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The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

The Forum: Hierarchy

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USE THIS ONE Hierarchy by Shan Pillay: Illustration by Shan Pillay

13/12/2014 GMT

Hierarchy

BBC World Service - The Forum, Hierarchy

Do we have to have a ‘pecking order’?

The rise and rise of elites over the last 10 thousand years. With Peter Turchin, Anja Kanngieser and Martin Rowson.

The principle of top down hierarchy seems extraordinarily resilient in human societies. But why have we come to organise ourselves this way? Is it to be more efficient and effective? Or, is it because some people will always be driven by instinctive greed and desire for power? 

Bridget Kendall talks to professor Peter Turchin, a biologist trying to trace the hidden dynamics of history, Anja Kanngieser, a social geographer who is interested in alternative networks which link us horizontally, and political cartoonist Martin Rowson, an artist whose work would founder without the rich and the powerful to poke fun at.

(Illustration by Shan Pillay)

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