Unmaking egalitarianism: Comparing sources of political change in an Amazonian society

Abstract

Politically egalitarian societies were likely more common in pre-history than in recent millenia. Why did societies become more hierarchical? Answers to this question remain debated, based on evidence largely drawn from archaeological case studies or comparison of societies from the ethnographic record. I suggest that modern small-scale societies transitioning to market economies can provide complementary tests of the sources of political inequality. I first describe moderate variation in men's influence during community meetings (i.e. political inequality) across four relatively egalitarian Tsimane villages in the Bolivian Amazon, as well as within one of these villages over twelve years. I then assess the roles of (1) sharing networks, (2) patron-client relationships, and (3) leadership opportunity in explaining that variation. Greater political inequality does not associate with reduced sharing but does associate with concentration of conflict mediation in the most influential men (per leadership opportunity) and more equivocally with intra-village paid labor (per patron-client models). In general, I argue that we need more micro-scale studies of societies in transition to understand why individuals come to tolerate greater political inequality.