Duncan Stibbard–Hawkes and Christopher von Rueden make an important point about our conceptualization of egalitarian societies, but they have misidentified their target. They conceive of themselves as rejecting outcome-focused definitions of egalitarianism in favor of a processed-focused definition to the point that they conclude, “egalitarianism is not equality [of outcome].” We argue instead that the problem is perfectionist definitions of equality or egalitarianism and that the solution is a substantive definition.
A completely process-only definition would be strange: if egalitarianism were not equality of outcome in any way, shape, or form, then any society with processes trying to establish equality would be “egalitarian,” even if those processes entirely failed to affect the outcome. Luckily, this is not what Stibbard–Hawkes and von Rueden actually do. Consider their proposed definition, “egalitarian societies [are] those where socio-ecological circumstances enable most individuals to successfully secure their own status, autonomy, and resource access.” The ability to secure status, autonomy, and resource access are all outcomes that reflect substantive political, social, and economic equality between people. One can fairly say that these are mechanisms that help secure equality in other ways, but they are also egalitarian outcomes in and of themselves. Although attention to process is fundamentally important, feedback between process and outcome raises difficulties in drawing an analytical distinction between them. The operation of egalitarian sharing and leveling mechanisms is often both process and outcome simultaneously.
The article’s title, “Egalitarianism is Not Equality,” and the examples meant to support it show that the authors have been affected by the perfectionist definitions of equality and egalitarianism: either a society is equal in every way, or it is an “unequal” and therefore “inegalitarian” society. Elitists use the false dichotomy created by perfectionism to discredit egalitarianism by suggesting no society ever has or ever could establish true equality.
Perfectionist definitions are one-sided, because no serious writer uses similarly perfectionist definitions of hierarchy, stratification, or elitism. A perfectly stratified society would have no equality of any kind between people: every individual would be perfectly ordered from first to last in terms of status, freedom, autonomy, resource access, wealth, consumption, political power, and any other factors one can think of. If any two people are equal in any of these ways, or if their ranks across dimensions differ, society is not perfectly hierarchical: some equality exists. Yet, no one says, therefore, such societies fail to achieve true elitism.
The perfectionist definition has taught generations of researchers to stare egalitarianism in the face and refuse to see it. Serious researchers will wrongly apologize for failing to find genuine egalitarianism in societies where everyone has equal access to land and resources, where everyone has an adequate diet, where hunters equally share big game with everyone present, and where every individual is free to take part in consensus-oriented group decision-making and free to walk away from any group whose decisions they don’t like. They will wrongly concede that such societies are not truly egalitarian because pockets of inequality exist, because better hunters consume a few more calories, because some people are more persuasive than others, or because individuals haven’t internalized every conceivable norm of selflessness (Widerquist & McCall, Reference Widerquist and McCall2017). People who successfully free themselves from domination because they like being dominated are supposedly not good enough to qualify as egalitarians: they have to defeat domination for each other.
Yet, no serious researcher seems bothered that pockets of egalitarian social relations exist in the most stratified societies. In the United States, billionaires cannot legally drive cars unless they take the same test as everyone else. To say, therefore, the United States is not really elitist, hierarchical, or stratified is nonsense. No one thinks a perfectionist definition of elitism is reasonable. No one should think a perfectionist definition of egalitarianism is reasonable.
It’s too simplistic to define egalitarianism as a dichotomy or even as some kind of generalized cultural characteristic falling on a continuum between greater or lesser overall equality. Rather, egalitarianism is a set of systematic organizational relationships between the social structures, interaction patterns, and norms that underwrite economic systems, such as reciprocity and sharing (McCall & Widerquist, Reference McCall and Widerquist2015).
Imagine a mixing board (like those used in music recording) with a set of sliders from complete equality to complete inequality across a range of dimensions such as status, freedom, autonomy, resource access, wealth, consumption, and political power. A good definition of egalitarianism will identify about how far down those sliders have to be on which dimensions to achieve substantial equality between people: what outcomes do people need to stand in generally equal relations with one another?
Egalitarianism is equality, but it is substantive equality across the most important dimensions of both process and outcome rather than perfect equality across all dimensions of everything. Stibbard–Hawkes’ and von Rueden’s conception of egalitarianism is this sort of definition: it captures three important dimensions of substantive equality: status, autonomy, and resource access. The importance of their contribution has less to do with the movement from outcome- to process-focused definitions than with the movement from perfectionist to substantive definitions of both egalitarianism and equality. Whether we consider status, autonomy, and resource access as outcomes or processes or both, they go a long way to capturing that substance. We do not quibble about what the best possible list of characteristics of substantive equality is. Instead, we congratulate Stibbard–Hawkes and von Rueden for presenting a substantive list that is vastly superior to the perfectionist definition, which has had an enormously negative effect on the view of egalitarian societies taken by anthropologists, philosophers, and economists.
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Duncan Stibbard–Hawkes and Christopher von Rueden make an important point about our conceptualization of egalitarian societies, but they have misidentified their target. They conceive of themselves as rejecting outcome-focused definitions of egalitarianism in favor of a processed-focused definition to the point that they conclude, “egalitarianism is not equality [of outcome].” We argue instead that the problem is perfectionist definitions of equality or egalitarianism and that the solution is a substantive definition.
A completely process-only definition would be strange: if egalitarianism were not equality of outcome in any way, shape, or form, then any society with processes trying to establish equality would be “egalitarian,” even if those processes entirely failed to affect the outcome. Luckily, this is not what Stibbard–Hawkes and von Rueden actually do. Consider their proposed definition, “egalitarian societies [are] those where socio-ecological circumstances enable most individuals to successfully secure their own status, autonomy, and resource access.” The ability to secure status, autonomy, and resource access are all outcomes that reflect substantive political, social, and economic equality between people. One can fairly say that these are mechanisms that help secure equality in other ways, but they are also egalitarian outcomes in and of themselves. Although attention to process is fundamentally important, feedback between process and outcome raises difficulties in drawing an analytical distinction between them. The operation of egalitarian sharing and leveling mechanisms is often both process and outcome simultaneously.
The article’s title, “Egalitarianism is Not Equality,” and the examples meant to support it show that the authors have been affected by the perfectionist definitions of equality and egalitarianism: either a society is equal in every way, or it is an “unequal” and therefore “inegalitarian” society. Elitists use the false dichotomy created by perfectionism to discredit egalitarianism by suggesting no society ever has or ever could establish true equality.
Perfectionist definitions are one-sided, because no serious writer uses similarly perfectionist definitions of hierarchy, stratification, or elitism. A perfectly stratified society would have no equality of any kind between people: every individual would be perfectly ordered from first to last in terms of status, freedom, autonomy, resource access, wealth, consumption, political power, and any other factors one can think of. If any two people are equal in any of these ways, or if their ranks across dimensions differ, society is not perfectly hierarchical: some equality exists. Yet, no one says, therefore, such societies fail to achieve true elitism.
The perfectionist definition has taught generations of researchers to stare egalitarianism in the face and refuse to see it. Serious researchers will wrongly apologize for failing to find genuine egalitarianism in societies where everyone has equal access to land and resources, where everyone has an adequate diet, where hunters equally share big game with everyone present, and where every individual is free to take part in consensus-oriented group decision-making and free to walk away from any group whose decisions they don’t like. They will wrongly concede that such societies are not truly egalitarian because pockets of inequality exist, because better hunters consume a few more calories, because some people are more persuasive than others, or because individuals haven’t internalized every conceivable norm of selflessness (Widerquist & McCall, Reference Widerquist and McCall2017). People who successfully free themselves from domination because they like being dominated are supposedly not good enough to qualify as egalitarians: they have to defeat domination for each other.
Yet, no serious researcher seems bothered that pockets of egalitarian social relations exist in the most stratified societies. In the United States, billionaires cannot legally drive cars unless they take the same test as everyone else. To say, therefore, the United States is not really elitist, hierarchical, or stratified is nonsense. No one thinks a perfectionist definition of elitism is reasonable. No one should think a perfectionist definition of egalitarianism is reasonable.
It’s too simplistic to define egalitarianism as a dichotomy or even as some kind of generalized cultural characteristic falling on a continuum between greater or lesser overall equality. Rather, egalitarianism is a set of systematic organizational relationships between the social structures, interaction patterns, and norms that underwrite economic systems, such as reciprocity and sharing (McCall & Widerquist, Reference McCall and Widerquist2015).
Imagine a mixing board (like those used in music recording) with a set of sliders from complete equality to complete inequality across a range of dimensions such as status, freedom, autonomy, resource access, wealth, consumption, and political power. A good definition of egalitarianism will identify about how far down those sliders have to be on which dimensions to achieve substantial equality between people: what outcomes do people need to stand in generally equal relations with one another?
Egalitarianism is equality, but it is substantive equality across the most important dimensions of both process and outcome rather than perfect equality across all dimensions of everything. Stibbard–Hawkes’ and von Rueden’s conception of egalitarianism is this sort of definition: it captures three important dimensions of substantive equality: status, autonomy, and resource access. The importance of their contribution has less to do with the movement from outcome- to process-focused definitions than with the movement from perfectionist to substantive definitions of both egalitarianism and equality. Whether we consider status, autonomy, and resource access as outcomes or processes or both, they go a long way to capturing that substance. We do not quibble about what the best possible list of characteristics of substantive equality is. Instead, we congratulate Stibbard–Hawkes and von Rueden for presenting a substantive list that is vastly superior to the perfectionist definition, which has had an enormously negative effect on the view of egalitarian societies taken by anthropologists, philosophers, and economists.
Acknowledgments
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Financial support
The authors did not receive any specific funding.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.