Inequality (far from being ‘survival of the fittest’) is actually bad for the group as a whole.
It has spread NOT because it is an inherently better system for survival, but “because it creates demographic instability, which drives migration and conflict and leads to the cultural – or physical – extinction of egalitarian societies.”
Problem is, when the Earth is full, there is nowhere left to expand to.
And the good news is that “although dominance hierarchies may have had their origins in ancient primate social behaviour, we human primates are not stuck with an evolutionarily determined, survival-of-the-fittest social structure. We cannot assume that because inequality exists, it is somehow beneficial. Equality – or inequality – is a cultural choice.”
Source, New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22071-inequality-why-egalitarian-societies-died-out.html?full=true