The rules that keep us equal: complexity and costs of egalitarian organization

The growth of inequality in simple egalitarian organizations is often attributed to an increase in the number and complexity of behavioral rules. This paper presents a counter example in which a Trotskyist organization generated expansive rules for factions to preempt the emergence of oligarchy. The IMG is compared to the American Abalone and Clamshell Alliances that applied strict-equality rules to individuals to maintain egalitarian consensus. The paper concludes that it is not the number and complexity of rules that promote inequality, but their intricacy; a simple, but mathematically precise, concept that describes the extent to which elements in a rules system are mutually substitutable.