"Tendency Toward Egalitarianism May Have Helped Us Survive" (NYT/Science)

[OneGrassRoot]

Among the Ache hunter-gatherers in eastern Paraguay, healthy adults with no dependent offspring are expected to donate as much as 70 to 90 percent of the food they forage to the needier members of the group. And as those strapping suppliers themselves fall ill, give birth or grow old, they know they can count on the tribe to provide.

Among the !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari in Africa, a successful hunter who may be inclined to swagger is kept in check by his compatriots through a ritualized game called “insulting the meat.” You asked us out here to help you carry that pitiful carcass? What is it, some kind of rabbit?

Among the Hadza foragers of northern Tanzania, people confronted by a stingy food sharer do not simply accept what’s offered. They hold out their hand, according to Frank Marlowe, an anthropologist at Durham University in England, “encouraging the giver to keep giving until the giver finally draws the line.”

Among America’s top executives today, according to a study commissioned by The New York Times, the average annual salary is about $10 million and rising some 12 percent a year. At the same time, the rest of the tribe of the United States of America struggles with miserably high unemployment, stagnant wages and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Now, maybe the wealth gap is a temporary problem, and shiny new quarters will soon rain down on us all. But if you’re feeling tetchy and surly about the lavished haves when you have not a job, if you’re tempted to go out and insult a piece of corporate meat, researchers who study the nature and evolution of human social organization say they are hardly surprised.

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/science/05angier.html?_r=2&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=SC-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-TTE-070511-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

[marmar]

1. K&R

nt

[provis99]

2. this is just plain wrong.

they are looking at unsuccessful cultures, noting they encourage sharing, and then compare them favorably to successful cultures like us which don't share? Their conclusions are whacked, given their data.

[marmar]

3. Umm, unsuccessful by what standard? That's an unbelievably arrogant statement.

Success is not solely defined by Western money-grubbing standards.

[provis99]

4. unsuccessful as in barely surviving.

Would you call homeless people in America successful? Because the Bushmen are essentially the homeless people of Southern Africa.

There isn't a single American who would trade their lifestyle for one in which day-to-day cultural and societal survival is their primary concern

[Hydra]

5. Umm...some of us ARE forced to be concerned with day to day

survival, so I'm not sure what ivory tower you live in. Must be nice.

[provis99]

6. so you agree then that hunter-gatherers aren't a successful society?

after all, if it's something you're forced to do, it doesn't sound like a very good society.

[Hydra]

7. We can debate pro's/con's of agri vs Hunt/Gather some other day

I have a day to day survival problem in this techno-agri-plutocrat nightmare society, so I wouldn't mind a little socialism and wealth redistribution at some point.

...actually, no. I'd just settle for enforcing the law and not having legalized bribary. By that measure alone, our society has failed far beyond any struggling minority non-techno culture.

[provis99]

8. so you don't want to talk about the OP. Okey dokey.

Don't hijack the thread, then.

[Hydra]

9. If you want to discuss how helping people out is bad

Because the people who are doing it you think are failures, by all means. I called you out because you asserted that what we have is so great that we'd never trade out with one of these "lower" cultures. I disagree that what we have is so awesome, but I'm sure Ayn Rand would agree with you...until she took her medicare.

[tcaudilllg]

11. "Look at me! I'm SMART!" -- LOL, says the real smart guy to the dummy

[saras]

10. Don't forget that they only "work" a few hours a week for their food either...