Frans de Waal on Fairness

Here's an interesting video of Frans de Waal giving a lecture on ape/monkey behaviour:



The point that he makes: If you want to have a cooperative society, then there must be a basic fairness.

The US is strange in that its Gini index is different from all other developed countries. It looks more like a third world country. The resources are very poorly shared. So de Waal would predict that there would be a problem with cooperation in the society. This would lead most people to think that the US is drifting toward being a dysfunctional society because it refuses to give all members of its society a "fair shot" at the goodies that society makes possible. (Of course the right wing nuts will tell you that this isn't true. The really valuable members are rewarded richly because they are so "productive" and those without deserve to get little or nothing because they contribute so little.)