Jared Diamond’s fascinating Guns, Germs, and Steel posits (to oversimplify) that peoples and societies have progressed at rates dependent almost entirely on their environment. Domesticable plants, terrain divisions, proximity to cultures, useable animals…all strongly contribute to the growth of a band of hunter-gatherers into an advanced society.
One of the simplest things was something I’d never truly thought about: The true ratio that determines potential for progress is food producers to the rest of the popultion….the more people spend finding/killing their own food, the fewer specialists a society has. Specialists range from metalsmiths and inventors in early societies to political analysts and usability specialists in more ‘advanced’ ones. Factors like terrain, high-calorie plants, and animals to till the soil and provide farmable food allow fewer humans to provide food for more, giving societies the shot in the arm they need to begin inventing their way to ‘easier’ lives.
(About the quotes: Jared is very thoughtful in his language, and doesn’t imply anything about social and industrial progress beyond uses and effects on society. Societies with inventions and stratified classes have their fair share of woes, and still tend to kill each other recklessly [though, to their credit, they vote on it first]. Since I’m not so good with the words, I simply want to note that the ‘emphasized’ words don’t imply a superiority of any group over another.)
(Not that you would’ve thought that.)
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