Rethinking my oblique dismissal of "hard wiring," I apologize. I was thinking of Man, the biological system, not Man as a part of another system, a culture.

I think the Undercover Economist's hunch is correct. Civil societies, as contrasted with pre-agricultural (primitive) societies, are hard-wired for wealth inequality because they are based on property relations and not kinship relations. As Lewis Henry Morgan famously observed in the 18th century (famous at least among students of anthropology), "You do not find wealth at one end of an [American] Indian village and poverty at the other."

I understand your position that societies rooted in property relations are necessarily unequal. However, this is quite a different position than "societies are hard-wired to tolerate inequality" for two reasons.

First, to talk of societies being hard-wired is to fall into the reification trap. "Societies" are cultural entities, yes, but they are not thinking entities. Societies are comprised of people, not neurotransmitters or copper wiring. To say that societies are hardwired is essentially to say that people are hardwired (I believe your initial thinking was correct on this account).

Second, the hardwiring argument is empty as an explanation, as are all other post hoc explanations. To see that something happens and then call it natural has a long history in social science that was eventually dismissed as inadequate and unscientific. The functionalists of the 1950's explained social stratification on meritocratic grounds that failed to account for unequal starting places. While one may argue that the unequal starting places, themselves, are evidence of societies' natural acceptance of inequity, the historical process of accumulating wealth and poverty cannot be excised. In other words, just because something happens, that doesn't mean it is natural or hardwired. Does a woman earn 74 cents to a man's dollar because she is hardwired to earn less and accept it?

I think you are right that property relations necessarily entail inequality, but don't jump onto the hardwiring bandwagon without considering the assumptions that entails.