That will not be accepted, that kind of behavior. You may keep more for yourself than you give away, that's very well possible, but not sharing at all I think is a poor strategy in a primate society like that. So, yeah, I think the point that you make is entirely true.
There are many human societies that
are quite egalitarian where certain individuals may have a little bit more than
others, but those differences cannot be too great because if they become too
great then there's going to be negative consequences. I think that's happening
in the U.S., for example you have gated communities. You know that's not known...I'm from the
Netherlands. We don't know that in the Netherlands. We've never heard of a gated community. Why do you have gated community is because
you have created such big differences in income that there are people who want
to take from you even though that's not allowed. So you need to live behind fences to protect
yourself.
So that's a very third world type of solution to the problem. Certainly from a European perspective because inequalities are not nearly as great as in Europe and as a result tensions between the rich and the poor are not nearly as great.
R.K.: How would primates handle another primate that attempted to not share in a very aggressive way? How would they handle it? What behavior would they manifest? I know in your video of the study of fairness just in terms of sharing food, one throws food and others you see them spitting. What could you expect to see from a primate if another one didn't share?
F.W.: Well, if the reaction is not violent, which it doesn't need to be violent, because what would happen is that if I collect a lot of the resources and I am eating and consuming them and not sharing with anybody I will become very unpopular. So they don't need to be necessarily violent to me, but they will not cooperate with me.
They will not draw me into their line of cooperation because I am the one who keeps everything for myself. And so I would just lose opportunities for cooperation with others and that's enough of a punishment I think and I think that's also is why in many human egalitarian societies you cannot really hoard everything for yourself because people will turn away from you. In primate societies, it's very common in chimpanzees for example, that they share food and they will be pestering you until you give them food and so they will be throwing tantrums at your feet and making clear that if you don't share with them they get very upset. And imagine you have someone who is absolutely incapable of sharing and keeps everything for themselves, they will become socially isolated and they will become at some point irrelevant to the community. The community will just ignore them and not deal with them.
R.K.: And in terms of cooperation, you've done studies that showed that monkeys not only cooperate to achieve common goals, but they'll even help other monkeys, or other primates when they're not going to be rewarded themselves. When they're already fed they'll help another monkey, or whatever get food. Sharing work is required and you also found that in elephants, right?
The second half of the article will be published wednesday morning.
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