The economics of early social stratification

Rowthorn, Robert and Guzmán, Ricardo Andrés and Rodríguez-Sickert, Carlos (2008): The economics of early social stratification.

Abstract

We develop an endogenous fertility model of social stratification with two hereditary classes: a warrior elite and a peasantry. Our model shows that the extra cost warriors must incur to raise their children and to equip them for war is the key determinant of (1) the relative sizes of both classes, and (2) the warriors' economic privileges in terms of income and consumption. The higher the cost of warrior children, the greater the economic privileges of warriors will be, and the smaller the ratio of warriors to peasants will be. Historical evidence confirms this prediction. Finally, we identify conditions under which the military function of warriors may legitimise their privileges.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Social stratification; income inequality; warfare; military participation ratio; Malthus; economic history; population economics.
• Subjects: Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology; N - Economic History > N0 - General > N00 - General

References

Andreski, S. (1968). Military Organization and Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Angle, J. (1986). `The surplus theory of social stratification and the size distribution of personal wealth', Social Forces, vol. 65, pp. 293--326.

Armelagos, G. J., Goodman, A. H. and Jacobs, K. H. (1991). `The origins of agriculture: population growth during a period of declining health', Population and Environment, vol. 13, pp. 9--22.

Ashraf, Q. and Galor, O.(2008). Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch: Theory and Evidence. CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP7057

Beaucage, P. (1976). `Enfer ou paradis perdu: les societés de chasseurs-cueilleurs', Revue Canadienne de Sociologie et d'Anthropologie, vol. 13, pp. 397-412.

Bocquet-Appel, J. P. (2002). `Paleoanthropological traces of a Neolithic demographic transition', Current Anthropology, vol. 43, pp. 637--50.

Boehm, C. (1999). Hierarchy in the forest, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Boldrin, M. and Jones, L. E. (2002). `Mortality, fertility, and saving in a Malthusian economy', Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 5, pp. 775--814.

Boone, J. L. (1992). `Competition, conflict, and the development of social hierarchies', in (E. A. Smith and B. Winterhalder, eds.), Evolutionary Ecology and Human Behavior, pp. 301--37, New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Carneiro, R. (1970). `A theory of the origin of the state', Science, vol. 169, pp. 733--8.

Cashdan, E. A. (1980). `Egalitarianism among hunter--gatherers', American Anthropologist, vol. 82, pp. 116--20.

Cashdan, E. A. (1985). `Natural fertility, birth spacing, and the first demographic transition', American Anthropologist, vol. 87, pp. 650--53.

Childe, V. G. (1942). What Happened in History?, Baltimore: Penguin.

Childe, V. G. (1954). `Early forms of society', in (C. Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and T. I. Williams, eds.), A History of Technology, vol. 1, pp. 38--57, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Cohen, M. N. (1989). Health and the Rise of Civilization, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Coleman, D. and Schofield, R. (1986). The State of Population Theory: Forward from Malthus, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Costabile, L. and Rowthorn, R. E. (1985). `Malthus's theory of wages and growth', Economic Journal, vol. 95, pp. 418--37.

Cronk, L. (1994). `Evolutionary theories of morality and the manipulative use of signals', Zygon, vol. 29, pp. 81--101.

Davis, K. (1949). Human Society, New York: Macmillan.

DeMarrais, E., Castillo, L. J. and Earle, T. (1996). `Ideology, materialization, and power strategies', Current Anthropology, vol. 37, pp. 15--31.

Douglas, M. (1966). `Population control in primitive groups', The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 17, pp. 263--73.

Eckstein, Z., Stern, S. and Wolpin, K. I. (1988). `Fertility choice, land, and the Malthusian hypothesis', International Economic Review, vol. 29, pp. 353--61.

Ferguson, R. B. (2003). `The birth of war', Natural History, vol. 112, pp. 28--35.

Fried, M. H. (1967). The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Economy, New York: Random House.

Grossman, H. I. (2002). `Make us a king: anarchy, predation, and the state', European Journal of Political Economy, vol. 18, pp. 31--46 .

Hayden, B. (1995). `Pathways to power: principles for creating socioeconomic inequalities', in (T. D. Price and G. M. Feinman, eds.), Foundations of Social Inequality, pp. 15--85, New York: Plenum Press.

Henrich, J. and Boyd, R. (2007). `Division of labour, economic specialization, and the evolution of social stratification', Papers on Economics and Evolution #07-20, Max Planck Institute of Economics.

Hollingsworth, T. H. (1957) `A demographic study of the British ducal families', Population Studies, vol. 11, pp. 4--26.

Johnson, A. and Earle, T. (2000). The Evolution of Human Societies: From Foraging Group to Agrarian State. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Kaplan, D. (2000). `The darker side of the original affluent society', Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 56, pp. 301--24.

Knauft, B. (1994). `Culture and cooperation in human evolution', in (L. E. Sponsel and T. Gregor, eds.), The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence, pp. 37--67, Boulder: Lynne Rienner.

Kniffen, F. B. (1939). `Pomo geography', University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. 36, pp. 353--400.

Lundberg, S. and Startz, R. (1998). `On the persistence of racial inequality', Journal of Labour Economics, vol. 16, pp. 292--323.

Macfarlane, A. (1997). The Savage Wars of Peace: England, Japan and the Malthusian Trap, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Malthus, T. R. (1820). Principles of Political Economy, London: John Murray.

Mandel, E. (1962). Traité d'Économie Marxiste, Paris: Julliard.

Nerlove, M., Razin, A. and Sadka, E. (1986). `Endogenous population with public goods and Malthusian fixed resources: efficiency or market failure', International Economic Review, vol. 27, pp. 601--9.

North, D. C. and Paul, R. P. (1973). The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

O'Connell, R. (2002). Soul of the Sword: An Illustrated History of Weaponry and Warfare from Prehistory to the Present, New York: The Free Press.

Pearson, H. W. (1957). `The economy has no surplus: critique of a theory of development', in (K. Polanyi, C. M. Arensberg and H. W. Pearson, eds.), Trade and Market in the Early Empires, pp. 320--41, Glencoe: The Free Press.

Prestwich, M. (1996). Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English Experience, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Price, T. D. and Gebauer, A. (1995). `New perspectives on the transition to agriculture', in (T. D. Price and A. Gebauer, eds.), Last Hunters, First Farmers, pp. 132--9, Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

Raper, A. F. and Reid, I. D. (1941). Sharecroppers All, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

Razin, A. and Ben-Zion, U. (1975). `An intergenerational model of population growth', The American Economic Review, vol. 65, pp. 923--33.

Ricardo, D. (1821). On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, London: John Murray.

Sahlins, M. (1972/1998). `The original affluent society', in (John M. Gowdy, ed.), Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Hunter-Gatherer Reader on Economics and the Environment, pp. 5--41, Washington, DC: Island Press.

Sauvy, A. (1969). General Theory of Population, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. English translation of the French 1952--54 editions (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France).

Service, E. R. (1962). Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective, New York: Random House.

Summers, K. (2005). `The evolutionary ecology of despotism', Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 26, pp. 106--35.

Testart, A. (1982). `The significance of food storage among hunter-gatherers: residence patterns, population densities, and social inequalities', Current Anthropology, vol. 23, pp. 523--537.

Tzannatos, Z. and Symons, J. (1989) `An economic approach to fertility in Britain since 1860', Journal of Population Economics, vol. 2, pp. 121--38

Vasey, D. E. (1992). An Ecological History of Agriculture, 10,000 BC--AC 10,000, Ames: Iowa State University Press.

Webster, D. (1975). `Warfare and the evolution of the state: a reconsideration', American Antiquity, vol. 40, pp. 464--70.

Winterhalder, B. (2001). `The behavioral ecology of hunter-gatherers', in (C. Panter-Brick, R. Layton and P. Rowley-Conwy, eds.), Hunter--Gatherers: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 12--38, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wolf, E. R. (1966). Peasants, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Wrigley, E. A. (1978), `Fertility strategy for the individual and the group', in (C. Tilly, ed.), Historical Studies of Changing Fertility, pp. 135--54, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wrigley, E. A. (1997). English Population History from Family Reconstitution: 1580--1837, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.