David Graeber and David Wengrow’s discussion on “inequality” within their article on civilization, “How to Change the Course of Human History,” is extremely interesting [].

They argue that the “Fall from Grace” narrative; that is to say, the idea that we lived in perfectly

equal bands as “primitives,” but then “fell” into civilization, sacrificing that equality for agriculture and technology; which is a narrative adopted by many, from Jared Diamond to Francis Fukuyama, as a great liberal blind.

“Most see civilization, and hence inequality, as a

tragic necessity.” But simply framing the narrative in this way premises itself on some assumptions:

1) “there is a thing called ‘inequality’”

2) “that it is a [tragic] problem”

3) “that there was a time it did not exist”

And since the financial crash of 2008, the

problem of “inequality” has “been at the centre of political debate,” taking the stage in mainstream media and presidential debates, etc.

“Pointing this out is seen as a challenge to global power structures,” both David Graeber and David Wengrow point out, “but compare this

to the way similar issues might have been discussed a generation earlier.” They offer the obvious ones: “capital” and “class power,” which contrast themselves in relation to “inequality” in the sense that the latter “is practically designed to lead to half-measures and

compromise”:

“One can imagine overthrowing capitalism or breaking the power of the state, but it’s very difficult to imagine eliminating ‘inequality.’”

Thus, many discussions, especially in the mainstream, never even approach the issue in that way. There is no approach to

the roots of “inequality” and how to pull those out.

The focus “is a way of framing social problems appropriate to technocratic reformers, the kind of people who assume from the outset that any real vision of social transformation has long since been taken off the political

table.” We can talk about tinkering with numbers, adjusting tax regimes, or addressing social welfare mechanisms, but what can we truly do about “inequality,” and should we not discuss how such asymmetries in power actually manifest themselves in society: capital, “that some

manage to turn their wealth into political power over others,” that some people end up being told their needs are not important, that their lives have no intrinsic worth, the State, and institutionalized command as well as obedience.

This is where the “Fall from Grace”

narratives come in: we are sold on the focus of “inequality,” with these ills of society being the result of “inequality,” and what is inequality but humanity’s inevitable price for “living in any large, complex, urban, technologically sophisticated society”?

Not only are the

reports of “inequality” very newsworthy, but they contain a subtle political message within them: “that if we want to get rid of such problems entirely, we’d have to somehow get rid of 99.9% of the Earth’s population and go back to being tiny bands of foragers again.”

With

this as the premise, and virtually no one ever proposes the “primitivist solution” in a mainstream outlet, then the obvious conclusion is that we must forever be adjusting “the size of the boot that will be stomping on our faces,” “or perhaps to wrangle a bit more wiggle room in

which some of us can at least temporarily duck out of its way.”

I think this is a very insightful observation by both Graeber and Wengrow and is a very interesting critique of the “Fall from Grace” narratives that purvey throughout scholarship and media.

Article here:

https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/