This article, Leadership in small-scale societies by Christopher von Rueden and Mark van Vugt, was very interesting and informative as it highlighted the differences between leadership in large-scale societies and small-scale societies. Many individuals would claim that humanity has progressed through the creation of large companies, organizations, and governments. While there is some truth to this, humans have adapted strategies and practices from small-scale societies that do not function well in large scale societies. An example referenced in the reading is the effect of masculine physical traits on important decisions such as voting for the next president of the United States. It is illogical that as a society we tend to favor certain candidates merely because of their height or how deep their voice is. It is a regular occurrence that highlights how evolutionary practices have carried over into our modern civilization.

If one examines large-scale societies, leaders are chosen not for their desire to ethically achieve goals with their followers, but rather to achieve their own self interests at all costs. It is surprisingly true that many of our leaders have narcissistic traits and are concerned with maintaining their own personal image. This article’s explanation is great because it articulates how the physical separation between leaders and followers has lost the accountability found in small-scale societies. This physical distance has had an effect on how we trust individuals part of large hierarchical structures such as financial banks. By having no face-to-face contact with many of their borrowers, banks were able to issue falsely rated mortgages until many Americans were forced to default on their credit causing an economic spiral known as the Financial Crisis of 2008. This moral impermissibility occurred because individual actors responsible were shielded as these shady loans required so little information from customers. With large-scale societies, humanity has come to accept that hyper-competition has replaced values of transparency and integrity found in small-scale societies.

A negative effect of large-scale societies is how the motivation behind leadership has changed. With small-scale societies, leaders were motivated to collectively improve their group’s way of life by contributing food, resources, or other services. These leaders still had some incentives whether that be taking more fish collected by hunters or establishing practices that would improve herding of their own cattle. In large-scale societies, the incentives of workers in modern hierarchical structures has exponentially grown. The salaries of certain CEO’s and upper management continue to grow into the hundreds of millions of dollars, while lower workers’ salaries are constant and fairly low. It is reasonable to assume that the community structure of Amazonian tribes could not function well in every society across the country; however, some values of egalitarianism could certainly be taken away. In large-scale societies, our desire for more wealth and status has outpaced desires for feelings of content and happiness found in small-scale societies.