Income Inequality

As human societies became more complex and grew from hunter-gathering groups, they all experienced inequality of some kind or another. The type and depth of inequality, however, has varied across cultures and throughout time. The documented history on inequality ranges from hunter-gathering groups to agrarian and feudal communities, to the industrial societies of the modern era. According to many scholars, primitive societies such as hunting-gathering groups, those that survived by hunting and foraging for food and kindling, formed small communities that tended to be early forms of communism or even anarchism—that is, clans that shared victuals and supplies, some of which operated without a formal head for the group. In time, these groups developed hierarchies and status, which became in many cases hereditary and tradition ...