6: Malthus and Darwin: Survival of the Richest
In his autobiography, Darwin acknowledged the inspiration he took from Malthus's theories of population - that is was, in effect, the observation of the human species that colored Darwin's theories of the population of animal species rather than the other way around. As such, the notion of "social Darwinism" is a confusion of cause and effect.
However, Darwin's notion of natural selection was entirely original and entirely correct. The Malthusian equation remains in balance so long as the average woman has but two surviving offspring, or population will grow and eventually outstrip its resources - and when that occurs, the population will dwindle, whereas Darwin then took on the question of which members of society would be the ones to survive.
In this chapter, the author will present evidence of the qualities that led to the selection process in human societies - that is, which "types" of people tend to thrive, with particular emphasis on preindustrial England (1250 to 1800). In general, the author's sense is that there was a constant "downward mobility" in England of that time - as the poorest members of society did not improve, but that the abundant children of the rich would each have a decreasing share of their parent's holdings, and many of whom would be compelled to leave the estate altogether.
Survival of the Richest
It was previously demonstrated (analysis of wills) that wealthier people tend to have more heirs living at the time of their death than less wealthy individuals. While his heirs may each inherit a larger amount, the division of the wealth and land (particularly the latter in an agricultural society) means that his heirs are each less wealthy than their parent. (EN: This is based on the presumption that the heirs have no source of property other than their inheritance, which may be a critical flaw in this theory.)
However, this assumes the estate to be divided evenly, which was seldom the case. Most often, the estate was kept intact (by customer or sometimes law) such that the eldest male child was granted the estate (which produced wealth) while his siblings were granted other assets (which produced no wealth and would eventually be consumed), requiring them to develop productive skills. It's also noted that daughters are very often excluded from wills, though this is presumed that their share of the familial assets were given as their dowry.
Going back to the examination of wills, the overall figure for England suggested a relatively static population, though there was a stark contrast between growth in towns (15% growth) and the rural countryside (40%). The data also indicates that those with greater wealth had more children: those with less than 25 pounds in assets typically had two or fewer children whereas those with 1,000 pounds or more would have four or more children. It's also significant that wealth was much more strongly correlated to reproduction than other factors such as social class or literacy.
A side note: bequests from the wealthy to the poor (a rich man leaving his estate to charity or including household servants) were even more rare in that time than the present. Bequests to anyone not genetically related were estimated to be between 1% and 12% of all assets. It's also suggested that, in these instances, it is most often the case that the entire state is divided among such persons, likely because there were no genetic relatives to whom the estate could be left.
The author stresses that wealth is inherited, but the skills and personality factors that make a person capable of producing wealth are not. And so, while the children of the rich seem to be advantaged over the poor in that they inherited assets, what is found that fewer of them have the wherewithal to make productive use of them, or to do anything other than consume them. But even in this instance, it was evident that those who inherited sufficient wealth also reproduced more actively - though much of this depends on the receipt of an inheritance during or prior to the reproductive years.
The analysis of wills in some instances would enable wealth to be traced to a second generation, and what was found was that sons of poor men left more money to their heirs than they inherited, an indication they produced wealth in their lifetime. Specifically, the poorest 20% of men in the study left an average of 51 pounds to their sons - and their sons left 123 pounds to their own sons.
(EN curiously, the author refers to this difference as being "slightly higher" - but while the sum is rather small, it is clearly doubling the amount. This seems more than a trifle.)
During the medieval period in England (1500), records suggest that poorer men had fewer children, in most instances one male heir per adult male, than did the wealthy, who had an average of 1.8 - as such, the rich were reproducing faster than the poor, though it's also suggested they had a lower life expectancy (the poor would live to age 30, whereas the wealthy only to age 22). This is likely due to the wealthy class being more prone to death from violence (warfare was the privilege of the nobility), though it's noted that death rates by violence among the aristocracy slowed after 1700, at which point their lifespan increased significantly.
Even so, it is clear that as a general principle, wealthy people reproduced more, in terms of heirs at the time of their death, than did the poorer classes of society, suggesting that wealth is the primary reason that some bloodlines survived.
Sources of Mortality
It is generally accepted that the cause of death from accidents and homicide were considerably higher in forager and subsistence societies than in agrarian and modern ones.
It's fairly simple to recognize that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle involves a much higher risk of encountering a dangerous animal, being exposed to the elements, or even falling off a cliff than is faced by workers in agrarian societies.
While it may challenge the romantic notion of the noble savage, it is also evident that violent conflicts between bands of foragers and even within a group were also far more commonplace, perhaps accounting for as much as 55% of deaths among men in those societies. In modern societies, violence occurs at a low rate. Among European males, it is estimated at 0.001% per year. And in the medieval era, homicide (not including warfare) is estimated to be 0.4%.
As to warfare, it is not expected to have had a significant impact because the proportion of the population devoted to war has generally been smaller. In a tribal society, every able-bodied man participated in conflicts, but in the medieval era, very few members of society participated. Consider that one of the largest campaigns by Edward I, to suppress the wealth, involved an army of 31,000 men (0.6% of the population), and when Henry V invaded France in 1415, his force numbered about 10,000 men.
Reproductive Success in Earlier Societies
A primitive hunter's wealth was limited to what he could carry, and if it was not presently consumed it could not be preserved. As such, the ability to safeguard and preserve more food, necessary to support the ongoing maintenance of a larger family, was not possible until agrarian society.
In present-day Kenya, a strong correlation is seen between the number of cattle a man owns and the number of wives and children he can support. In subsistence tribes, it would stand to reason that the number of children a man has depends on his ongoing success (not just a momentary windfall) at taking game, but since the spoils of the hunt are communal property, advantage goes to the tribe rather than to the individual hunter.
Going back to the previous consideration of mortality rates, the author has found a correlation between violence and reproductive success in certain primitive societies. In the "warlike Yanomamo society" there is a strong correlation between the two: such that male members of that tribe who had murdered someone also sired more children by a given age than those who had not. A study conducted in 1987 showed that a tribesman who had committed murder had an average of 6.99 children, whereas one who had never committed murder had an average of 4.19.
Social Mobility with Survival of the Richest
Prior to the industrial era, England remained a relatively static society. In spite of periodic fluctuations in population and wealth, it maintained Malthusian equilibrium with the various economic factors (occupations, wage rates, reproduction, wealth, etc.) largely unchanged. However, within society it is apparent that significant numbers of the children of wealthy parents were sliding down the social ladder in terms of wealth and occupation.
The author presents data considering the comparison of the amount of assets declared in wills, which suggests that while there was some growth in the lower classes (sons died with more assets than their fathers), there was far more shrinkage and in a much higher degree in the wealthier classes (nearly half of sons died with less)
A separate study considers wealth in terms of land, which suggests that the rich and middle classes were far more likely to hold land, and hold onto land, than the poor. However, the author points out that this does not account for the amount of land held: the heirs of a wealthy father would each hold a smaller parcel of land as the estate was divided - nor does it include the heirs who received no land and fell in their social class as a result.