The Evolution of Inequality

by Midlarsky, Manus I.

• ISBN13: 9780804741705
• ISBN10: 0804741700
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

This book studies the structural inequalities between states as they evolve and influence the political process. Through the prism of inequality, it analyzes various forms of political violence including war and revolution, the origins and dissolution of states, and the sources of cooperation between states. The ultimate genesis of democracy is shown to be a consequence of the processes detailed in the book. Using the emergence of inequality as a theoretical wedge into the substantive material, the author develops a theoretical-probabilistic argument linking scarcity and inequality. He presents evidence for this relationship in the form of an exponentially declining probability of attaining valued commodities under conditions of scarcity. Moreover, the greater the scarcity, the more rapid the decline. This is shown to be a recipe for the emergence of inequality under conditions of scarcity and requires no assumptions beyond those of scarcity and randomness. In other words, we need make no assumption concerning human nature or structural economic relations in order to derive the existence of inequality. But this is only half of the author's argument. Under conditions of expansion--outward movement of populations, conquest, and/or the resettlement of conquered populations--a distribution of even greater inequality emerges, namely the Pareto, or fractal, distribution of extreme inequality. The author argues that this distribution of vastly greater inequality is associated both with state formation, and, under different conditions, with the dissolution of states.

Author Biography

Manus I. Midlarsky is Moses and Annata Back Professor of Intennational Peace and Conflict Resolution at Rutgers University.

Table of Contents

Figures and Tables	xiii
PART I. INTRODUCTION
Theoretical Overview	3	(15)
Scarcity and Inequality	18	(29)
PART II. STATE FORMATION AND DISSOLUTION
Warfare and the Origins of the State	47	(42)
Decline and Fall of Empires and States	89	(62)
PART III. DEMOCRACY
The Timing of the ``Social Problem'' and Democratization	151	(14)
Failures of State Formation and Democratization	165	(20)
Sources of Democracy	185	(46)
PART IV. VIOLENCE AND COOPERATION
Inequality and Political Violence	231	(17)
Equality and Cooperation or Helping	248	(15)
PART V. CONCLUSION
Paradoxes of Democracy and State Survivability	263	(22)
Appendix A. Mathematical Derivations of the Equations for the Exponential and Fractal (EI) Distributions	285	(10)
Appendix B. Countries Included in the Analysis of Chapter 7	295	(6)
Notes	301	(8)
Bibliography	309	(30)
Index	339