Radical institutionalism explains inequality as evolving from class exploitation, gender domination, race discrimination, and national predation.

Radical institutionalism—a processual paradigm focused on changing the direction of cultural evolution and the function of social provisioning in order to promote the full participation of all—defines inequality as evolving from class exploitation, gender domination, race discrimination, and national predation. Radical institutionalism states that inequality is not determined by genetic differences between groups, innate differences between sexes, or class differences. It is believed that mainstream thinking in economics and related studies is not broad enough to capture the complexity of this social pathology.