Hunter-Gatherer ‘Egalitarianism’ Is More Complicated Than We Thought

Hunter-gatherer societies are often portrayed as models of equality, cooperation and selfless food-sharing. However, Baylor University anthropologist Duncan N.E. Stibbard-Hawkes, Ph.D., and an interdisciplinary team of researchers have found that this familiar picture oversimplifies how egalitarianism actually functions in everyday life. Their research, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, examined the Hadza, a contemporary hunter-gatherer population in Tanzania, and found that relatively equal outcomes are often maintained not only by altruism, but through social pressure and what anthropologists call “demand sharing.”

In a previous study, Stibbard Hawkes and co-author Chris von Rueden, Ph.D., professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, conducted a wide-ranging review of hunter-gatherer populations that are typically characterized by equality. They found that, although many of these societies did “function with relative equality, even the most egalitarian hunter-gatherer groups display inequality in one area or another.”

To further understand this, Stibbard Hawkes and the research team tested their ideas of egalitarianism through a behavioral economic experiment employing a give-and-take behavioral economy game with Hadza participants.

“We find that equality was achieved only under conditions of disadvantageous inequality – where the person playing the game had less than others – suggesting that taking is more important in achieving redistributive equality than giving,” Stibbard Hawkes said. “This mirrors real life – if someone has too much, there’s often a lot of demanding shares from other people.”

“Looking at the actual motivations and mechanisms of redistribution and limiting power gives us a more realistic approach and a clearer view of what egalitarianism actually is." - D. Stibbard Hawkes, Ph.D.

Behavioral economy games

Many anthropologists and ethnographers investigate fairness in societies by employing behavioral economic games, such as the “dictator game.” By giving participants an endowment of tokens, researchers can understand how equality ideals function within that group based on how individuals keep or give away the tokens, Stibbard Hawkes said.

“When you play these economic games, people are often more selfish in hunter-gatherer societies than they are in America or Europe,” Stibbard Hawkes said. “Which is surprising because these societies are well known for being egalitarian.”

To better reflect real-world Hadza food-sharing practices, Stibbard Hawkes and team redesigned the experiment so participants could take resources as well as give them – and the results changed dramatically.

“We changed the rules of these economic games and ended up with equality – but only in the condition where people could take from other people,” he said. “That resulted in a relatively equitable distribution.”

Only 40.9% of participants shared when they had more food than others, while 30% claimed additional items. When starting with fewer resources, 58.8% took from their partner – often beyond what was necessary for balance. Across both conditions, taking everything was the most common behavior.

Importantly, the motivations behind those outcomes were not always idealistic.

“Though we saw a lot of generosity, the individual motivations underlying this equality were actually often quite self‑interested,” Stibbard Hawkes said.

Equality without altruism

Rather than reflecting an intrinsic desire to be fair, Hadza sharing behavior reflects asymmetric incentives and immediate needs.

“If I have a big pile of food and I’m not sharing it,” Stibbard-Hawkes explained, “the people around me are going to say, ‘No, you need to share this, and you’re going to give this to me.’ And, when everyone does this, the result is equality.”

He emphasized that these interactions are often personal and direct.

“It’s not just a societal expectation,” he said. “It’ll often be a direct dyadic interaction. Someone in the room next to you might be like, ‘Well, you’ve got a lot – you should give me some.’”

How egalitarianism works

Hunter-gatherer societies have long been used to help explain humanity’s evolutionary history. But Stibbard-Hawkes said popular writing often turns these societies into an idealized moral example.

“When this gets roughly translated into popular science books,” Stibbard Hawkes said, “the idea is very much like we lived in this Edenic garden of freedom and plenty where everything was good and there were no difficulties.”

That framing, he said, misses how egalitarianism is actually maintained.

“Egalitarian societies exist – they’re not mythical,” Stibbard Hawkes said. “But if you actually look at the mechanics of how egalitarianism and relative political equality are maintained, it’s often people who are arguing, demanding shares and even insulting people who have too much.”

Market integration and changing norms

The study also found that Hadza individuals with greater exposure over the last decade to Tanzania’s broader market economy and farming were slightly more accepting of unequal outcomes.

“These are things with a very different resource base, and what I'm finding is that – while traditionally forage foods like hunted meats, people expect sharing – when you ask people about cash or grain, their notions of what should be shared are very different,” Stibbard Hawkes said.

Egalitarianism is not a myth

Egalitarianism is not a myth—but it is often misunderstood. Generosity is not uncommon – but nor are people in egalitarian societies uniquely altruistic. Rather than arising from innate altruism or a lost utopia, equality in hunter-gatherer societies is actively produced through social pressure, negotiation and demands that limit accumulation and power.

“Looking at the actual motivations and mechanisms of redistribution and limiting power gives us a more realistic approach and a clearer view of what egalitarianism actually is,” Stibbard Hawkes said.