ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between inequality and governance from a long-run historical perspective and argues that the emergence of good governance in the guise of rule of law depends on the weakness of social stratification and ingroup bias. It reviews four interrelated factors affecting stratification and bias, namely, infectious disease, population growth, intra and intergroup conflict and the nature of production. The chapter discusses the steepness of social hierarchy and the strength of group ties determine the extent to which societies have been able to move towards equality before the law. Human beings strive to reduce existential uncertainty. Identifiable ingroups screen-out potential defectors in large group settings and sustain cooperation between ingroup members beyond familial and reciprocal relationships. The emergence of patron-client relationships is facilitated by the ineffectiveness of kin selection and ingroup ties in reducing social uncertainty. The disease environment has been identified as a causal factor determining the relative strength of individuals versus groups.
