Stable, Fair Societies As The Natural Product of Local Exchange Networks

Опубликовано 17 августа 2016, 22:04

Does evolutionary selection operate on groups as well as individuals? Why are exchanges often fair when they could be exploitative? Why are there stable societies at all? These are classic questions of evolution and sociology, and are often answered by recourse to psychological properties (e.g., fear of retribution), genetic statistics (e.g., kin selection), or the properties of specific behaviors (e.g., hunting in packs). We show that these properties of social species may be accounted for by the mathematical properties of exchange networks when there is limited knowledge of exchanges beyond those of immediate neighbors.