Egalitarianism Among Hunter-gatherers

Hunter-gatherers like the Hadza of Tanzania are famous for their egalitarianism. A resource redistribution experiment conducted with the Hadza suggests many tolerate inequality—as long as it benefits themselves. Duncan N.E. Stibbard-Hawkes, Kris M. Smith, and colleagues asked 117 Hadza adults to redistribute food resources between themselves and an unspecified campmate after receiving either advantageous or disadvantageous initial allocations. Unlike many previous redistribution experiments, participants were allowed to give as well as to take resources. The participants were interviewed privately, away from camp, and told their decisions would be anonymous. When given more banana chips than their campmate, only 40.9% chose to give some away, while 30% took even more. When given fewer resources than their campmate, 58.8% took from the other player, often taking more than needed to achieve equality. The most common choice across both conditions was to take everything. The authors also found that men and younger individuals were more willing to give away advantageous endowments, while individuals with greater exposure to non-Hadza cultures were more accepting of unfavorable inequality. Relatively equal sharing distributions, which mirrored real life, were only achieved when people were allowed to take resources from others. According to the authors, these results suggest Hadza sharing is not primarily maintained by intrinsic preferences for equality, but rather by self-motivated demands from those with less and extrinsic norms of fairness. The results also hint increasing market integration may erode traditional sharing norms.