Self-sustaining energy and economic policy

[notjenschiz]

Originally published at Jason's Fresh Produce. You can comment here or there.

I have a fairly big concept floating around in my head and I’m struggling to bound it and solidify it. Perhaps writing this (and getting comments from all of you) will help.

When we were a hunter/gatherer society, the output of our efforts had a 1:1 relationship with our

Comments

Re: strainer

[doctorray]

Have you read "Guns, Germs, and Steel"? I think Diamond really lays out effectively the case for labor-intensive agriculture.

Here's the gist, tinted with my take on things. Hunting and gathering is definitely less labor-intensive than farming. We've got data from contemporary hunter-gatherer societies and pre-industrial agricultural ones to back up that assertion. But here's the rub: the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is only sustainable in small groups. Once a group gets beyond a certain modest size (most h-g bands number 30-60) the resources are no longer capable of supporting the group. Agriculture allows humans to artificially increase the density of food product in a given area through the input of labor. This allows for larger groups to continue to live together. And larger groups of humans will historically kick the asses of smaller groups of humans. As Diamond points out, we are, as a species, on the whole, violent, selfish, and aggressive. Groups that have some advantage will exploit it ruthlessly against their neighbors. The ability to support a much larger population that agriculture provides is a major advantage of this kind.

So, it's not that agriculture is less labor-intensive, but rather that the labor agriculture requires provides more benefits than simply a regular food supply.