Re. the question where and why the governance pattern transitioned from stateless to hierarchical. This has been traditionally placed into times and places when foragers (hunter-gatherers) became farmers. There is a more modern school of thought that places the transition into locations abundant with natural resources, for example along the salmon-rich rivers in the Pacific Northwest. Canadian anthropologist Hayden is one of the proponents of the idea. See for example here:
An interesting aspect of the stateless societies from the modern economics point of view is the observation that exceptional producers of resources (like a talented hunter) would continue to asymmetrically provide resources to the group, regardless of the group members not being ever able to reciprocate in kind. There are a bunch of theories why this behavior is stable, but I like the one which argues that reciprocity in fact exists in this case also, but the talented hunter gets a non-monetary, psychological reward (reputation) instead.
I enjoyed this post. Thanks.
Re. the question where and why the governance pattern transitioned from stateless to hierarchical. This has been traditionally placed into times and places when foragers (hunter-gatherers) became farmers. There is a more modern school of thought that places the transition into locations abundant with natural resources, for example along the salmon-rich rivers in the Pacific Northwest. Canadian anthropologist Hayden is one of the proponents of the idea. See for example here:
Hayden, B., 2011. Big Man, Big Heart? The Political Role of Aggrandizers in Egalitarian and Transegalitarian Societies. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116269_7
An interesting aspect of the stateless societies from the modern economics point of view is the observation that exceptional producers of resources (like a talented hunter) would continue to asymmetrically provide resources to the group, regardless of the group members not being ever able to reciprocate in kind. There are a bunch of theories why this behavior is stable, but I like the one which argues that reciprocity in fact exists in this case also, but the talented hunter gets a non-monetary, psychological reward (reputation) instead.