Scarcity's not all bad. It goes with abundance.
Life expectancy in the glory days of hunter-gathering was about 35, less if you were a woman and faced a 50% chance of dying in childbirth, even less if you were a baby, where life expectancy at birth was near to nil. Famine and drought were endemic, and thousands of HG societies vanished without a trace.
Me, I'll take antibiotics and iPods, a 70+ year life expectancy and the possibility that we could actually feed everyone (I know of course that we don't), low infant and childbirth mortality, and the problem involved in deciding whether I can afford to go on a European vacation next year or, resources being scarce, I have to put the money towards my daughter's college education, where she can indulge in learning about those other products of scarcity, 19th century French and modern Latin American literature.
--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Bill Bartlett wrote:
> >
> > At 8:46 PM -0700 24/10/07, Chuck Grimes wrote:
> >
> > >In fact the above dream, got me to suspecting
> that there might have
> > >always been enough basics to go around.
> >
> > No, if that was so then the class system wouldn't
> have occurred to anyone.
>
> It never did occur to anyone until it had been in
> existence for a few
> thousand years. Moreover, there could not be a class
> system until a
> SURPLUS appeared. There had always been "enough,"
> but about 10 thousand
> years ago surpluses began to appear and the move
> towards class society
> began. Only _huge_ surpluses could generate a full
> fledged ruling class
> distinct from 'the rest.' That happened around 5000
> years ago.
>
> Carrol
>
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