In earlier portions of this series, I've addressed the controversy over whether or not EP accurately predicts or explains human behavior. I mentioned one stern rebuke from Lewontin, Jones, & Kamin (Not in Our Genes, 1985), that misfired by alleging that this realm of inquiry was rationalizing racial and sexual discrimination by claiming it was "hardwired" into the human brain. In comments, John Halasz discussed the folly of the brain-computer simile (2nd comment of his). While I have become very skeptical of EP in its current form, I believe it will probably rebound with far more useful, accurate analyses as it incorporates a more robust input from psychology, mathematics, neurobiology, and integrative biology. However, as readers may have thought, this is a series related to imperialism. If I could download a computer program with Richard Dawkin's knowledge, opinions, and analytical skills, I would ask it to produce a sequel to Guns, Germs and Steel (Jared Diamond, 1999). Diamond's book seeks to explain why the communities of Western Europe were the ones that expanded to achieve global dominance, and his thesis is that the decisive factor was geographical (as opposed to ethnographic differences distinguishing Europeans from, say, indigenous Americans).¹ Our imaginary Dawkins book, Evolution and Empire, would explain how EP contributed to the development of social behavioral norms that sustained great empires.

My own view is that the "plastic" versus "hardwired" brain function dichotomy was a false lead, an intellectual cul-de-sac. It stretches the brain-CPU analogy much too far, when I think people in this field may need to become accustomed to immediately rejecting any such analogy out of hand. However, I also think a major element of human behavior is explained by the evolution of institutions. Institutions evolve in ways very different from organisms; for one thing, symboisis is a far stronger survival and reproduction strategy for institutions than it is for organisms (I am aware of the fact that symboisis is a strategy for evolution for organisms, especially very small ones; for example, large mammals like humans require a strain of the e. coli bacteria in order to digest food; other strains, of course, can kill humans). While both economists and many historical models implementing EP have attempted to extrapolate human nature based on the behavior of large groups of those humans (e.g., arguing that major waves in employment like the Great Depression reflected a shift in intertemporal income-leisure preferences [Prescott, PDF]; alleging that aggression among humans explains the aggression of nation-states). In my view, however, such theories are doomed to failure no matter how "richly" they are developed, because they ignore the role of institutions as an intermediary.

This last remark is not a criticism of EP at all, but of potential abuses of whatever insights it should provide. Already research in the field is incorporating game theory, which I imagine is a step towards a rigorous, falsifiable program of research.

In the meantime, there remains the question of whether or not imperialism is a set of behaviors that evolved was adapted to enhance the survival of organisms. If so, we can wonder if it has run its course and become irrelevant to the survivla of the human organism. After all, while the Gould-Lewontin article below objects to the "adaptionist" attribute of EP, it must be pointed out that EP is most frequently cited to explain behaviors that no longer serve a useful purpose, e.g., rape. After all, a rapist in most societies is likely to wind up in prison, or perhaps be killed as a result of retributive violence. The offspring resulting from rape are likely to suffer deprivation of affection, or be aborted (or suffer infanticide). Other examples include male preferences for certain types of sex partners. While these preferences may be understandable in the light of probable reproductive health and the offspring's own shot at reproductive success, they can also lead to a lifetime of loneliness and relationships that do not lead to procreation (since the male may be chronicaly dissatisfied with the appearence of his mate).

In the case of imperialism as an adapted behavior, we really need to consider the community and the organisms that it comprises as a specimen. In this way, we can be tentative about what reflected the institutional component of imperialism, and what reflected the psychological component. The main controversy would probably be, What defines a community? In the early Holocene era (until around 3500 BCE), I expect the answer was relatively straightforward: clans were cohesive, and conquest excluded long-term cooperation. Empires were small and short-lived. Economic surpluses tended to be dissipated after a very short time, typically as a result of the need to keep large retinues of soldiers and stewards for the royal household.

In later years, according to the research of anthropologists like Malinkowski and economists like Polanyi, commerce played a major role in the development of empire. Prices were set not by markets, but by principle of reciprocal obligation and by the caste standing of producers. The introduction of the market even for commodities appears to be of recent origin, with price differentials between closely adjacent markets (like grain between different Hanse ports, for example) showing an astonishing persistance. Contacts with aboriginal peoples, as well as scrutiny of archeological records, suggests that there was considerable variety in the pattern with which commerical technologies and customs developed. However, price revolutions appear to have accompanied political revolutions, with "corrections" in the market prices of commodities being enabled by the ascendancy of political factions (Incidentally, this is occasionally mentioned in the work of Thucydides, Xenophon, and Suetonius; revolutions seem to have assumed a quasi-cyclical pattern in cities, mimicking economic cycles).

Polanyi, in The Great Transformation, addresses mainly the introduction of factor markets (i.e., markets for land, labor, and finance capital/loans). In his other book, Trade & Market in the Early Empires, he and other scholars researched the literature on economic activity prior to the "Commerical Revolution" of 15th century Europe, and established that prices played a comparatively minor role in those markets. Indeed, prices and modes of production were determined by reciprocity and social roles. Empire seems, based on readings of this book, to have originated partly as a system of "domesticating" other tribes, much the way the subjugated tribes in watered plains had domesticated plants and animals; as time passed, certain types of aristocratic/subject tribe associations must have become viable and survived not by their superior efficiency in accumulating an economic surplus, but in spawning new martial orders.

Two examples are readily available. Around 4000 BCE, a succession of empires occurred in the region of the Tigris and Eurphates Rivers. The accounts suggest that monarchs typically succumbed to their military commanders after a few generations; in some cases, these commanders sought to preserve an illusion of royal continuity, while in other cases the evidence of a bloody purge was impossible to hide; that appears to have led to the introduction of the purge, and with it, the terror.

Another example is that of the Chichimec tribes that settled around Lake Texcoco around 1200 CE. These tribes rose and fell in response to their abilities to recruit auxilliaries, such as the Mexicans (Aztecs). It should probably come as no surprise to the reader that the Aztecs were only the most effective among many ronin (masterless) mercenary castes. As time passed, the Aztecs developed a highly structured priesthood that appears to have enabled to auxilliary-tribes to act with unrivalled cohesion. While legends of Aztec cruelty have probably been exaggerated quantitatively, there does seem to be ample evidence that they engaged in staggeringly gruesome rituals. My own, casual interpretation of this is that the clergy-aristocracy used this ritual to serve two purposes: to terrorize the Aztecs into cohesive action, and to terrorize rival tribes into submission. The Aztecs were probably quite effective at extracting an economic surplus as well. It seems quite possible they introduced "push" immigration to major urban centers by their "wars of the flowers" (ritual battles, essentially gladiator matches between armies in which captives were eviscerated; after the "warring" tribes had made the requisite number of human sacrifices, the "War" was over).

This is all speculation at a considerable distance, of course, but it seems reasonable to suspect that institutional evolution favored domestication, first of large crops that could be grown by gangs, then of draft animals that could facilitate warfare and commerce. At first, empires tended to flourish best when there was a large number of adjacent urban settlements, including settlements that retained their autonomy. This was because if an empire expanded to engulf all potential trading partners, then it tended to reach a logistical cul-de-sac; the prices of any economic surplus tended to fall, since import markets vanished, while undertaking campaigns required a pooling of resources since the marches of a "universal empire" would typically be bled white by military comanders passing through.

Over time, the "universal empire" seems to have become the norm. For various reasons, I suspect this change arose around 1250 BCE in the Eurasian landmass, possibly as a result of a chain of natural and ecological disasters. Thereafter, the conquest of marches may have been a vital strategy for imperial cohorts and martial castes. My conjecture is that the early empires became too efficient at extracting rents from their subjects, and this made the regional empires vulnerable to minor crises. A collapse in productivity led to a comcomitant retreat of starved armies in the face of Scythians and Cimmerians. From Mycene to India and Shang Dynasty China, mounted nomads were in the ascendancy.

While the nomad victories were short-lived, as usual, the new regimes sought universal rule (i.e., mastery of their marches) as a survival strategy. The object was to maintain multiple zones of productivity.

(Part 6)
ADDITIONAL READING ONLINE: From University of Plymouth SALMON: PSY364 Evolutionary Psychology under attack; this page may lead some to suppose that opposition to EP is about the same thing as opposition to the theory of evolution itself, which is of course incorrect.

Transcript of Debate Between Steven Rose & Steven Pinker