TIL: Reverse Dominance

[timelets]

it is very likely that all human societies practised egalitarianism and that most of the time they did so very successfully.[21]

Boehm writes:

"As long as followers remain vigilantly egalitarian because they understand the nature of domination and leaders remain cognizant of this ambivalence-based vigilance, deliberate control of leaders may remain for the most part highly routinized and ethnographically unobvious."

Boehm identifies the following mechanisms ensuring the Reverse Dominance Hierarchy: Public Opinion, Criticism and Ridicule, Disobedience, and Extreme Sanctions. Further characteristics include ambivalence towards leaders and anticipation of domination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy#Reverse