Social Inequality in Aboriginal North America: A Test of Lenski's Theory

Abstract

Lenski's (1966) theory of the origin of social stratification suggests that economic surplus resulting primarily from technological but also from environmental factors generates demographic, productive, and political patterns of organization that, in turn, determine the extent of wealth inequality. Tested with quantified ethnographic data from nearly all indigenous North American tribes, Lenski's theory was generally supported. The posited causes and effects of the crucial variable of surplus were confirmed, but some anomalous findings emerged. Environment was as important as technology in generating surplus, and material inequality was more a precondition for political inequality than vice versa.