Quote:
Originally posted by 4thTimeLucky
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The fact of the matter is that mankind is not "living in better conditions" than they ever were. For most of man's history people lived quite adequate subsistence lives. The environment ticked along quite nicely and people produced for themselves. There weren't cars or cinemas or jeans, but day to day life for almost everyone was quite adequate - and most of the world still doesn't have cars, cinemas or jeans. We now live in a world where the environmental degredation is throwing increasing challenges at the developing world. More important, however, is the economic system we live in. There is plenty of food to go round and almost every country on earth has enough resources to feed itself. However agricultural produce is "cheap" in land where people live on a $1 a day, and so this produce is sold to the first world, which pushes up the price and places it out of reach of the local population. And don't think that the revenues from the sale of food goes into raising that $1 a day lifestyle. It doesn't.
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It's interesting that you brought that point up. Modernity demands we think of these occurances as "progress" and early social theories were built on this fallacious notion--that society is "evolving" or becoming better than it was.
Newer evidence indicates that people actually "worked" 20 hour work weeks that consisted of foraging (little hunting occurred). Roving bands of people did encounter each other but, for the most part, were peaceful towards one another and operated within share based economies.
It appears that population growth accounts for the development of the precursor to modern cities--subsistence commodities imported into a hub of industrial development--not "progress." That is, people didn't suddenly realize that planting and growing food in one region and shipping it to another was "better" and easier than looking for it--they already knew how, had rejected its feasability, but were eventually forced to due to logistics.
Anyway, to answer the original question:
I agree with 4thTimeLucky. I often remark that I
wish I could believe--one way or the other.