Peak Everything by Richard Heinberg

Author:Richard Heinberg
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2010-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

Encampment of the Peikann Indians 1840-1843.

So how did we arrive at civilization in the first place? It’s a long story, but one worth rehearsing periodically so as to remind ourselves why we traded away our freedom.

Every competent hunter-gatherer knows how to survive in the wild; therefore, if anyone in the band starts to lord it over his comrades, they can simply pick up and leave. No one can threaten to withhold food from anyone who is not an infant or an invalid. The situation differs in an agriculture-supported city. As we developed food production (horticulture, then agriculture — presumably because we had gotten so good at hunting, and our populations had grown so dense, that we could no longer easily support ourselves except by planting and harvesting), seasonal surpluses provided an incentive for raids, and thus for political organization to protect from raids (or to organize them). Individuals found themselves in a social pyramid composed of peasants who produced food and paid tribute (a portion of the crop was collected and stored by a managerial elite); a middle class composed of various specialists (soldiers, accountants, traders, artists, artisans, lawyers, scribes, and religious functionaries); and the decision-making leadership made up of kings and queens and their families.

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