Inequality and the Dawn of Everything

The attraction of historical determinism

It seems to me that for rich elites, it is always very helpful to see history as inevitably leading to the society we live in today. That for all its faults, where we are today is the only place we were ever going to be, so we must make the best of it.

This historical determinism is much in evidence when it comes to inequality. The widely written about and therefore widely held belief that human history shows us that inequality was a necessary condition for big, modern societies. A good example would be the very well written bestseller Sapiens from a few years ago, or the older bestseller Guns, Germs and Steel. The key to this idea is that before modern society, and in particular before the invention of agriculture, we were able to live with a large measure of equality, roaming around the savannah as small bands of egalitarian hunter gatherers. But as soon as we came together in villages, towns, and especially cities, hierarchy, private property, nobles, royalty, and all the various elements of economic inequality were inevitable. This in turn means that inequality, whilst clearly suboptimal in many ways, is basically the price we pay for urbanised, civilized life.

But how valid is this common understanding of human history? Interestingly it seems there is very little historical evidence to support it.

Myth busting about the dawn of humanity

The upending of this myth based on the historical and archaeological record is the subject of the brilliant book, ‘The Dawn of Everything’ by David Wengrow and David Graeber. And what a book.

The actual evidence, from archaeological sites all over the world, is of a prehistory that is infinitely more variable, and infinitely more interesting. Much of this evidence has been glossed over, or reclassified because it simply doesn’t properly fit the myth.

Ancient Equal Cities

They describe for example ancient cities uncovered in the 1970’s in Moldova and Ukraine, then in the Soviet Union. They date back to 4000 years BCE and had tens of thousands of inhabitants. They were as old and as large as other ancient cities like Uruk in Mesopotamia that are regularly described as the first cities.

What characterises these cities in Moldova and Ukraine is the complete absence of any signs of hierarchy: no big buildings or monumental architecture; no temples; no evidence of grand burial sites; no fortifications. Instead, dwellings were all more or less the same size, arranged in a circle that look like the concentric rings of a tree.

(Reconstruction of the city of Maidanetske in modern-day Ukraine)

Partly because they were originally uncovered in the Soviet Union and so viewed with circumspection by Western academics, and partly because they simply didn’t fit the way of interpreting the world, they are often not even described as cities but instead as ‘mega-sites’. The very definition of a city for archaeologists necessitated hierarchy; an equal city, even if it was massive, could not be a city unless it was unequal. Instead, it was a big village.

Slavery and equality in the pre-modern world

These societies are far from unique. The authors also describe many others like them in the world. They describe a contrast between two more recent large hunter gatherer societies, one in what is modern-day California and one that was next to this, on the north-west coast where Seattle is today. The aboriginal people in California formed a large and complex egalitarian society that had an ethos of hard-work and modesty. Even more interestingly they lived as neighbours for centuries with a group of societies to the north-west of them dominated by warrior aristocracies, engaged in frequent raiding between groups, and where a significant proportion of the population were enslaved.

Moving from inequality to equality in ancient Mexico

In Mexico, ancient societies have been shown to have moved from an extremely hierarchical system of inequality to a much more egalitarian one. Teotihuacan, just outside Mexico City, is famous for its huge pyramids. These monuments required huge effort and sacrifices, with each phase of building linked by archaeological evidence to ritual killing. It seemed the city was destined to become organised around inequality, hereditary nobles and an aristocracy. But in around AD 300 this all changed. Temples were smashed. No new pyramids were built. Ritual killing ended. Instead, resources flowed into building stone houses for the majority of the population, laid out in regular sizes from across the city. Enough were built to house most of the city’s 100,000 residents, a huge community of immigrants too from all over Mexico.

A history of infinite variety

Ancient humans were not all egalitarian and kind, nor were they all cruel, violent and hierarchical. They were all those things and more. Human society before the modern era was incredibly diverse. Far from being a simplistic caricature of small bands of egalitarian hunter gatherers that were broadly the same for thousands of years, in fact humans were always deeply complex and interesting. They formed all sorts of different kinds of societies, some very equal, some very unequal, some very peaceful, some very violent, some small and some very large indeed; experimenting with many different ways of coming together and organising things.

In terms of inequality, the archaeological and historical record shows clearly that humans were able to organise themselves at a large scale, in complicated, deeply interrelated societies, without always having to require hierarchy or inequality. Very equal societies coexisted with unequal ones for centuries, without the unequal one necessarily taking over the equal one. The evidence also reveals that very unequal societies can transform themselves into very equal ones too.

History is not determined, and the future is ours to create

As well as being extremely interesting, I found all of this very heartwarming. If I am honest, I suppose I had, at some subconscious level, actually believed in the deterministic interpretation of history. That inequality, whist not inevitable, was our natural condition in big groups, and one we had to work hard to overcome. What this book showed me is just how wrong this is. There is nothing natural about inequality, nothing given about hierarchy, no necessity to have rich nobles who are feted by the majority of the much poorer population in order to have big, urban societies.

On a much broader scale, history is not something that simply happens to humanity, it is something that we can shape and create in many different ways. This is not to say everything is a blank page. There are of course huge forces to be taken on and overcome in order to create a more equal world. As Marx famously said, ‘people make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past’. But what this history of ancient societies shows us is that what is transmitted from the past is far more interesting and full of possibility than we had maybe thought. It shows that the future is not determined, and inequality is far from inevitable. That surely has to be a good thing.

ENDS

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Author: Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam International and EQUALS podcast co-host. He is also the co-chair of the Global People’s Medicines Alliance.

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