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1-Page Summary of The Great Leveler
Overview
The prevailing thought in the West is that democracy and capitalism have improved people’s lives. Democracy, on paper, promotes fairness and equality among members of a society, while capitalism has extended property ownership to more people than ever before.
The author suggests that history has shown us that the rise of capitalism and democracy have failed to solve inequality. He provides examples from all around the world, as well as different time periods in history, to show how terrible events actually helped deal with inequality.
In this article, I’ll discuss the history of inequality and how it has been addressed in the past. You’ll learn about ancient societies and where to live if you want a more equal society today.
Big Idea #1: A better quality of life gave rise to inequality, before technological advancements made it worse.
The ice age was a difficult time for humans. However, when it ended, you would think that things would have gotten better. However, while some aspects of life did improve, there were also negative changes as well.
After the last ice age ended, humans began to cultivate the land and produce food. This led to a surplus that allowed some people to accumulate more property than others. Eventually, this resulted in disequalization as some people had larger areas of land and more food resources while employing others to work on their property.
During the Holocene, a time period that began 10,000 years ago and continues today, humans started living in large settlements. There were stark differences between rich and poor people. Archeological evidence shows this by comparing household sizes from 11,000 years ago to today. The fish bones found at larger houses suggest these people ate big fish; small fish were eaten by the poorer families.
Technology has a positive and negative impact on society. For example, the Chumash tribe’s canoe technology improved their lives but also led to inequality within the tribe. The men who controlled the canoes became dominant in many areas of their society such as religion, war making and land ownership. In return for keeping them safe from danger, other members of the tribe gave these male chiefs food and shells.
As you can see, there has been a growing inequality between the rich and poor for a long time. This is due to both increased quality of life as well as technological advancements. In the next key point, we will discuss what continued driving this divide.
Big Idea #2: In the beginning, land ownership was egalitarian, but in certain circles property soon became concentrated.
Today, we hear a lot about how the one percent of people control most of the world’s money. However, that wasn’t always true.
The Sumerians settled in South Mesopotamia around 5,000 years ago. They had a system of land division that was based on equality. The people who lived there were called the Sumerians and they shared their land among themselves. A representative from each family would decide how to divide up the land equally among everyone else.
Property ownership was a common concept among ancient civilizations. In China, for example, people didn’t think of private property until about 4,000 years ago. Other civilizations such as the Incas in Peru and the Aztecs in Mexico also shared communal land ownership. This system worked well for a while but eventually broke down because wealthier families started buying up land and paying others to work on their fields. The Sumerians were an early civilization that had this type of property system; it went like this: Families who needed money would take out loans at high interest rates from wealthy lenders (who owned most of the land), then sell off their own fields to pay back those loans with even higher interest rates attached.
