Stibbard-Hawkes and von Reuden make a compelling case for shifting attention away from egalitarian outcomes and toward the processes that generate them. This is a valuable corrective. However, their account is left with a blind spot, one which is crucial in sustaining egalitarian social organization: norms. Norms are the socially-enforced and morally-valenced entities that make egalitarian processes possible in the first place, and I argue that without dealing with norms as a distinct analytical category, the understanding of egalitarianism remains incomplete.

Norms can be understood as behavioral rules or standards, shared by a group of individuals, which determine how individual group members ought to behave in a particular situation (Bicchieri, Reference Bicchieri2005; Bicchieri et al., Reference Bicchieri, Muldoon and Sontuoso2018; Elster, Reference Elster1989). These standards of behavior are enforced by shared expectations and conditional preferences, that is, preferences conditional on others’ behaviors, and have a decided moral force. Norms thus greatly shape behavior and can be maintained by informal sanctions (of varying severity) by others in one’s social group. Such norms become crucial in maintaining egalitarian social organization (Deb, Kusimova, & Hominis, Reference Deb, Kusimova and Hominis2024), operating prior to, and alongside processes: they define what counts as acceptable action and fair distribution. Norms entail both conformity of individuals as well as normative standards, and thus should be distinguished from individual values or behavioral conventions. Individual values and preferences do not require alignment with others’ expectations, or conformity, whereas norms do. Conventions, in contrast, are coordination equilibria sustained by mutual expectations but without any moral force. For instance, driving on one side of the road is a convention, whereas sharing food or suppressing arrogance in egalitarian societies is a norm (Lewis, Reference Lewis2008; O’Connor, Reference O’Connor2019).

Although the target article doesn’t explicitly theorize norms, it relies on them throughout, in explaining egalitarian processes. The ‘duty to share’ heavily shapes the process of demand sharing and provides it a moral mandate (as discussed in section 5.1 of the target article), whereas ‘redistributive food-sharing norms’ and the moral condemnation of stinginess are crucial to the processes of risk-pooling (discussed in section 5.2). These norms morally guide sharing behavior, which keeps egalitarian organization alive in hunter-gatherer groups and sanctions deviations that might lead to resource hoarding. In the same vein, norms of humility and anti-assertiveness deeply underlie the institutionalized processes of mosambo and moadjo in BaYaka (section 5.4 in the target article). In the case of consensus-based decision-making (as discussed in section 5.5), the processual features described by the authors rely on underlying normative commitments: equality of voice, respect for others’ opinions, and constraints on aggressive or domineering speech. Without these norms, the processes would not function as described, and the role of these norms is clearly stated in these sections of the target article, even though the authors do not treat it as a separate analytical category. I argue that such an explicit treatment is crucial.

While a full treatment of the nature and role of norms stands outside the scope of this commentary, I want to highlight two specific contributions a normative account brings to the table: an explanation of individual motivation and a more flexible account of egalitarian relationships.

First, on motivation: the authors rightly emphasize that there is a need to understand what drives individuals to sustain egalitarian systems; a normative perspective addresses this need directly. What individuals want and how they behave are heavily shaped by the normative environments they inhabit. Norms of modesty dampen status-seeking behaviors, norms of autonomy make residential mobility feel legitimate rather than disloyal. More broadly, norms shape what people value, what they perceive as fair, and what they are willing to tolerate (Fehr & Fischbacher, Reference Fehr and Fischbacher2004; Henrich et al., Reference Henrich, Boyd, Bowles, Camerer, Fehr, Gintis, McElreath, Alvard, Barr, Ensminger and Henrich2005). Without an explicit account of norms, therefore, one risks mischaracterizing the very motivations that a process-based account depends on.

Second, norms allow for a more flexible, relational understanding of egalitarianism. Norms are often context-dependent and relationship-specific: they define what is appropriate between particular individuals in particular roles, not just define what is fair in the abstract (Deb & Heintz, Reference Deb and Heintz2026; Earp et al., Reference Earp, Calcott, Reinecke, Everett and Lahamin press). This helps explain how egalitarian systems can accommodate variation without sliding into inequality (Deb et al., Reference Deb, Saunders, Major-Smith, Dyble, Page, Salali, Migliano, Heintz and Chaudhary2024). A purely process-based account struggles to explain this flexibility, whereas an integration of a norm-based perspective handles it naturally.

Finally, one must question why such norms emerge in the first place. One possibility, as suggested in evolutionary and behavioral economic work, is that egalitarian norms function as mechanisms of risk-pooling and implicit insurance in uncertain environments (Binmore, Reference Binmore2005, Reference Binmore2014). Another is that they stabilize cooperation in groups in the absence of centralized authority or leaders, allowing groups to regulate behavior and constrain accumulation and dominance (Binmore, Reference Binmore1998; Boehm, Reference Boehm1999). Regardless of their origins, their persistence across hunter-gatherer groups (and others) points to their central role in maintaining egalitarian social organization and must be dealt with distinctly for a complete account of human egalitarianism.