In this blog post, we will examine whether the agricultural revolution was an innovation that led to the advancement of humanity or the price we paid for our freedom and prosperity.
Before the agricultural revolution, Homo sapiens lived as hunter-gatherers. Although there is little definitive knowledge about what life was like at that time, we can guess that they lived in small groups compared to today and wandered around in search of food. Most people believe that life as a hunter-gatherer was harder and less happy than life after the agricultural revolution. However, Yuval Harari, author of Sapiens, argues that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle was peaceful, prosperous, and happy. He calls the subsequent agricultural revolution the greatest fraud in history, arguing that it led to people living in worse conditions and becoming unhappy.
Of course, the agricultural revolution increased the total amount of food available to humans. However, he argues that this did not increase the amount of free time for most people, but rather led to worse conditions than during the hunter-gatherer period. This argument is very interesting, but we need to take a closer look at the differences between hunter-gatherer societies and agricultural societies.
After the agricultural revolution, Sapiens developed at a dazzling speed, and it is clear that this led to the industrial revolution and the scientific revolution. Furthermore, considering the subsequent explosive population growth and dramatic increase in life expectancy, it is clear that humans have evolved successfully since the agricultural revolution. Along with this, the evolution of humankind has redefined the role and position of humans in their interaction with nature. Humans were no longer simply part of nature, but rather came to recognize themselves as beings who used and controlled nature.
However, consider livestock such as cows and chickens, whose numbers exploded due to the agricultural revolution. Based on their numbers alone, these animals can be considered evolutionarily successful. However, they were managed regardless of their will and ultimately lived lives that ended in slaughter at a predetermined time. Considering the miserable deaths of these animals, we can see that there can be a huge gap between evolutionary success and individual happiness. The same can be said of human society. We need to think deeply about whether human evolutionary development has truly led to happiness for each individual.
First, it is true that the agricultural revolution lowered the quality of life for humanity to a certain extent during a certain period of time. Unlike today, humans in hunter-gatherer societies probably lived relatively free lives with few restrictions. They lived according to the rhythms of nature, moving around as needed without being tied to a specific place. However, with the advent of agricultural societies, humans began to live more structured lives. In a sense, human activities began to change to match the life cycles of crops such as wheat and rice, rather than the life cycles of humans themselves. Living according to the life cycle of crops was probably not what humans wanted.
However, the agricultural revolution provided humans with a stable foundation for life. Stable housing and food supplies enabled humans to live more predictable and secure lives, which in turn enabled long-term planning and development. These developments led to scientific discoveries and technological innovations that were impossible in hunting and gathering societies. For example, ancient civilizations were based on agriculture, which enabled the development of basic sciences such as astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Scientific developments eventually led to the Industrial Revolution, which contributed to a dramatic improvement in the standard of living for humanity.
In addition, the transition to an agricultural society contributed to humanity’s ability to understand nature more systematically and to control it. Humans now go beyond simply using nature for survival and have become capable of transforming nature and creating new environments. This ability played a decisive role in the emergence of humans as the dominant species on Earth.
Nevertheless, humans faced considerable difficulties in the early stages of the agricultural revolution. Agriculture required a great deal of human labor, and the nutritional value obtained in return was lower than that of the hunting and gathering period. As omnivorous animals, humans were able to consume a variety of nutrients during the hunting and gathering period, although there may have been regional differences. However, with the transition to an agricultural society, the human diet became drastically simplified. The intake of nutrients such as protein and fat decreased, and people were mainly able to consume carbohydrates. Even then, it was often difficult to obtain sufficient amounts of these nutrients depending on the season.
The transition to an agricultural society clearly had advantages for humans. A predictable and stable life must have been very satisfying for humans, who had previously had no permanent place to live and found it difficult to make long-term plans. The transition to a settled society enabled humans, who had previously been able to think only about the next day or the next season, to do things that had been impossible before. Without this stable life as a foundation, scientific progress would not have been possible.
Much of the scientific progress of the Middle Ages and modern times was achieved through the continuous support of countries and wealthy individuals. Considering these facts, what would have happened if the accumulation of wealth and predictable, stable lives that became possible with the advent of agricultural societies had not occurred? It is doubtful that the scientific progress we see today would have been possible. If we had remained in a hunter-gatherer society, the size of individual human groups would have been too small to achieve progress. In addition, there was little interaction between groups, and there were clear limits to how much the population could grow. Therefore, it would have been impossible for humans, who had no particular advantages other than their superior brains compared to other animals, to become the most powerful species on Earth.
The difficulties that humans experienced during their transition to an agricultural society may seem like a very long time. However, considering the entire history of humanity and the future ahead, it was not such a long time. In the early stages of the agricultural revolution, instead of enjoying evolutionary success due to an explosive increase in population, there were many aspects of individual life that regressed. However, this decline in quality of life was not due to the agricultural revolution itself, but rather to the fact that humanity was not yet accustomed to life and technology in an agricultural society. After a period of adaptation, the quality of human life improved dramatically.
Furthermore, even after achieving this material and evolutionary success, humanity did not stop there. Now, humanity is striving for growth in various fields, such as happiness, human rights, and ethics. In modern society, it is not only developed countries that are progressing, but interest in the third world is also growing. Through this, humanity as a whole is pursuing balanced development, and there is also active discussion on the right to life of animals. This shows that humanity is moving closer to an equal and happy society.
Considering these points, it is difficult to directly compare hunting and gathering societies and agricultural societies, for which there are few records, but it can be said that the agricultural revolution was more of a success than a failure for humanity.
