Response to Becca

I am responding to Becca's question: "What do you think the world would be like if, in order to eat meat, everyone was required to hunt and kill the animal themselves?"

It almost correlates with a blog I did earlier about the slow scaling back of the factory farm system.  I asserted that one could have an absolutist view of eliminating it because of the chaos that would ensue. I believe the same is likely if we forced the kind of change Becca is suggesting.

I read a scholarly article the other day asserting that the move away from the hunter-gatherer food system destroyed our society more than helped. Most people say that the move to an agrarian society made food plentiful, freed up more leisure time, and in general made us a more "civilized" society. This is simply not true. Farmers are treated abysmally by the government and the people that eat their food. They often do not make enough food (ironically) or money to survive, while being forced to produce more and more. They are essentially the proletariat while we are all unknowingly the bourgeoisie.

However, the main assertion of the article was that agrarian society created the hierarchies, governments, and inequalities we have today. Farms meant more urbanization. And urbanization meant farms. The two became intertwined. And thus, cities propagated disease, leadership struggles, and wars.

So, as answer to the question, I believe we would see an extremely different world and possibly a much uglier one. Maybe only a select few would know how to kill and prepare an animal. Maybe some would be better hunter's then all. With all the greed that is so much a part of our society, it is likely we would transfer it back to the hunter-gatherer system. At the heart of such a system was the idea that all would be shared and all would prosper. Today, humanity is too oriented on the self to believe it anymore. And thus, a new sort of chaos would arise.

Question: Do you think the agrarian system could be improved to reflect the values of the hunter-gatherer system?