This has been a debate for the past century. The anthropological consensus seems to be something along the lines of “it really depends, but they are far more egalitarian on average than state based socities”. There had been a consensus that they were chiefly egalitarian in the 60-2000s, but since then our notion of egalitarianism has become stricter.
It’s a fascinating topic. I took two entire classes on this debate at the masters level. But there is no denying that state based societies are far more hierarchical than hunter gatherer ones.
And a lot of the hunter gatherer socities we are able to study in person, have had conflict or atleast interaction with state based socities, which may have influenced them too. Anyways it’s a fascinating topic with no strong conclusion, but the weak conclusion that they tend to be more egalitarian.
This has been a debate for the past century. The anthropological consensus seems to be something along the lines of “it really depends, but they are far more egalitarian on average than state based socities”. There had been a consensus that they were chiefly egalitarian in the 60-2000s, but since then our notion of egalitarianism has become stricter.
It’s a fascinating topic. I took two entire classes on this debate at the masters level. But there is no denying that state based societies are far more hierarchical than hunter gatherer ones.
And a lot of the hunter gatherer socities we are able to study in person, have had conflict or atleast interaction with state based socities, which may have influenced them too. Anyways it’s a fascinating topic with no strong conclusion, but the weak conclusion that they tend to be more egalitarian.