On the structure of competitive societies

E. Ben-Naim (), F. Vazquez () and S. Redner ()

The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, 2006, vol. 49, issue 4, 531-538

Abstract: We model the dynamics of social structure by a simple interacting particle system. The social standing of an individual agent is represented by an integer-valued fitness that changes via two offsetting processes. When two agents interact one advances: the fitter with probability p and the less fit with probability 1-p. The fitness of an agent may also decline with rate r. From a scaling analysis of the underlying master equations for the fitness distribution of the population, we find four distinct social structures as a function of the governing parameters p and r. These include: (i) a static lower-class society where all agents have finite fitness; (ii) an upwardly-mobile middle-class society; (iii) a hierarchical society where a finite fraction of the population belongs to a middle class and a complementary fraction to the lower class; (iv) an egalitarian society where all agents are upwardly mobile and have nearly the same fitness. We determine the basic features of the fitness distributions in these four phases. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2006

Keywords: 87.23.Ge Dynamics of social systems, 02.50.Ey Stochastic processes, 05.40.-a Fluctuation phenomena, random processes, noise, and Brownian motion , 89.65.Ef Social organizations; anthropology, (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2006-00095-y

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