27
" Across a broad range of species—chimpanzees, walruses, lions, elk, mice—larger males and groups of males invariably win physical confrontations with each other, but that is not the case with humans. It is a quality entirely unique to humans that a smaller entity, like the Montenegrins, could defeat a larger one. Were this not so, freedom would effectively be impossible: Every group would be run by a single large male, and the world would be dominated by fascist mega-states, like the Ottomans, that could easily crush insubordinate populations. But that’s not what the world looks like. Large armies—or people—are stronger than small ones but usually slower and less efficient. This is true at every scale, from open warfare to street corner fistfights. Because the outcome of any human conflict cannot be predicted with certainty, the powerful often end up having to negotiate with the weak, and those negotiations invariably revolve around freedom. "
― Sebastian Junger , Freedom
31
" Kings were expected to lead their armies in person, which put them in the midst of a kind of hacking slaughter that clearly spared no one. That could qualify as a kind of rough egalitarianism, but the last European monarch to die in combat was King James IV of Scotland, who invaded England in 1513 with thirty thousand soldiers, noblemen, and clergy. He saw a third of his force annihilated before he himself was cut down. Almost thirty years earlier, King Richard III of England had been unhorsed and killed at Bosworth Field. After those battles, the kingly virtue of fighting alongside noblemen and commoners began to die out, and monarchs were content to order other men to do their fighting and dying for them. There is obviously little merit in having leaders of modern democracies do the work of combat infantry—even lieutenant colonels don't do that unless absolutely necessary—but that doesn't mean sacrifice need disappear from public life. In a deeply free society, not only would leaders be barred from exploiting their position, they would also be expected to make the same sacrifices and accept the same punishments as everyone else. The authors of the American Constitution were among the wealthiest and most powerful men of their society and yet, with a few narrow exceptions, they made themselves subject to the same laws and penalties that governed others. (Many also risked being hanged for treason if the British won the war.) It was one of the few times in recorded history that a society's elite stripped themselves of special protections and offered to serve the populace, rather than demanding to be served by them. "
― Sebastian Junger , Freedom
32
" Although democracy may not survive as a broad form of freedom, its core virtue of insisting leaders be accountable to others and willing to make sacrifices is crucial to any group that faces adversity. In that, democracy has essentially reproduced hunter-gathered society, where rigid constraints are put on leaders because self-serving leaders can literally get people killed. But in any society, leaders who aren't willing to make sacrifices aren't leaders, they're opportunists, and opportunists rarely have the common good in mind. They're easy to spot, though: opportunists lie reflexively, blame others for failures, and are unapologetic cowards. Wealthy nations might survive that kind of leadership, but insurgencies and uprisings probably won't; their margins simply aren't big enough. A prerequisite for any such group would seem to be leaders that—like their followers—are prepared to die for the cause. "
― Sebastian Junger , Freedom
35
" The distribution of income in a society is called the 'Gini coefficient,' named after an Italian sociologist named Corrado Gini, who published a paper on the topic in 1912. A society where one person earns all the money and everyone else earns none, effectively has a Gini coefficient of 1.0; and a society where everyone earns the same amount has a coefficient of zero. Neither is desirable. Moderate differences in income motivate people because they have a reasonable chance of bettering their circumstances, and extreme differences discourage people because their efforts look futile. A study of 21 small-scale societies around the world found that hunter-gatherers like the Hadza—who presumably represent the most efficient possible system for survival in a hostile environment—have Gini coefficients as low as .25. In other words, they are far closer to absolute income equality than to absolute monopoly. Because oppression from one's own leaders is as common a threat as oppression from one's enemies, Gini coefficients are one reliable measure of freedom. Hunter-gatherer societies are not democracies—and many hold women in subordinate family roles—but the relationship between those families and their leaders is almost impervious to exploitation. In that sense, they are freer than virtually all modern societies. According to multiple sources, including the Congressional Budget Office, the United States has one of the highest Gini coefficients of the developed world, .42, which puts it at roughly the level of Ancient Rome. (Before taxes, the American Gini coefficient is even higher—almost .6—which is on par with deeply corrupt countries like Haiti, Namibia, and Botswana.) Moreover, the wealth gap between America's richest and poorest families has doubled since 1989. Globally, the situation is even more extreme: several dozen extremely rich people control as much wealth as the bottom half of humanity—3.8 billion people. "
― Sebastian Junger , Freedom
36
" It's tempting to imagine that economic injustice destabilizes societies to the point where they collapse and have to reform themselves, but the opposite appears to be true. Countries with large income disparities, such as the United States, are among the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world, perhaps because they can protect themselves with robust economies and huge militaries. They're just not very free. Even societies with income disparities that are truly off the chart—medieval Europe had a Gini coefficient of .79—are relatively stable until a cataclysmic event like the plague triggers a radical redistribution of wealth. During the last decades, progressive reforms have reduced the Gini coefficient—and stabilized the economies—in many Latin American countries. From every standpoint—morally, politically, economically—such reforms are clearly the right things to do. But throughout the great sweep of human history, egalitarian societies with low Gini coefficients rarely dominate world events. From the Han Dynasty of Ancient China to the Roman Empire to the United States, there seems to be a sweet spot of economic injustice that is moderately unfair to most of its citizens but produces extremely powerful societies. Economist Walter Scheidel calculates that 3,500 years ago, such large-scale states controlled only 1 percent of the Earth's habitable landmass but represented at least half the human population. By virtually any metric, that's a successful society. 'For thousands of years, most of humanity lived in the shadow of these behemoths,' Scheidel writes. 'This is the environment that created the 'original one percent,' made up of competing but often closely intertwined elite groups.' The question, then, is how do ordinary people protect their freedom in the face of such highly centralized state control? "
― Sebastian Junger , Freedom
