Date:  Thur,  9 May 1996   22:00:15  +0100
Subject: RE: Engels, foragers and "surplus"



Adam Rose  (9 May 1996) wrote:
>For all revolutions other than the socialist revolution, the majority
>do not gain much in terms of living standards, particularly not in the
>short term. We all live longer, more healthily, and there are more of
>us, than there were before class societies developed. But to start with,
>the working class would quite likely have been worse off ( certainly
>the case with proletarians in early capitalism ). So most people
>might quite correctly see their interests as being opposed to
>historical progress.

Hi Adam,

  "...quite correctly..."? No. I disagree with you on that one. You're
understating the difference between the long and the short term.
  I've said this before in a couple of other contexts, so please forgive
me for being repetitive. I do, however, consider it a useful little piece
of information on which to chew, before saying how jolly it would be
to be a forager.
  We're six billion people on the earth today. Since mother nature
can support only ten million foragers, give or take a few, I pretty
much thank "historical progress" for my being alive at all. Ok, without
it I'd still have one chance in six hundred, but I never was much of a
gambler.
  Furthermore, without "historical progress", what kind of dog-eat-dog
competition would we have when we reached ten million?

Cheers,

Otto  


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