Summary of Results to Date in Light of Existing Models for the Development of Wealth Inequality

Summary

This is an abstract from the "To Have and Have Not: A Progress Report on the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) Project" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this paper we summarize key results from the previous papers in this symposium, all of which report preliminary findings of the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) Project. As Lauren Bacall sings in “To Have and Have Not”: how little we know! Archaeologists have assembled the grand outlines of increasing wealth inequality in a few of the world’s best-known regions, but huge dark areas remain away from those selected lamp posts. Moreover, we should not assume that even in these better-known regions the processes of increasing wealth inequality are monotonic. Outstanding questions that we begin to address here include how much do Ginis respond to various technological and social innovations? (These vary from region to region, but would often include increased importance of cultivated cereals, draft animals, development of institutional arrangements protecting differential wealth such as the state, and the increasing importance of enslaved labor). How general is social resistance to development of inequality, and can we differentiate this from low inequality simply due to low surplus? Do Ginis respond differently to development of draft and portage domesticates? And so forth. This paper is intended to summarize the results to be examined and critiqued by the discussants.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• To Have and Have Not: A Progress Report on the Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality (GINI) Project   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35555.0