Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind · chapter 5 · id sapiens-c5-04-agriculture-led-to-social-ineq
“Agriculture led to social inequality, hierarchies, and exploitation -- surplus grain enabled taxation, coercion, and the rise of elites.”
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Receipts
Kohler et al. (2017), Nature 551:619-622DOI registry: valid
Gini coefficients from house-size variation show inequality increased with agriculture, and increased more in Old World societies with domesticated draft animals than in New World societies.
Bogaard et al. (2019), PNAS 116(51):26559-26564FLAGGED: DOI not in registry
Isotopic evidence shows early European farming communities already had differential land access, with some families controlling more fertile plots -- incipient private property.
Graeber & Wengrow (2021), The Dawn of Everything, FSGsource alive
Some forager societies had complex hierarchies (Pacific Northwest). Some early farming societies were egalitarian (Catalhoyuk). The relationship between subsistence mode and political organization is far more contingent than the standard narrative suggests.
This claim is a stable, citable object. If you can falsify a verdict, tell us — corrections are loud here.