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as you've identified, specialization of roles is a common trait in advanced societies, but not in pre-historic ones. And yes, American frontiersmen participated
by dingnuts 1y ago
as you've identified, specialization of roles is a common trait in advanced societies, but not in pre-historic ones. And yes, American frontiersmen participated willingly in one of the last pre-historic societies. Specialization is what allowed us to stop subsistence farming and/or following herds.
- tspike 1y agoYou could replace the word "advanced" with "unsustainable" and the thought still holds.
- kragen 1y agoNo, unsustainable societies like the Lykov family or the Tasmanians were also often unspecialized. I suspect that specialization improves sustainability in general, at least up to a point. But it depends on how it's structured. The Khwarezmian empire had a high degree of specialization for the time, but one bad decision by the emperor made it unsustainable.
- kragen 1y agoMaybe people participating willingly in those societies—indeed, fleeing civilization en masse to the frontier and to join "Indian" tribes, while migration from the tribes to the civilized colonies was almost nil—should tell us that civilization isn't all upside? Economic productivity is an important means to happiness, because it sucks to go blind or subsist on soft foods because you can't get the necessary medical and dental treatments. And it's terrible to never see your parents again because you don't have the material means to visit them. But there's a point of diminishing returns beyond which sacrificing more of your happiness for continued economic gains amounts to cutting off your nose to spite your face.