Yali’s Question, Diamond’s Answer

1. Yali’s Question, Diamond’s Answer Unraveling Historical Inequality

2. Global Inequality • What is Inequality? • Does inequality exist in the World today? • Where do you think it comes from? • Historically, where do all the most powerful societies come from?

3. Some Historical explanations of Global Inequality… • Racial Superiority • Religious Blessing • Genetic Superiority • This idea is similar to Racial Superiority with the added notion of ‘scientific’ evidence

4. Yali’s Question • Why do Europeans have so much cargo and New Guineans have so little? • Asked another way… • Why is there so much inequality in the World?

5. Jared Diamond’s solution • Geography • The advantage does not lie with the people in the more powerful societies, but rather with wherethese societies developed. • According to Diamond, where you lived could give you an enormous advantage

6. The Collision at Cajamarca • How big an advantage are we talking about? • At Cajamarca (1532) 168 Spaniards with 62 horses and 12 guns defeated more than 80,000 trained soldiers of the Inca Army • The Incas suffered some 2,000 dead, 5,000 captured (including the Emperor Atahualpa) and the scattering of the Imperial Army • The Spaniards suffered zero dead and just one wounded

7. Diamond began his investigation by going back to when inequality was non-existent • 12,000 years ago human beings populated Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania • All human beings were hunter-gatherers, living in small nomadic bands using just simple stone tools

8. What is Hunting and Gathering? • It has two distinct components… • Most calories and nutrients are gathered from wild plant species while traveling nomadically after just a couple of hours of work • These nutrients are supplemented by animal protein acquired through occasionally successful hunting • Hunter Gatherers lived in very small groups

9. 10,000 years ago some societies began to gradually adopt agriculture • Only three regions are known to have developed agriculture independently • Mesopotamia (8,000 BCE) • China (7,000 BCE) • The Peruvian Andes (3,000 BCE) • All other examples of agriculture were derived from these three through the process of Cultural Diffusion

10. What is Cultural Diffusion? • It has two distinct components… • A cultural idea travels from one place to another • The cultural idea is both adopted by the new society but also adapted • Why does it matter? • Are there modern examples of Cultural Diffusion?

11. Why pursue Agriculture? • Agriculture requires much more work than Hunting and Gathering • Agriculture provides much more food security than Hunting and Gathering • Agriculture led to… • Fewer periods of malnutrition and starvation • Excess food that could be stored • Larger and healthier populations

12. The challenges of Agriculture • Only certain crops lent themselves to domestication • Grasses with… • Large seeds (more calories) • Kernels that could be dried and would not spoil • Kernels that would not germinate when stored • Just 56 varieties exist in the world (<1% of all grasses)

13. Why Eurasia? • Of 56 qualified species, 5 are immensely superior to all others (Emmer and Einkorn wheat, Barley, Rice and Maize) • 39 (with 4 superior grains) were present in Eurasia • Just 5 (with 1 superior grain) were present in Mesoamerica • Just 4 were present in Sub-Saharan Africa • Just 4 were present in North America • Just 2 were present in South America • Just 2 were present in Australia

14. Why pursue domestication of animals? • After domesticating plants, human beings sought to domesticate animals • Domesticated animals provided protein (both milk and meat), hides and furs, fertilizer, fibrous material, muscle power and efficient transportation

15. Which Animals work? • Candidates must be herbivores, have a high growth rate, be capable of captive breeding, not be nasty, not be skittish and have a strong social hierarchy • Only 14 such animals (over 100 pounds) existed in the ancient world • The Big Five: Sheep, Goats, Cattle, Pigs, Horses • The Lesser Nine: Arabian and Bactrian Camels, Water Buffaloes, Mithun and Zebu, Donkeys, Reindeer, Yaks and Llamas

16. Why Eurasia • Of 148 species of large herbivores, just 14 satisfy all the necessary criteria • 72 are native to Eurasia, 13 were domesticated (including all the ‘Big Five’) • 51 are native to Sub-Saharan Africa, none were domesticated • 24 are native to the Americas (North and South America), just 1 was domesticated (the Llama) • 1 is native to Australia, it was not domesticated

17. Continental Axes Continental Axes

18. Why Eurasia? • Only Eurasia has an east-west Axis (fostering cultural diffusion) • Only Eurasia lies mostly in the temperate zone • Eurasia had the greatest number, variety and best potential crops • Eurasia had the greatest number, variety and best potential animals for domestication

19. Why does Agriculture matter? • Agriculture requires record-keeping which requires the development of writing and mathematics • Surplus food allows for the development of specialized workers • Agriculture leads to cities and technology! • Larger societies (more food means more people) require more complex systems of governance

20. Disease as Power • As populations grew (due to agriculture) and… • People increasingly lived with large numbers of animals (due to domestication) and… • These many people mingled with the feces of these many animals… • Countless virulent diseases developed • Societies that did not have large populations and large number of domesticated animals were at a disease disadvantage

21. Cajamarca Continued • In 1492, when Columbus arrived in Hispaniola (modern Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the island had roughly 1 million residents • By 1600, the native population was less than 10,000 (a 99% death rate) • 80% - 95% of the native populations of the Americas died in the first 2 centuries after contact • This represents a genocide 20 times more deadly than the Holocaust