According to this theory where social stability arises from equality, we would expect that the most stable civilizations in history must have been the ones with higher equality.
But what were those stable civilizations in history with high equality again? Other than cases of equal poverty. I'm having trouble looking them up. It seems that pretty much all of them had slavery in some form.
Are you certain that the civilizations you consider wealthy were not essentially 'equal poverty' with a tiny number of elites of top? From the article: "After the fall of Rome, people actually got taller and healthier". A generic high standard of living for the common people does not necessarily raise conquering armies or monuments to capture the modern imagination. The contrast is mostly against more distributed societies that you might not recognize as 'famous civilizations' per se, perhaps were able to provide better for their inhabitants.
> But what were those stable civilizations in history with high equality again?
The ones that lost to the unstable ones and had evidence of their existence wiped from history -- is my theory. It's why we can't have nice things.
Stable civilizations would not be violent, it's a disadvantage unless one of the unstable civilizations takes on something resembling Dexters code allowing the stable ones to get on with their civilization
I agree that if we abandoned agriculture, medicine, education, engineering, etc., and went back to hunter gathering, we would have more stability. It seems drastic though.
The Yanomami are hunter-gatherers, with no private property and very limited material wealth. They enjoy the equality of subsistence living. Until modern times they were very stable. But apparently that kind of equality goes away when wealth appears.
And even they follow the usual tribal pattern of making war with their neighbors and taking women and children.
Although some Yanomami really have been engaged in intensive warfare and other kinds of bloody conflict, this violence is not an expression of Yanomami culture itself. It is, rather, a product of specific historical situations: The Yanomami make war not because Western culture is absent, but because it is present, and present in certain specific forms.
Their violence was observed by people following a wave of slave-hunting expeditions by the conquistadors and bandeirantes.
Wow! Woke history has been made. This explains a whole lot about the 5,000 years of never-civilized 'civilizations' ... and about what is going on in our world right now.
>After the fall of Rome, people actually got taller and healthier
BS. Evidence show a massive population fall, with much worse living standards [0]. The guy is reading his own pet ideology into reality.
[0] e.g. https://acoup.blog/2022/02/11/collections-rome-decline-and-f...
Alternate view https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18799...
According to this theory where social stability arises from equality, we would expect that the most stable civilizations in history must have been the ones with higher equality.
But what were those stable civilizations in history with high equality again? Other than cases of equal poverty. I'm having trouble looking them up. It seems that pretty much all of them had slavery in some form.
Are you certain that the civilizations you consider wealthy were not essentially 'equal poverty' with a tiny number of elites of top? From the article: "After the fall of Rome, people actually got taller and healthier". A generic high standard of living for the common people does not necessarily raise conquering armies or monuments to capture the modern imagination. The contrast is mostly against more distributed societies that you might not recognize as 'famous civilizations' per se, perhaps were able to provide better for their inhabitants.
> But what were those stable civilizations in history with high equality again?
The ones that lost to the unstable ones and had evidence of their existence wiped from history -- is my theory. It's why we can't have nice things.
Stable civilizations would not be violent, it's a disadvantage unless one of the unstable civilizations takes on something resembling Dexters code allowing the stable ones to get on with their civilization
Hunter gather
I agree that if we abandoned agriculture, medicine, education, engineering, etc., and went back to hunter gathering, we would have more stability. It seems drastic though.
The Yanomami are the most surveyed group that fits this category
Their chief threat is the externalities from industrialization and encroachment from transactional extractionist commercial systems.
You can look at the Hadzabe and the Tarawa also for other examples in extant locales
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami
The Yanomami are hunter-gatherers, with no private property and very limited material wealth. They enjoy the equality of subsistence living. Until modern times they were very stable. But apparently that kind of equality goes away when wealth appears.
And even they follow the usual tribal pattern of making war with their neighbors and taking women and children.
That "usual pattern" is subject to great debate:
Their violence was observed by people following a wave of slave-hunting expeditions by the conquistadors and bandeirantes.Wow! Woke history has been made. This explains a whole lot about the 5,000 years of never-civilized 'civilizations' ... and about what is going on in our world right now.