Hi Dennis,
>> Our foraging ancestors achieved a socialist society several millenia
before
>> the idea of capitalism had entered anyone's head. These societies were
>> marketless, stateless, and egalitarian.
>
>There's nothing wrong with markets per se, just like there's nothing wrong
>with exchange per se. Socialism means freedom from hunger, misery,
>Stone Age dentistry, childbirth without anaesthesia, and countless
>other horrors; a freedom to, rather than freedom from.
I agree that we don't have to give up the good things we've developed over the years and have to go back to some Stone Age existence.
Still, things weren't as bad as you make them out to be. Hunter-gatherers weren't miserable and hungry. They usually enjoyed an abundance of food. Richard Borshay Lee estimated the daily caloric intake of the San hunter-gatherers to be about 2300 kilocalories a day. Furthermore, they usually enjoyed a varied diet and were much more active than their sedentary agrarian descendents. They also enjoyed a great deal of free time.
It wasn't paradise - infant mortality was relatively high, there were no antibiotics around if you got sick, etc. But the consensus is foragers were able to easily meet their basic needs, and enjoyed a great deal of free time. When you control for productivity, we have regressed at least in terms of the length of the work week, which is a sobering thought.
Brett