Egalitarian Tendencies Research Articles

An Imagined Community: Abridging an Abyss

An examination of the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man raises significant questions. Why is this life a zero sum game where a gain by one person or side must be matched by a loss by another person or side? Where is the mutuality necessary to break the cycle of all or nothing? Indeed, turning to the doctrine of the Trinity, especially in Athanasius's understanding of it, one finds that love and not transcendence, giving and superiority, are the qualities and the mark of God's divinity. There is no imbalance of power within the being of God setting forth superior-inferior parties. There is mutual self-giving. With these two strategies for living in the world, Christianity developed an Arian compromise and an Athanasian dream. On one hand, nature and social hierarchies are the givenness of human community. On the other, the Athanasian dream creatively imagines community with the audacity of difference and mutuality modeled in the Godhead and demonstrated in the life of Jesus. As the Church gained power and influence, the more egalitarian tendencies in Christianity gradually lost ground, at least among church leaders. The Arian compromise came in time to be regarded as virtually a matter of doctrine. The concerns of the Occupy Wall Street movement invite the church to a social space it has not been lately.

When it's fair to share

A striking feature of human societies, compared with those of other primates, is the egalitarian sharing of resources in many situations. However, both children and chimpanzees share resources less equitably after receiving a 'windfall'. A behavioural study of reactions to windfall payments, in which children received toys and chimps food, reveals a tendency for children as young as three to share windfalls more fairly if they were earned by a team member through a collaborative effort. This contradicts the common assumption that egalitarian tendencies emerge during the school years, at six or seven, when children learn social norms of equality. Chimps do not favour equity, whether or not windfalls were received through collaboration. The modern human tendency to distribute resources more equitably among the larger group may have roots in the sharing of spoils after joint efforts.

Two Views of Corruption and Democracy

The pessimistic view of corruption and democracy sees democracy as either corrupt or unlikely to deter corruption. This view can be traced to the writings of Plato and Aristotle. The modern neoclassical and public choice literatures advance a modern version of the pessimistic view. They suggest that democracy is not likely, in itself, to deter corruption. Shleifer and Vishny go further and suggest that the egalitarian tendencies in democracies produce conditions conducive to corruption. Sen's work, in contrast, supports the optimistic view that democracy can act as a powerful corruption deterrent. Sen takes a broader view of democracy, relaxes the self-interest assumption, allows for the influence of democracy on value formation and stresses the importance of democratic practice. However, a constitutive relationship also holds between corruption and democracy because certain forms of corruption are undemocratic in their very nature. This also involves an optimistic view since, on this view, democratization and corruption-deterrence go hand in hand.

'A body without a head': The Idea of Mass Culture in Dickens's American Notes (1842)

'A body without a head':The Idea of Mass Culture in Dickens's American Notes (1842) Juliet John (bio) I would rather have the affectionate regard of my fellow men, than I would have heaps and mines of gold. But the two things do not seem to me incompatible. – Dickens, Speech at Boston Dinner (1 February 1842) 1 A touchstone of debate in modern cultural theory is the idea of a tension between the goals of commercial culture and those of a genuinely 'popular' culture consonant with the values and interests of the populace.2 Speaking in America at the dawn of 'the first age of mass culture', Dickens, like notable recent commentators, did not see this tension as inevitable.3 He rightly assumed that a statement of belief in a model of culture that was both capitalist and communal would meet with approval in nineteenth-century America. At this stage of his first trip to the States of 1842, expectations were still high that there would be a perfect meeting of minds between Dickens, the literary superstar associated with democratic, populist values, and America, a New World founded on the principles of 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'. Before reaching the States, Dickens had written to the editor of the New York Knickerbocker Magazine of 'the glow into which I rise, when I think of the wonders that await us'.4 One leading article published during his stay explained that Dickens was a hero for the Americans because of the 'democratic genius' and 'idea of human equality' that they shared. America was a place 'where his popular tendencies' were 'not likely to be weakened', and his writings would 'hasten on the great crisis of the English Revolution (speed the hour!) far more effectively than any of the open assaults of Radicalism or Chartism'.5 But as has been well documented, Dickens and America became mutually dis-ffected during his first visit. Rather than confirming Dickens's radicalor egalitarian tendencies, America had the opposite effect: 'This is not the Republic of my imagination', he memorably wrote to Macready. [End Page 173] 'I infinitely prefer a liberal monarchy'((22 March 1842); Letters: III, 156). To Forster, he famously announced: I tremble for a radical coming here, unless he is a radical on principle,by reason and reflection, and from the sense of right. I fear that if hewere anything else, he would return home a tory … […] I do fear that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty will be dealt by this country, in thefailure of its example to the earth. ((24 February 1842); Letters : III, 90) Dickens's disillusionment with America has been explained in various ways. For Jerome Meckier, 'Dickens discovered his real selfin 1842', a self that was 'more English and Victorian after visiting America'.6 For Michael Slater, by contrast, 'Dickens was a natural American' who 'had just the same love/hate relationship with America as he had with the country of his birth'.7 In a related vein, David Parker argues that, 'For Dickens America was an unflattering glass'.8 Slaterand the editors of the Pilgrim edition of Dickens's Letters pinpointthe change in Dickens's attitude to America to the aftermath of the14 February 'Boz Ball' – an extravagant Ball in his honour in New York – after which, he was confined to his hotel room with illness for three days (15–17 February).9 During this time, he was able to reflect on attacks on him in the press for the ostentatious way in which he was being fêted and the public stance he had taken urging America to sign up to an international copyright agreement (the lack of which meant that Dickens's works could be reprinted without permission or payment in America). Mercenary motives were attributed to Dickens and it was even suggested in some quarters that the entire trip was motivated by a desire to promote a copyright agreement, accusations to which Dickens took great offence (Letters: III, x). This article differs from existing readings by explaining Dickens's change of heart about America in terms that go beyond the auto-biographical, and in a...

Distribution of Grooming Among Adult Females in a Large, Free-Ranging Group of Japanese Macaques

We analyzed grooming episodes recorded among adult females in a large, provisioned, free-ranging group of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) at an individual level. Each female groomed on average 10 of the other 84 females, and 54% of them devoted ≥50% of their grooming to a single female grooming partner, which indicates that most females had grooming interactions with a relatively small subset of available females. Although 65% of the total grooming bouts were between related females, 25% of females disproportionately groomed unrelated females, 22% groomed related and unrelated females equally, and grooming was kin-biased for the remaining 53%. Moreover, 11 of 16 kin-groups included at least one female that groomed unrelated females significantly more often than related females. In 18% of unrelated dyads, grooming was directed down the hierarchy, in 58%, grooming was well-balanced between the two females, and in the remaining 25%, grooming was directed up the hierarchy. The results indicate that although Japanese macaques are considered a despotic species based on their dominance style, this group included some females that showed egalitarian tendencies, i.e., grooming was directed down the hierarchy or was well-balanced, and was directed toward unrelated females as often as or more often than toward related females. The presence of egalitarian individuals might be important to maintain a well-organized, female-bonded group.

Pyrrhus' Rules: Playing with Power from Boccaccio to Machiavelli

In the frame-tale of the Decameron, Boccaccio elaborates a utopian political, and ethical, order, which seems to realize in ideal form the mixed egalitarian and hierarchical tendencies of Florentine communal politics: the group of seven young women and three young men embraces the need for a monarchical rule from above, but then establishes the principle that each will occupy that office for a single day.1 The egalitarian tendency extends into the dimension of gender roles as well. The community is founded and dominated by women, and its laws are provided by Pampinea, the Moses or Numa of the lieta brigata, although female empowerment is qualified, at least verbally, by explicit recognition of the traditional Pauline notion that man is the head of woman [I.intro., par. 74-76]. On the other hand, the normative hierarchies that separate upper from lower class, masters from servants, remain unmodified in the little world Pampinea founds: the brigata s life of ease is underwritten by the presence of a number of male and female servants, who, with one important exception on which I will comment later, remain in the background, performing their appointed tasks. The successes of this ideal political

The Fundamental Unity of the Conservative and Revolutionary Tendencies in Venezuelan Evangelicalism: The Case of Conjugal Relations

Social scientists generally analyse the coexistence of patriarchal and egalitarian tendencies within evangelical Protestantism as a case of assimilation of one tendency to a religion essentially characterized by the other, or as anad hocconstruction of strategic actors. Here the work of Ernst Troeltsch is used to theorize the fundamental unity of the ‘conservative and revolutionary tendencies’ within Christian social thought. Interviews conducted with Venezuelan evangelicals regarding conjugal relations show, through direct questioning, their understanding of authority and equality; and through a series of hypothetical situations, when an evangelical woman will submit to patriarchy and when she will assert her religious equality.

More on Feminism, Self-Sacrifice, and Time; Or, Too Many Words for Emptiness

I thank Masao Abe for seriousness with which he has engaged my earlier comments in The Emptying God (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Press, 1990). I had suggested that, while such conceptual common ground for interreligious dialogue as God, faith, transcendence, and the Good disintegrates on closer examination, one unmistakable common denominator remains standing. The religions-by contrast to some indigenous traditions-share a patriarchal foundation of imagery and practice. (Perhaps postmodernity, in its suspicion of foundationalism, allows us to recognize only unacknowledged foundations, common ground so taken for granted that it would not be deemed worthy of defending.) The world religions, in other words, share failure to stabilize their own early egalitarian tendencies sufficiently to prevent loss of liberating moment, that is, to guard against spiritual disenfranchisement of women as movement becomes a tradition, a hierarchy, and a canon.

Cultural differences in reward allocation: Is collectivism the explanation?

This article examines how reward allocation behaviour is influenced by culture (Chinese vs. American), personality differences (psychological individualism vs. collectivism), social relationships (allocation to one's friend vs. colleague at work), and availability of resources (limited vs. unlimited). Subjects made monetary allocation to themselves and to a partner in a hypothetical situation. Two kinds of deviation from proportional allocation were distinguished. They were egalitarianism and generosity. Results showed that subjects tended to be more egalitarian in their allocation when their contribution had been high. As a group, Chinese subjects were more generous (using an allocation rule that was to the partner's advantage) than American subjects, especially when dealing with friends. Furthermore, when there was no limit on the amount of reward to be distributed, Chinese subjects were more egalitarian than the Americans. Finally, the Chinese subjects' egalitarian tendency away from proportional distribution of rewards was curtailed when collectivism was statistically controlled. However, the same statistical procedure did not reduce their tendency toward generosity. The role of collectivism as an explanation for cross‐cultural differences in reward allocation is discussed.

Production Collectives and Communes and the “Imperatives” of Soviet Industrialization, 1929-1931

There cannot be any doubt that the confusion in the minds of individual Party members concerning Marxian socialism and their infatuation with the egalitarian tendencies of agricultural communes are as like as two peas to the petty bourgeois views of our “Leftist” blockheads, who at one time idealized the agricultural communes to such an extent that they even tried to implant the commune in the factories, where skilled and unskilled worker, each working at his trade, “had to put his wages into the common fund which was then shared out equally. We know what harm these infantile egalitarian exercises of our “Leftist” blockheads caused our industry.Stalin, 1934Now, brother, we don't toady. Nobody sucks up to the foreman.N. Pogodin, Bakunin commune, Baltic Shipyards

Forms of Equality

Abstract A spectre haunts the industrialized world—the spectre of egalitarianism. Demands to equalize the First and Third Worlds or to reduce needs to bring about social equality are articulated by movements and theories which keep “social equality” on the agenda. But, as we will try to show, a consistently implemented egalitarianism is a myth. All attempts to realize it as a general principle of social organization in a context of even minimal industrialization lead to a decline of wealth. Yet, recurring egalitarian tendencies constitute an indispensable social monitoring system. They always point to concrete inequalities that threaten to become permanent and therefore must be opposed.