socialism, capitalism, anarchism- which do subscribe to?

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and i think you are correct, if humans are not in contention with other humans for resources then it might very well be possible for us to abolish class societies, unfortunately i have a hard time seeing it happen,
someone will always want more.

The history of human kind has been rather grim since agriculture and herding became the prevailing means of livelihood. With agriculture and fixed residence came government, taxation and tyranny. Taxing the farmers and herders means an army can be raised hence an increase in warfare with its death and violence. So for about 8000 years our species have not lived nicely with one another.

Hunter-gathering puts survival closer to the margin. Humans have to spend time hunting the critters more than they spend vexing each other. Also hunter gathering requires a great deal of co-operation and sharing among the males which promotes a less warlike way of life..

There is only one problem: Hunter-gatherers are very much at the mercy of climate and they have virtually no margin for storing food to cover the bad years. The biblical story of Joseph illustrates the point., The Egyptians were able to weather seven years of famine with the surplus stored during seven years of plenty. Hunter gatherers have no such safety margin. Also hunter-gathering societies have no way of creating and supporting a class of people to gaze at the stars and not have to work at bringing in the next meal. That is why astronomy and the other sciences did not exist until humans lived in towns and cities and created a non-food producing class supported by taxation.

During the era of hunter-gathering populations were low. Human numbers increased markedly after the transition to agriculture. Humans were probably freer from each other during the hunter-gathering days, but their lives were shorter and in bad times, harder. So what amounted to a working anarchy was traded in for a hierarchical society with it attendant tyrannies. But we got science, philosophy and literature out of it. If one was lucky enough to become a member of the supported class, it was a good deal. For the man with a hoe, maybe it was not such a good deal.

ruveyn

wow i think im agreeing with you on something. the point of my 10000 years ago story was to demonstrate that once upon a time humans didnt threaten each other with bombs everytime they didnt get what they wanted and to link this warfare with class society and accumulation of property. the point of a socialist society would be to abolish class heirarchies and to have workers control the means of production and have wealth equally distributed thereby removing the economic motive to go to war. i wasn't suggesting we decimate the bulk of the earths population and grab a spear and go forage for hamburgers or something. just in case that was a little ambiguous...

What category would a person who doesn't care fall under?

In those days, property as we know it did not exist. Since there was no property, there were no owners and no renters or serfs. That came in with agriculture. Humans were probably at the least worst during the days of hunting and gathering. They lived off the land. They did not have much more to carry than what they absolutely needed to live. Accumulation of Stuff did not become a fetish. In fact unnecessary accumulation would have been antithetical to survival. The hunter-gatherer has to travel light and smart. If our brains had been a bit smaller, the human race would be hunter-gatherers. But, eating meat made for larger brains which made for more social and linguistic skills. Ideas took on a life of their own (witness the drawings in the Cro Magnon caves). We soon became much too smart for our own good.

ruveyn

i'm not so sure i really accept this hypothesis. as i understand it, we never started to eat meat by any means on a regular basis until domestication. now i'm not an expert, and feel free to correct me if this seems wrong. but according to engels, and taking the idea from morgan, the origins of plant agriculture, and the upper stage of barbarism, which paved the way for notions of private property (through excess of production) can be traced back to arround 3000 bc. surely the few thousand years between the widespread domestication of animals as a food source, and the era of plant agriculture would not be long enough to allow for significant changes in brain size in humans?

i think there is more to it than this.

Actually, that's not true. Our Paleolithic ancestors had been big game hunters, moving onto smaller game during the Mesolithic. During that period, our ancestors' diet consisted almost entirely of meat. It wasn't later till the Neolithic that people had started raising vegetables and cereal crops that vegetable life had become the major food stuff.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

i'm ot so sure this is as clear cut as you make out. from what i have read on the subject, it appears contentious and based largely on conjecture and study of modern "primitive" peoples.

We're talking about Ice Age Europe, when there was a limited amount of fauna that was edible for humans, and there was an abundance of animal life. Also, archeology of that period reveals the remains of large game animals, supplemented with berries and other small amount of plant life within human habitation sites.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

are we talking specifically about europe? i was unaware.

You can buy anything you want under Capitalism as long as you have enough money.