I don’t think “coercion is an evolutionary adaptation to scarcity, and we’ve only recently managed to get rid of the scarcity” is clearly true. It intuitively makes sense, but Napoleon Chagnon’s research seems to be one piece of evidence against the theory.
Presumably you’re objecting to the first part of the quoted sentence, right, not the second half? Note that I’m not taking a particular position on the extent to which it’s an evolutionary versus cultural adaptation.
Could you say more about why Chagnon’s research weighs against it? I had a quick read of his wikipedia page but am not clear on the connection.
So I’ve read an overview[1] which says Chagnon observed a pre-Malthusian group of people, which was kept from exponentially increasing not by scarcity of resources, but by sheer competitive violence; a totalitarian society that lives in abundance.
There seems to be an important scarcity factor shaping their society, but not of the kind where we could say that “we only very recently left the era in which scarcity was the dominant feature of people’s lives.”
Although, reading again, this doesn’t disprove violence in general arising due to scarcity, and then misgeneralizing in abundant environments… And again, “violence” is not the same as “coercion”.
Unnecessarily political, but seems to accurately represent Chagnon’s observations, based on other reporting and a quick skim of Chagnon’s work on Google Books.
I don’t think “coercion is an evolutionary adaptation to scarcity, and we’ve only recently managed to get rid of the scarcity” is clearly true. It intuitively makes sense, but Napoleon Chagnon’s research seems to be one piece of evidence against the theory.
Presumably you’re objecting to the first part of the quoted sentence, right, not the second half? Note that I’m not taking a particular position on the extent to which it’s an evolutionary versus cultural adaptation.
Could you say more about why Chagnon’s research weighs against it? I had a quick read of his wikipedia page but am not clear on the connection.
So I’ve read an overview [1] which says Chagnon observed a pre-Malthusian group of people, which was kept from exponentially increasing not by scarcity of resources, but by sheer competitive violence; a totalitarian society that lives in abundance.
There seems to be an important scarcity factor shaping their society, but not of the kind where we could say that “we only very recently left the era in which scarcity was the dominant feature of people’s lives.”
Although, reading again, this doesn’t disprove violence in general arising due to scarcity, and then misgeneralizing in abundant environments… And again, “violence” is not the same as “coercion”.
Unnecessarily political, but seems to accurately represent Chagnon’s observations, based on other reporting and a quick skim of Chagnon’s work on Google Books.