Jake posits the question: What would be the economic ramifications of switching to a hunter-gatherer method?
It's a hard one to answer and I've taken some time to reflect on it. I think it is asked from the point of view of which I have spoken of. The day we moved away from hunter-gatherer, we moved into the capitalist system in which every man and woman fights for himself. This then turned into every man and woman fighting for the gold which humankind made "valuable". And it's never stopped turning then. Economic ramifications were indeed considered in the first switch to agrarian, but only with the mindset of profit. As Billy Joel would say, the fire's burnin' since the (and I'm adding my own artistic abilities here) tiller started churnin'.
So maybe a switch runs a little bit deeper? Sure, Mary will have to find other jobs and continue on in complacent misery. So is the way the system is set up. Maybe I've struck a nerve not just with the food system, but possibly the 'system' as a whole. I believe I suggested in an earlier entry that the food system today is a representation, pure and simple, of the capitalist mind. And if I did not assert it, then here I am. Profit, profit, profit. No matter the cost.
Maybe by considering the economic ramifications of this switch, we are considering the ramifications of a complete economic change. Statistics show that there is enough food in the world to feed its populous, for now. Simply, certain men and women keep it locked up and out of reach of the poor "children". So maybe by tearing down the dam of factory-farming and opening up the flood of hunter-gatherer, you are entering a new age. Maybe it is our way of getting what Marx wanted us to. In order to bring food to all, we have to share that food. And in sharing that food, maybe it will open up new doors to sharing other things. We will possibly enter that utopian socialist republic we never should have stopped seeking.
I suppose this entry might seem idealistic, but that is truly my question: Is a push toward the hunter-gatherer system not just a change in the way we eat, but in the way we think and live? Is it a final abandonment of capitalist ideals and a push to Utopian socialism?
Profit, profit, profit, no matter the cost. Great Line. I love it.
ReplyDeleteThe invention of agriculture has provided us the ability to support the sheer amount of people currently alive. What statistics are you referring to, because as I understand it, absent agriculture, nature, as it is, cannot support us. A Hunter-Gatherer method may not be practical for over six billion people and we would most likely be witness, then, to billions of deaths.
ReplyDeleteI believe agriculture can work. Oh yes, it can work. But under the perverted system we have, it cannot. Subsidizing corn to make candy bars while the farmer starves is not agriculture. That is my argument.
ReplyDeleteAnd a push back to hunter-gatherer method is really impossible. That I understand and accept. However, I think it is likely that you can make small steps with certain subsets of the population. And those are the steps we should take.
Consider my argument revoked and revised. Thank you, Jake.