11.6.1: Preindustrial Societies:

 11.6.1: Preindustrial Societies: The Birth of Inequality The earliest human groups, hunting and gathering societies, had a subsistence economy. In small groups of about twenty-five to forty, people lived off the land. They gathered plants and hunted animals in one location and then moved to another place as these sources of food ran low. Having few possessions, they did little trading with one another. With no excess to accumulate, everybody owned as much (or, really, as little) as everyone else. Then people discovered how to breed animals and cultivate plants. The more dependable food supply in what became pastoral and horticultural societies allowed humans to settle down in a single place. Human groups grew larger, and for the first time in history, it was no longer necessary for everyone to work at producing food. Some people became leather workers, others made weapons, and so on. This new division of labor produced a surplus, and groups traded items with one another. The primary sociological significance of surplus and trade is this: They fostered social inequality, because some people accumulated more possessions than others. The effects of that change remain with us today. The plow brought the next major change, ushering in agricultural societies. Plowing made land more productive, allowing even more people to specialize in activities other than producing food. More specialized divisions of labor followed, and trade expanded. Trading centers then developed, which turned into cities. As power passed from the heads of families and clans to a ruling elite, social, political, and economic inequalities grew.