ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a couple of contemporary theories that help understand how the roots of conflicts between mining companies and the communities can be traced back centuries, if not millennia, before the Spanish Conquest. They are evolutionary theory and institutional theory. Evolutionary theory evokes processes that began thousands of millennia in the past and form part of the evolution of the human species. Evolutionary theory is applied here to explain divergent preferences for principles of fairness. ccording to one of the founders of institutional theory, Douglass North, historical events in 17th century Europe, set England and Spain on different courses that were distinct and irreconcilable. The classist state that followed Bolivian independence simply continued down the historical path of clientelism practised by the Spanish monarchy. The consequences of Dunbar's number, biases towards different principles of fairness, difference in historical paths of institutional development and their implications for the prevalence of rent-seeking strategies all point in the same direction.
