On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 8:49 PM, Gar Lipow <gar.lipow at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 5:39 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mar 4, 2013, at 6:16 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> As far as I know, there has been a continuous growth humanity and its
>>> material possessions for the last 5 thousand or so years, so
>>> capitalism, whatever that is, does not have a monopoly for growth.
>>
>> Most definitely not true. Growth is almost entirely a product of capitalism. Among many other sources, here's Robert Gordon:
>>
>> http://www.cepr.org/pubs/PolicyInsights/PolicyInsight63.pdf
>
> Not really a good source. He starts at most a couple of centuries
> before capitalism. Not that I don't think your point is not probably
> valid, but your source does not support it. As I understand it, and
> it has been a while since I last glanced an the literature on this,
> there was actually a huge drop in standard of living in the transition
> from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. Row crop and orchard agriculture
> became a supplier of staples in the face of climate change (again as I
> remember the literature). Much more labor required for a given amount
> of food than foraging and hunter gathering, but food could be grown in
> a smaller area. That became critical in the face of climate change
> when the size of the population that could be supported through
> foraging and hunting dropped drastically. Agriculture was miserable
> compared to pre-agricultual life, but chosen because the alternative
> was death. I do wonder if there were no increases in the standard of
> living from early neolithic agriculture to later forms of agriculture
> - for instance the use of bronze and eventually iron. Anyway odds are
> there is someone on this list who is familar with the recent
> literature on the first point, and probably Doug can point to
> literature on the second.
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>
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