ABSTRACT
Most theories of inequality assumed that some form of equality was a common feature of the earliest human "state of nature". This chapter expresses that early cooperative structures were no evolutionary dead ends, shifts towards more inequality were initiated by a wide variety of circumstances and whether the opportunity was actually recognized depended on the imagination of the participants. Cooperation occurred in tasks such as hunting large game, driving animals into nets or traps, gathering edible plants, constructing shelters and sharing information. During extraordinarily long time, small communities grew into the world's first large urban centres, large-scale irrigation and major technological advances intensified production and trade, variations in food supply were mediated by centrally organized redistribution, and cultivated areas were periodically relocated in response to the salination of land and silting of canals. Game theory suggests that anonymity creates opportunities for defection from cooperative relations. Resources can be diverted from cooperators to exploiters by stealth or by deliberate concealment.
