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Farming promoted "development", but it was also the cause of the majority of social inequality in society. Those who controlled the food supply had an inordinat
by hackinthebochs 14y ago
Farming promoted "development", but it was also the cause of the majority of social inequality in society. Those who controlled the food supply had an inordinate amount of power over the population, far more than could be achieved in hunter-gatherer societies. Read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" for a decent introduction regarding this.
- jbattle 14y agoI think you have that backwards - in an agricultural society, food production is distributed - so you can't have control over the food supply unless you have an inordinate amount of power over the population.
- hackinthebochs 14y agoThe point is that the existence of agriculture leads to many things, of which even more centralized control is the result. Agriculture by its nature supports more people than necessary to produce the food. This surplus necessarily begets an underclass and an a ruling class. The book Guns, Germs, and Steel has some very interesting case studies of societies that grew into very stratified political societies based on the discovery of agriculture. The cause/effect implication is clear because of analysis of cultures with a recent common origin who where the difference in outcomes were only a matter of properties of the land which encouraged or precluded agriculture.