Journal of Economic Literature
ISSN 0022-0515 (Print) | ISSN 2328-8175 (Online)
The Origins of Enduring Economic Inequality
Journal of Economic Literature
vol. 62,
no. 4, December 2024
(pp. 1475–1537)
Abstract
We survey archaeological evidence suggesting that among hunter-gatherers and farmers in Neolithic western Eurasia (11,700 to 5,300 years ago) elevated levels of wealth inequality occurred but were ephemeral and rare compared to the substantial enduring inequalities of the past five millennia. In response, we seek to understand not the de novo "creation of inequality" but instead the processes by which substantial wealth differences could persist over long periods and why this occurred only at the end of the Neolithic, at least four millennia after the agricultural revolution. Archaeological and anthropological evidence suggests that a culture of aggressive egalitarianism may have thwarted the emergence of enduring wealth inequality until the Late Neolithic, when new farming technologies raised the value of material wealth relative to labor and a concentration of elite power in early proto-states (and eventually the exploitation of enslaved labor) provided the political and economic conditions for heightened wealth inequalities to endure.Citation
Bowles, Samuel, and Mattia Fochesato. 2024. "The Origins of Enduring Economic Inequality." Journal of Economic Literature, 62 (4): 1475–1537. DOI: 10.1257/jel.20241718Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
- D63 Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
- N30 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: General, International, or Comparative
- N50 Economic History: Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries: General, International, or Comparative
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification