To me, this seems much more likely. Even other primates have been shown to have a basic sense of fairness. While some, like Chimps, are hierarchical, some others, like Bonobos, are not as much. Humans don't seem to be either a Tournament species, nor strictly, an egalitarian one, but rather some sort of mixture of the two.
Well, Bonobos
are actually very hierarchical - but their social relationships are more or less matriarchal, and also somewhat more collaborative between the sexes. Yet they are incredibly "class-conscious" (to use the human terminology) and not exactly peaceniks.
A few studies:
In the Bonobo World, Female Camaraderie Prevails
Dr. Parish, who studies bonobos in captivity, has seen the young offspring of dominant females flaunt their inherited power by marching over to lesser-ranking female adults, prying their jaws open and extracting the food from their mouths.
As for male bonobos, they may subordinate themselves to females in cliques, and they may have no interest in hanging out with the guys. But they have a secret social weapon: their mothers. Male bonobos stay with their mothers for life, and as her status grows with age, so does his.
Bonobos Use the Power of Female Friendship to Overthrow Male Hierarchy
How do female bonobos rise through their hierarchy? "By launching seemingly unprovoked attacks on males," says Amy. "Ripping off fingernails, toenails, biting testicles. One time they bit a penis in half. So you can't really paint them as the peace-loving alternative to our other closest relative, the chimp. It's interesting that people would want to. I think it's because it's such a foreign concept to us that females would be dominant and aggressive toward males. It makes no sense, so it's just discounted.
The alpha female at Twycross Zoo abducted the infant of the lowest ranking female, even though she was still nursing her own infant. After weeks of rough treatment at the alpha’s hands, she lost interest and the infant had to be removed for human rearing as it showed signs of “weakness and dehydration”.
At Apenheul Zoo in the Netherlands, five female bonobos were discovered to have attacked an adolescent male as its mother tried to peel them off and were seen gnawing on his toes; the flesh could be seen between their teeth as they chewed away. The researchers observing said that the male appeared to have been “at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
(p. 119)
So-called "
Ancestral Pan", the hypothetical shared common ancestor of humans, bonobos, and chimpanzees, is thought to have lived amid social dominance hierarchies that resulted in conflict through individual (one above others) and coalitional competition (between groups). Bonobos are not really an exception.
Female bonobos are thus dominant over males, even though they are smaller; the 'sons' of alpha-females outrank the sons of lesser females and there is a clear hierarchy between females. The highest status males are also most successful at mating, among bonobos and chimps, regardless of which gender is dominant. So the sons of 'big-mamma' get the most girls in Bonobo society
(see this BBC news article):
Do bonobos really spend all their time having sex?
If a dominant female has a son, he will benefit from her position in society. As a result, “you can get some males that are more dominant than low-ranking females in the group,” says Clay.
Whereas chimpanzees are dominated by single aggressive alpha-males, bonobos are led, basically, by bisexual "
alpha-females" who are more interested in sex than violence. Indeed, female bonobos use promiscuity as a means of conflict resolution, such that male bonobos take little to do with parenting since it's practically impossible for them to know which offspring are theirs (so many sexual partners do the 'matriarchs' have).
When chimps feed, the alpha-male is entitled first and sates himself, and then the rest of the clan share his leftovers. That's kingship, really, in human terms. When bonobos feed, by contrast, the dominant women eat first and have sex with each other, and then allow other females and males to share. Low-status individuals may be assaulted if found attempting to line-jump. Neither 'model' is particularly egalitarian.
To rise up the pecking order, 'lower-class' females clamour to have lesbian sex either in front of (to catch the attention of) or preferably
with the alpha-female. In order words, low-ranking female bonobos are compelled to barter sex with alpha-females for better access to food (which, in human terms, would be viewed as sexual exploitation). Not because they’re eager for sexual contact. After a fight, even males may make genital contact with their rival in order to defuse the tension.
Apes 'advertise' homosexual bonds
Researchers studying communication among the apes found that females made the most noise during sex if the "alpha female" was nearby.
"Using vocalisations, females only advertise sexual contacts with important group members," said Dr Clay, "It's all about climbing up the social ladder for female bonobos."
The team found that calls were most likely to be made by lower-ranking females, particularly if they were "picked" by a higher-ranking female.
The females also appeared to consider their audience - calling more if the most important group member, the alpha female, was present.
"Bonobos appear to be highly aware of the dynamics governing their social worlds," said Dr Clay.
She suggests that the females have adopted the calls, usually associated with reproduction, as a strategic tool.
"As a low-ranked female, advertising [a] social-sexual bonding with another dominant group member may serve to strengthen their social position, and signal this to the alpha-female."
For the last 13,000 years of inequality, since the dawn of the Neolithic and the Agricultural Age, practically all post-hunter-gatherer human beings - especially the male of the species - have organised themselves into hierarchical social structures like our chimpanzee and bonobo cousins.
Matriarchies have been seldom, we have (unfortunately) tended to adopt the aggressive chimpanzee model by default.
Modern liberal democracies are every bit as susceptible to this. We face this in our governments, with their top-down structures of power. Donald Trump epitomizes it, We face it in corporations, where bosses tell the little-guy at the bottom what to do and use him as the fall-guy when things go pear-shaped, due to administrative or budgeting failure (i.e. scapegoating of someone weaker). We find the same pattern of social behaviour in youth gangs and in many other kinds of male gatherings, where boys manoeuvre, sometimes with fisticuffs, to prove who has the greater machismo.
Which is precisely why, the absence of hierarchies among hunter-gatherers and their zealous passion for equality - indeed their overwhelmingly strong stigma against the 'putting on of airs', or domineering behaviour - is striking and actually rather inexplicable. There is just no analogous social order among other primates, or in subsequent human societies. As the American psychologist Peter Gray explained in a 2015 paper:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/Play Theory of HG Egal.Published.pdf
And yet, there is one very significant cultural category of human beings where we don't see hierarchical organization. We don't see it in band hunter-gatherers (as defined in chapter I). In all band hunter-gatherer societies that have been studied the dominant cultural ethos is one of individual autonomy, nonviolence. sharing, cooperation, and consensual decision making (Ingold, 1999).
Their core value, which underlies all the rest, is that of the equality of individuals. They do not have chiefs or other leaders of the type who tell others what to do; they make all group decisions through discussions aimed at consensus. If it is true that strivings for status and dominance are intrinsic to human nature, then hunter-gatherers somehow overcome that aspect of their nature and apparently have been doing so for a long, long time. How do they it?
The writings of anthropologists make it clear that hunter-gatherers are not passively egalitarian; they are actively so. Indeed, in the words of anthropologist Richard Lee (1988, p. 264), they are "fiercely egalitarian." They do not tolerate anyone's hoarding food or other goods, boasting, putting on airs, or trying to lord it over others.
On the basis of such observations, Christopher Boehm (1993, 1999) developed what he calls the reverse dominance theory of hunter-gatherer egalitarianism. His theory is that hunter-gatherers everywhere have learned to turn the dominance hierarchy upside down, so that the band as a whole acts in concert to suppress any individuals who attempt to dominate them. They use ridicule, shunning,and threats of ostracism to counteract any budding alpha male behavior. At the extreme,they might banish a domineering person from the band.
The fact that hunter-gatherer humans lived like this for a 100, 000 years proves that human primates are not straddled with an evolutionarily determined, survival-of-the-fittest social structure like our chimp relatives. Largely, in spite of our genes we 'did' it in the past and can 'do' it again.
And on this, since I'm a Christian, I'd like to give the last word to two of my favourite passages from the Bible (although one could equally choose texts from Eastern religions, Islam or atheistic humanist authors), first Old Testament and then New Testament, which concern this very topic:
22 Then the Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us, you and your son and your grandson also; for you have delivered us out of the hand of Midian.” 23 Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.” (Judges 8:22-23)
25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that among the Gentiles, those who appear to be their kings lord it over them, and their 'great' men are tyrants over them. 26 But it shall not be this way among you, rather whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, 27and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)
