Professor of Anthropology Hilliard Kaplan and graduate student Paul L. Hooper are among 26 authors of a paper published in the journal “Science” today. The paper, titled “Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and the Dynamics of Inequality in Small Scale Societies,” uses data compiled by the researchers to examine how the gap between rich and poor is affected by the way that children inherit wealth from their parents.
Photo: Hilliard Kaplan
Kaplan and Hooper contributed information from their research with the Tsimane, a farming and foraging society native to the Bolivian Amazon and one of many groups examined by the researchers. In the paper the researchers conclude that the inheritance of wealth is limited in hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies but more substantial among pastoral and agricultural societies.
A researcher at the Santa Fe Institute and one of the primary authors of the paper, Samuel Bowles brought Kaplan and Hooper into the project to analyze cross-cultural and help develop theory. Kaplan says, “In the traditional conditions under which humans evolved there was little transmission of wealth until agriculture became a large factor in the economy. But the more you have inherited wealth that goes from parents to children, the greater the inequality of wealth distribution in the population.” In the big picture of human experience he says, there have generally been low levels of wealth transmission from parents to children.
This research drew from decades of research compiled in institutions across North America and the United Kingdom. It synthesizes information compiled about a wide variety of social groups in communities across the world. The research looks at the role of wealth inheritance in sustaining economic inequality in the very long run.
For example, hunter-gathers use their wits and strength, along with their social connections to make a living. Wealth inheritance is modest and economic inequality is comparable to the most egalitarian of modern democratic economy such as those of Nordic Europe. But in herding and farming economies, in which inherited wealth is land and livestock, offspring of the top ten percent in wealth distribution are more likely to attain that status than the offspring of the poorest tenth.
The authors of the study point out that wealth in the emerging knowledge-based economy resembles that of hunter-gatherers because it is less readily passed from parent to child than lands or goods. However, they caution that the information-driven economy will not necessarily assure equality.
The research draws from decades of research in institutions across North America and the United Kingdom. It synthesizes information compiled from a wide variety of social groups across the world. It is part of the on-going Persistent Inequality project of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute, coordinated by Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, and Samuel Bowles.
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Samuel Bowles.