gangs of "enforcers",
and even armies. Once they had this "muscle," they could often
impose their will on other members of the community, putting
down anyone who resisted their rule. Therefore, it is no wonder
that until recent centuries the wealthy have almost always
been the most powerful. And the powerful-monarchs, aristocrats,
high officers, religious authorities-have almost always lived
much more comfortably than those over whom they rule.
In agrarian times, ruling elites amassed and consumed a
great deal of wealth from agriculture, mining, and city industries-and
from taxes on all those productive activities-to pay for their
armies, administrators, communication systems, lavish royal
courts, and luxurious life styles. The rich often simply hoarded
wealth "under the mattress," as it were. In other words, ruling
classes tended to pump their populations for wealth, spend
it or squirrel it away, then go back to their populations
for more.
As urban societies took up manufacturing and trade on a
larger scale, however, the role of wealth began subtly to
change . Resourceful individuals found that they could use
excess wealth to create more wealth by investing in productive
enterprises. This was the fundamental principle of market
economies. Many features of market economies appeared quite
early. In the agrarian age, merchants, artisans, and manufacturers
of humble origins found that wealth could sometimes buy them
social privileges or political influence. But this was not
always true. The royal and aristocratic families that held
the reins of military and police power acquired most of their
wealth from control of productive land, often great farming
estates populated by laboring peasants and slaves. Those families
were usually able to pass their wealth and power to their
own heirs. Ruling aristocrats, for whom noble ancestry, traditional
privileges, and favorable laws were the measures of their
status, rarely wanted to open their ranks to men and women
who just happened to be rich.
That attitude gradually changed in modern times. As international
commerce expanded, mechanized industry became more and more
productive. And entrepreneurs became more and more successful
at transforming wealth into power-and power into more wealth.
In industrializing countries such as Britain, Germany, Japan,
and the United States, the living standards even of working
people began to rise. Even so, the wealthiest members of society
became wealthier still, so that the relative distance in income
between the richest and the poorest continued to widen. One
of the great ironies of the twentieth century was that colossal
increases in economic productivity in the world produced,
not the betterment of all, but an ever-widening canyon between
an affluent minority and an impoverished majority. How and
why this happened is an important question for students of
history.
We see, then, that power and wealth tend to be two sides
of the same coin. Social inequality in both power and wealth
reflect the general principle that as human populations in
many parts of the world have become larger and denser, the
gap has grown between those at the top and those at the bottom
of the social hierarchy.
Homeless children sleeping on
the street in a modern city
www.oneworld.net
All societies have sought ways to explain and justify these
disparities. Until quite recent times, religions, including
all the major ones, accepted social inequality as part of
the natural order of things, one of the mysteries of God's
creation. Aristocrats, they believed, were richer and more
powerful than ordinary people, just as God was more powerful
than most humans. And they believed these differences were
right and just. Religious leaders often allied themselves
with rulers and aristocrats.
On the other hand, the world religions all taught that compassion,
unselfishness, and moral responsibility were essential virtues.
Consequently, those at the top of the social pyramid lived
under persistent pressure from pious priests and holy saints
to improve the conditions of the poor and to govern with moderation
and benevolence. We can only conclude that religious attitudes
toward social class differences have never been completely
clear or consistent. Religions have both supported inequality
and opposed it.
"Poverty in the Developing World
Is Shifting toward South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa," World
Development Report 2000-01, www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/index.htm
Is inequality, then, an inevitable feature of modern society?
Or will a time come when there is enough wealth to ensure
that even those at the bottom of the hierarchy live decent
lives? Material wealth is so abundant in modern society that
we may wonder why the rise of modern industry did not eliminate
poverty. Certainly, inequalities based on birth have become
much less important in the last two centuries. It is also
perhaps easier today than ever before for an individual from
a poor background to become wealthy and powerful. In the richer
countries, a huge "middle class" has emerged, that is, people
who enjoy more material wealth than did most aristocrats in
the past.
At the same time, however, more people live close to starvation
than ever before. Why? Some ideologies, such as Social Darwinism,
argue that nothing can be done about this. There will always
be poor folk because these people are lazy, incompetent, or
stupid. However, most modern explanations of inequality are
less harsh, recognizing numerous economic, social, and political
factors that contribute to poverty. Is it likely that rich
nations maintain their wealth mainly by exploiting poorer
nations? Many socialists support this point. Or is it simply
that the benefits of industrialization have not yet spread
to many parts of the world? Will the so-called "third world"
eventually industrialize so that most of its inhabitants also
begin to enjoy the affluence that middle classes do in richer
countries?
Why Study this Key Theme?
No matter what country we live in, social and economic
inequalities among individuals and groups are part of our
daily experience. At the same time, many people deplore
extreme or unjust inequalities and work to lessen or eliminate
them. Study of human history over the long run shows a clear
connection between social inequality and the increasing
size, density, and complexity of human societies. History
also shows that in the past few hundred years humans have
made progress in reducing some forms of inequality, notably
slavery, political power based on birth, and denial of political
rights to women. Even so, other forms of inequality have
grown in modern times. Are severe inequalities still inevitable
in today's complicated world? Or are governments, interest
groups, charities, and international agencies capable of
seriously diminishing them? Is it right that so many people
continue to live in poverty when the modern world produces
so much wealth? Future citizens should have knowledge and
understanding of the origins and development of inequality
in the world in order to address these vital questions.
From ancient times, extreme inequalities have triggered
social protest, revolts, and revolutions. Students in the
United States should consider the connections, both now
and in the past, between inequality, social or political
instability, and the rise of movements to fight poverty
or repression. In the past, revolution and inequality have
often gone together. Students may ask whether growing gaps
between have and have-nots are a threat to democratic societies.
Questions for Classrooms
Landscape and Closeup Units Related to This
Theme:
