WHY HUNTER-GATHERERS WORK - AN ANCIENT VERSION OF THE PROBLEM OF PUBLIC-GOODS

People who hunt and gather for a living share some resources more widely than others. A favored hypothesis to explain the differential sharing is that giving up portions of large, unpredictable resources obligates others to return shares of them later, reducing everyone's variance in consumption. I show that this insurance argument is not empirically supported for !Kung, Ache, and Hadza foragers. An alternative hypothesis is that the cost of not sharing these resources is too high to pay. If exclusion costs are high, then these resources are like public goods. If so, why does anyone provide them? I briefly review treatments of the problem of public goods by economists and use a simple model to show why self-interested actors will rarely find the consumption value they place on collective goods sufficient reason to supply them. The model underlines the obvious corollary that individuals get more to consume if others provide collective goods. This is a reason to prefer neighbors and associates who are suppliers. Such a preference may itself be a benefit worth seeking. I construct another simple model to explore this. Taken together the models suggest two competing foraging goals: feeding one's family and gaining social benefits instead. This highlights conflicts of economic interest among family members. It is a direct challenge to influential scenarios of human evolution built on the assumption that men are primarily paternal investors who hunt to support their spouses and offspring.