Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wg55d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-18T15:25:45.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Ethnic Conflict Pay?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Paul H. Rubin
Paul H. Rubin*
Affiliation:
Emory University, USA
Get access

Abstract

It is often argued that ethnic conflict is an extreme example of nepotism, and is genetically based. This may be so: in the EEA (the environment of evolutionary adaptedness), such conflict may have been fitness improving, and we may be descended from those who participated successfully in such conflicts. This would provide us with a “taste” for xenophobia. But this taste can be overcome relatively easily, as shown by the changes in behavior in the United States in the 50 years since racial segregation was outlawed. Moreover, in today's world, such conflict does not provide benefits. There are several reasons for this, but the most important (and one that is often overlooked, even by evolutionists) is the possibility of gains from trade in exchanges between ethnic groups. While ethnic relations in the EEA may have approximated a zero-sum game, today a prisoner's dilemma is a more appropriate model for interactions, so that there are significant gains from cooperation. If we want to reduce the amount of conflict in the world, it is probably better to rely on increasing gains from trade than on increased size of in-groups, since the latter strategy will reach a natural limit.

Type
Ethnic Conflict
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 59 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, R.D. (1987). The Biology of Moral Systems. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Axelrod, R. (1984). The Evolution of Cooperation. New York; Basic Books.Google Scholar
Barkow, J.H., Cosmides, L., and Tooby, J., eds. (1992). The Adapted Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barzel, Y. (1992). “Confiscation by the Ruler: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Lending in the Middle Ages.” Journal of Law and Economics 35(1):1–13.Google Scholar
Becker, G.S. (1956/1971). The Economics of Discrimination. Second ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Betzig, L.L. (1986). Despotism and Differential Reproduction: A Darwinian View of History. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bird-David, N. (1992). “Beyond The Original Affluent Society': A Culturist Reformulation.” Current Anthropology 33(1):25–47(including comments and reply).Google Scholar
Brown, D.E. (1991). Human Universals. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., Menozzi, P., and Piazza, A. (1994/1996). The History and Geography of Human Genes. Abridged paperback edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cosmides, L. and Tooby, J. (1992) “Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange.” In Barkow, J., Cosmides, L., and Tooby, J. (eds.) The Adapted Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crawford, C. (1998). “Environments and Adaptations: Then and Now.” In Crawford, C. and Krebs, D.L. (eds), Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Edgerton, R.B. (1992). Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1998). “Us and the Others: The Familial Roots of Ethnonationalism.” In Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. and Salter, F. (eds.), Indoctrinability, Ideology, and Warfare. New York: Berghahn Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. and Salter, F., eds. (1998). Indoctrinability, Ideology, and Warfare. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Gamble, C. (1999). The Paleolithic Societies of Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ghiglieri, M.P. (1999). The Dark Side of Man: Tracing the Origins of Male Violence. Reading MA: Perseus Books.Google Scholar
Goetze, D. (1998). “Evolution, Mobility, and Ethnic Group Formation.” Politics and the Life Sciences 17(1): 59–71.Google Scholar
Greif, A. (1993). “Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: The Maghribi Traders' Coalition.” American Economic Review 83(3) June:525–48.Google Scholar
Harden, B. (1999). “Stresses of Milosevic's Rule Blamed for Decline in Births.” New York Times, July 5.Google Scholar
Hirshleifer, J. (1998). “The Bioeconomic Causes of War.” Managerial and Decision Economics 19(7–8) November. Special Issue: Management, Organization and Human Nature. Issue edited byMarkoczy, Livia.Google Scholar
Johnson, G.R. (1986). “Kin Selection, Socialization, and Patriotism: An Integrating Theory.” Politics and the Life Sciences 4(2): 127–140.Google Scholar
Jones, C.L. (1999). “Was an Industrial Revolution Inevitable? Economic Growth Over the Very Long Run.” National Bureau of Economic Research, working paper 7375.Google Scholar
Kessel, R.A. (1958). “Price Discrimination in Medicine,” Journal of Law and Economics (October): 20–53.Google Scholar
Knauft, B. (1991). “Violence and Sociality in Human Evolution.” Current Anthropology 32(4):391–428(including comments and reply).Google Scholar
Kremer, M. (1993). “Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 108:681–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krugman, P. (1996). Pop Internationalism. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
MacDonald, K. (1994). A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism As a Group Evolutionary Strategy Westport, CT.: Praeger.Google Scholar
MacDonald, K. (1998a). The Culture of Critique. Westport, CT.: Praeger.Google Scholar
MacDonald, K. (1998b). Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism. Westport, CT.: Praeger.Google Scholar
Marshall, L. (1961). “Sharing, Talking and Giving: Relief of Social Tensions among !Kung Bushmen.” Africa 31: 231–49. Quoted in Sahlins, 1972.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. and Szathmáry, E. (1999). The Origins of Life: From the Birth of Life to the Origins of Language. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Polachek, S.W. (1992). “Conflict and Trade: An Economics Approach to Political International Interactions.” In Isard, W. and Anderson, C.H. (eds.), Economics of Arms Reduction and the Peace Process. New York: North Holland.Google Scholar
Ridley, M. (1996). The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Rubin, P.H. (2000). “Hierarchy.” Human Nature 11:59–79.Google Scholar
Rubin, P.H. (2001). “On the State of Nature and the Evolution of Political Preferences.” American Law and Economics Review 3:50–81(Spring).Google Scholar
Rummel, R.J. (1994). Death by Government. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.Google Scholar
Salter, F. (2001). “A Defense and Extension of Pierre Van Den Berghe's Theory of Ethnic Nepotism.” In James, P. and Goetze, D. (eds.), Evolutionary Theory and Ethnic Conflict, Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Shaw, R.P. and Wong, Y (1989). Genetic Seeds of Warfare: Evolution, Nationalism, and Patriotism. Boston: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Simon, J. (1981/1996). The Ultimate Resource. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sober, E. and Wilson, D.S. (1998). Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stiner, M.C., Munro, N.D., Surovell, T.A., Tchernov, E., and Bar-Yosef, O. (1998). “Paleolithic Population Growth Pulses Evidenced by Small Animal Exploitation.” Science, September 25 (Science Online version.)Google Scholar
Trivers, R.L. (1971), “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism.” Quarterly Review of Biology 46:35–57.Google Scholar
Van den Berghe, P. (1981). The Ethnic Phenomenon. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Westermarck, E. (1932). Ethical Relativity. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. (1998). “Indoctrinability and the Evolution of Socially Defined Kinship.” In Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. and Salter, F. (eds.), Indoctrinability, Ideology, and Warfare. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Wilson, J.Q. (1993). The Moral Sense. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wrangham, R. and Peterson, D. (1996). Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence. New York: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Wright, R. (1999). Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar