The Original Affluent Society: Why Hierarchy Was Optional

The Puzzle

We've established two things:

1. Primate coordination mechanisms work—but only up to ~150 people 2. Beyond that limit, informal enforcement breaks down

This creates an obvious question: If human brains are fundamentally primate brains, constrained by the same Dunbar limit, how did we build cities of millions?

But there's a prior question we need to answer first:

For 200,000 years, humans didn't build cities. They lived in small, mobile bands. They had no kings, no priests, no police, no formal hierarchy.

And it worked.

Not just "barely survived"—it worked remarkably well. Hunter-gatherers were healthier, worked fewer hours, had more leisure time, and experienced less inequality than early agricultural societies.

So the real puzzle isn't "why did hierarchy emerge?"

The real puzzle is: "Why was hierarchy optional for so long—and what made it unavoidable?"

The Core Mechanisms: How Egalitarianism Was Maintained

Egalitarianism in hunter-gatherer societies was not a default state. It was actively produced through specific mechanisms.

1. Mobility as Anti-Accumulation Strategy

The logic:

What this means:

The structural effect: You can't become rich if you can't store or transport wealth.

The social effect: Without wealth accumulation, one of the primary sources of inequality is eliminated.

3. Leveling Mechanisms: Active Suppression of Dominance

Hunter-gatherers didn't just lack hierarchy. They actively prevented it from forming.

The toolbox of leveling:

Yes, assassination.

Anthropologist Christopher Boehm's research on "reverse dominance hierarchies" shows that hunter-gatherer bands would collectively kill individuals who persistently tried to dominate others.

The logic:

Why this is stable:

• Dominators are rare (most people don't risk death for status)
• Coalitions of equals can overpower any individual
• The threat is credible (executions actually happened)

The structural outcome: Would-be tyrants are removed before they can consolidate power.

5. Fission-Fusion Dynamics: Exit as Conflict Resolution

When conflict arose in hunter-gatherer bands, the solution was simple:

Leave.

The pattern:

Why this worked:

The structural effect:

• Exit option prevents tyranny (can't force compliance if people can leave)
• Reduces need for formal conflict resolution
• Keeps groups below Dunbar's number
• Prevents accumulation of grievances

What happens when exit becomes impossible: (This comes later—when we discuss agriculture and sedentism)

The Equilibrium: Why This Worked for 200,000 Years

Let's map the full system:

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Why it was stable:

• Each mechanism reinforced the others
• No selection pressureForces that favor certain behaviors or structures over others. Over time, selection pressure edits systems into new forms. for hierarchy (the system solved coordination problems without it)
• High quality of life (minimal work, adequate nutrition, strong social bonds)
• Negative feedback loopsCircular causal paths that amplify or dampen behavior. Feedback loops explain why systems can stabilize, oscillate, or spiral out of control. prevented hierarchy formation

The negative feedback loop:

What This Explains

This framework clarifies:

Why hierarchy isn't inevitable in small societies:

• Leveling mechanisms work at small scale
• Coalitions can overpower individuals
• Exit prevents permanent tyranny

Why "human nature" debates are confused:

• Humans can be egalitarian (we were for 200,000 years)
• Humans can be hierarchical (we are now)
• The structure, not "nature," determines which emerges

Why early agricultural societies had worse quality of life:

• More work (farming vs. foraging)
• Poorer nutrition (grain monoculture vs. diverse diet)
• More disease (sedentism, animal domestication)
• More inequality (surplus accumulation)
• Less freedom (couldn't exit)

Why the "noble savage" myth is wrong:

• Egalitarianism was achieved, not natural
• Violence existed (just different forms)
• Not all hunter-gatherers were peaceful
• Complex social systems, not simple ones

Why the "nasty, brutish, short" myth is also wrong:

• Longer lifespans than early agriculturalists (if you survived childhood)
• Better health markers
• More leisure time
• Strong social support

The Limits of This Analysis

What hunter-gatherer studies can tell us:

• Egalitarianism is achievable
• Specific mechanisms maintain it
• Structural conditions matter more than "human nature"
• Hierarchy is not inevitable in all contexts

What hunter-gatherer studies cannot tell us:

• Why this equilibrium eventually broke
• Whether return to this state is possible or desirable
• How to apply these lessons to modern societies
• Whether hierarchy is "good" or "bad"

We're describing what was, not prescribing what should be.

What's Next

We've now seen three coordination systems:

1. Ants: Stigmergic, scalable, mindless 2. Primates: Intelligent, social, capped at ~150 3. Hunter-gatherers: Actively egalitarian, small, mobile, stable

All three work. All three have limits.

But something happened around 10,000-12,000 years ago that broke the hunter-gatherer equilibrium.

Multiple things, actually:

• Population density increased
• Climate changed
• Certain resources became concentrated
• Mobility became constrained
• Surplus became possible (and then necessary)

And once those conditions shifted, the mechanisms that maintained equality stopped working.

Next question: What created defensible surplus—and why did that make hierarchy inevitable?

Next explainer: "The Surplus Trap: The Agricultural Revolution as Coordination Crisis"

(This begins Series 2: Scaling Problems)