From: steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: The Ecocentric Criterion (again)
Date: 15 Dec 92 21:09:33 GMT
Organization: Lick Observatory/UCO
NNTP-Posting-Host: topaz.ucsc.edu
In-reply-to: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au's message of Tue, 15 Dec 92 01:51:21 GMT

In article <724384281snx@tillage.DIALix.oz.au> gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:


   In article <STEINLY.92Dec7124044@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu writes:

    > Huh, I thought the CW was that agricultural societies (and h-g's)
    > went for large families to help with local sustenance labour (and
    > overcome very high mortality rate), and that urbanization led to
    > a disincentive for large families and a lower birth rate but with
    > a generational lag and resultant population bulge especially
    > when combined with higher life expectancy due to centralised health
    > care and other factors...

   Well, the trends remain indicative that *regardless* of what economic
   base drives the particular culture; h-g, swidden, nomad, agricultural,
   industrial, whatever, affluence brings with it small families. An
   excellent reference on h-g affluence is

	   Sahlins M.  1974
	   Stone Age Economics
	   London: Tavistock

   in particular, Ch.1, "The Original Affluent Society".

I've read Sahlins thesis of the affluent society, and while
it makes some excellent original points, I feel the thesis
is too often taken too far. In particular, it relies on a
relative definition of affluence, where people become inured
to hardships to the point where they're no longer considered
hardships - which is subjectively true, but says more about
the flexibility of the human psyche than the happiness and
health of people  (defined by some "objective" measure, in
so far as that is possible).

   Certainly the Australian Aboriginal people, supposed to be the *most
   primitive* of all h-g societies living in a *most arid* environment,
   kept a complex bush pharmacopoeia and practiced a sophisticated birth
   control program. Although the actual processes of kinship are also
   complex and merit discussion elsewhere, it is worth stating here that
   generally barely 2-3 hours per day were required to reap an abundance,
   leaving the rest of the day to pursue a highly developed cultural
   life. They are known to have never borne large families, and rank
   about the same as Westerners.

There is a very strong focus on this in post 1968 anthropology,
that typically h-g's only spent 2-3 hours per day on food gathering,
(this often cited as an instance of the poverty of modern society,
but one must remember that an average citizen of modern society
spends _less_ time than that to produce enough to get a comparable
diet, the bulk of modern work is spent to acquire "luxuries" and
other needs that h-g's simply did not recognise - like nifty computers
with Usenet access, similarly agriculturalists and pasturalists 
surrendered free time for some element of security in their food
supply - before marvelling over the leisure hunter-gatherers enjoyed,
one must also ask why many of the leisure activities only developed
after agriculture became established).
	  What must also be remembered is that
hunter-gatherer group dynamics were governed by hard times, not
the "average" good time, with little or no surplus gathered
each individual group had a marginal existence in hard times,
and dispersal into small groups was a survival strategy so that
if some groups were wiped out by weather, say, others would survive
and repopulate the range of the extinct groups - several sources
note that in contrast to Alan's argument hunter-gatherer groups would
often not choose to seek to keep the (local) population static as a success
strategy but would expand when they could and split the group to
expand their range, perhaps to fail, or to succeed where other
groups failed. On average this can produce a dynamic population
equilibrium with continuous expansion and partial failure and
extinction maintaining a balance in the mean. Alan seems to claim
that the data contradicts this model, I do not see that.

The development of husbandry and agriculture fundamentally
changed this by stabilising food supply through hard times
and providing a potential surplus. There was a population explosion,
possibly driven by a change in culture, or arguably a natural
expansion justified post hoc by a cultural shift - Alan strongly
favours nominal cultural values as a causative agent, I tend
to think actual behaviour is only weakly correlated with cultural
norms and that culture is more often a post hoc justification of
behaviour - Marxist and some neo-laissez faire types might argue
that economic circumstance completely drives behaviour, with cultural
values adjusted in response, I like to think they're wrong. 

   Bearing children is dangerous for women, and they will actively avoid
   it while there is a better life to be had. On the other hand, those
   most *impoverished* societies constantly at the brink of annihilation,
   especially under a constant threat from invasion and/or being overrun
   by warring factions, are known for their many offspring borne from a
   systematic strategy for group survival. I understand that the average
   family size in contemporary Somalia exceeds seven children . . .

Was...

   I do not disagree with your thesis, steinly, only pointing out that
   you need to redefine the premises from which you build your argument.
   It is not relevant what economic base a society may be built on; the
   correlates are very large families positively associated with extreme
   poverty, which is something of a Catch 22 situation, yes?

Yup. My arguments are frequently too distorted by the fact that
they usually are made to counter Alan's, and hence, consciously
or not, tend to move to an opposite extreme to try to illustrate
some of (what I consider) fallacies in Alan's arguments. 

*  Steinn Sigurdsson   			Lick Observatory      	          *
*  steinly@lick.ucsc.edu		"standard disclaimer"  	          *
*  Ain't you heard of the the starving millions?     			  *
*  Ain't you heard of contraception?  "Too much too young" Specials, 1979 *