There is a saying that “the Leviathan slouches left”. The Leviathan here is from the book by Hobbes, and refers to, roughly speaking, human societies. Left signifies the values of equality and egalitarianism. And so the phrase expresses the observation that throughout the course of human history, despite the various twists and turns, over the long run, societies tend to become more egalitarian over time. Is it true, and if so, why?

First, the Leviathan has not always slouched left. On a cursory glance at near-modern history, it does appear to be the case. With developments like the abolition of slavery, equal rights for women, and the rise of democracy, we do seem to be slowly moving left, albeit at different rates. But if we look further back, things are actually quite different. In fact, there was a time long ago when human groups were very much on the extreme left end, when we were still hunter-gatherers. In those ancient times, there was more or less no inequality. Groups were small, and fairly egalitarian. Most if not all members of a group were kin anyway, and even if some inequality existed, it was minimal, as no one had much of anything. As people began to band together in the strive for more stability and security, tribes started to form, with individual leaders emerging as the authority. But these were still more or less fairly small groups, and the leader ruled through seniority, experience, strength, and wisdom.

The invention and adoption of agriculture served as a catalyst of change. Suddenly, there was a population explosion, and the formation of much larger groups became possible. Social structure and governance are still in their absolute infancy at this time, so for these groups to be stable, rigid hierarchy and authoritarian rule were required. The groups that failed to develop these structures or that did not adhere to them died out, either fell apart or conquered by those who did. Narratives of the legitimacy of the rulers had to be created to support and propagate the rigid structure of authority.

During this period, we went through a transition from being mostly on the left-end of the governance spectrum (i.e. egalitarian) as hunter-gatherers to the extreme right-end, in authoritarian societies ruled by kings and emperors. This transition is gradual and took many years, but undoubtedly during this time, the Leviathan slouched right.

It was around the time when early authoritarian empires began to form that the most ancient civilizations started to have recorded history. And ever since then, the Leviathan began to turn the other way and move left, in a sense, to return to the earlier days with less inequality. Arguably when you start at “peak authoritarianism”, as societies with kings and emperors were, there is nowhere to go but left. But still it begs the question of where the steering force comes from.

It could be, at least in part, due to the innate nature in the human psyche, that eternally yearns for freedom and to be treated equal to others. Another idea is that the left generally holds liberal philosophies, and is more receptive to change. The right values tradition, holds more conservative views, and are more skeptical of change. So whenever any change does occur, it is usually driven by the left, resulting in the observed phenomenon that whenever the Leviathan turns, it turns left. Many other factors played a role in this, with a big one being technological progress.

With every useful invention, the people at the bottom of the hierarchy slowly gained more power. In a sense, the progress of technology acts as a hand that slowly flattens the pyramidal social hierarchy. But if this is indeed the nature of technological progress, why do the people in power, the rulers, allow it to happen? After all, they already live the best lives within their group. But they cannot risk to be stagnant, and need growth for their group, tribe, kingdom, or empire. With progress, they can produce more, have more people, and win wars, or at least not lose them and be destroyed. The rulers are trapped in a fiercely competitive game with other rulers that forces them to strive for progress or die.

And thus the incentives of the rulers and the commoners were aligned. Through entirely different mechanisms and motivations, both groups desired and strived for progress. And the technology that drives the growth that both groups want is exactly the productive kind that empowers the common people. With the gradual increase in productivity, the common people’s leverage in society grew, and acted as the force that reins the Leviathan leftward.

But technology is morally indifferent, and is absolutely not guaranteed to always steer us in this direction. The rise of surveillance technology in the beginning of the 21st century is a concerning development, signalling that perhaps the era where technology mostly serves as a force to flatten social hierarchies is over. Mass surveillance and other related technologies could be, in a way, similar to agriculture in the ancient times, acting as forces that pushes us towards authoritarianism. The Leviathan could once again begin to slouch right.