population and stratification

Here is a response to Andy's question about population (size and density)
and stratification.

1)
One model of the relationship is found in:

Chase-Dunn and Hall.  1997.  Rise and Demise: Comparing World Systems.
        Westview.

In Chapter 6, they lay out a synthesis of the material I presented earlier
from Sanderson, their "theory of world-systems evolution."

Central to this "Population Pressure/Intensification/Hierarchy Formation
Model" is what they call the Harris/Carneiro/Cohen model, which should
sound familiar from my earlier post.  They diagram the model on page 102.
The variables in the model are intensification, population growth,
environmental degradation, population pressure, emigration,
circumscription, conflict, and hierarchy formation.

I don't like long posts, so I'm not going to be a hypocrite and post one
myself.  You get the basic idea, but go read the book, or at least the
chapter.  You should have it on your shelf if you're a serious
world-system scholar, it's a core text (oops, a crucial text).  
If not, get it.  Or check it out of the library.

It should be clear enough that Chase-Dunn and Hall are no more committed
to an orthodox marxist view of the role of population (ie, there is no 
such problem) than I am. And they make clear that it is still operating in
the world today.  Here is a brief quote from page 198-9:

"...global population is rising, and this is leading to many of the same
consequences that population growth has led to in the past -- pressure on
natural resources, pressures for migration, and circumscription.  The
rapid increases in agricultural productivity over the past 100 years have
allowed food production more or less to keep pace with rapid population
expansion, but many observers doubt that the rate of increase of
agricultural producivity can be sustained for many more decades.  Thus the
classical force of population pressure on food supplies is likely to visit
the modern world-system with the same general pattern that earlier systems
experienced -- conflict and pressure for a new form of hierarchy
formation."

Of course, you should know enough about Chris Chase-Dunn by now to know
that he thinks this means the formation of a world state.


2)
Another fascinating line of work on the relationship of population size
(not density) to stratification, is the work of the late Bruce Mayhew.

Here are two citations everyone should read:

Mayhew, Bruce H. and Roger L. Levinger.  1976.  "On the Emergence of
        Oligarchy in Human Interaction."  AJS 81/5: 1017-1049.

Mayhew, Bruce H. and Paul T. Schollaert.  1980.  "The Concentration of
        Wealth: A Sociological Model."  Sociological Focus 13/1: 1-35.

The 76 piece is a mathematical simulation showing that limits of human
information processing in interaction leads to polarization of power as
group size increases, *by chance alone.*

The 80 piece presents a "Marx-Rousseau" model of wealth distribution,
again showing that by chance alone, polarization occurs as population
size increases, but tending from 0 toward .5 in a "closed system" (with
income support), and from 1 toward .5 in an "open system" (laissez faire).  

Of course I haven't done Mayhew justice -- read for yourself!


* * * * *


The conclusion I reach, any way I cut it, is that true, pure
egalitarianism is a utopian dream in anything but a small face-to-face
group (probably no larger than 150 people or so, the size of a typical
gathering & hunting band).  But after I got over being depressed about
that, I bounced back with the realization that we can fight and win the
battle to reduce inequality and its massively negative consequences
dramatically from the levels and trend of today.  Clearly levelling off
and reducing the size of human society would be a tremendous positive
factor in this goal, not to mention its benefits to the ecosystem.

RH