Affluence Without Abundance by James Suzman, is filled with bold ideas. The title describes hunter-gather societies in mild climates, only a few of which are extant. Some might call their lifestyle utopia. About 60% of the group has to work–hunt or gather–in order for everyone to get enough food, all of the time. Plenty of food, not starvation rations. Their work takes about fifteen hours a week. People may spend about ten more hours per week doing chores. The rest of the time is for dancing and singing, playing and socializing, wandering and creating art, napping and having sex.

Week is of course a Western religious construct adopted by industrial society and used here for comparison. Westerners spend 40 hours working and another 20 on chores each week.

This description of hunter-gatherers may not be new to you. It has been around since the 1960s and survived a debunking attempt in the 1980s, when the plight of Bushman tribes forced into Western subjugation was prominent in the news; their lives seemed anything but desirable. The utopian characterization, however, continues to be supported by ethnological and anthropological evidence today, such as human skeletal remains showing no signs of starvation or even sustained hunger,

I had read this sort of thing before as well. What I missed was the key concept of not having excess. That is, the tribes work until they have what they need, then they stop. They don’t create excess food, or jewelry, or fuel. If they need or want something, they acquire and use it. They don’t acquire things they don’t need or want.

The combination of no unfilled needs with no excess stuff means there is nothing to trade, nothing to steal, nothing to store, nothing to guard: Affluence, having everything you need or want, without abundance, having extra things you do not currently need or want. As far as anyone can tell, including the very early European explores who encountered these tribes in the 1500s, they have no greed, no inequality, no slavery, and no prisons. Their rare encounters with other tribes may result in violent clashes, but the goal is to space the tribes apart, not to commandeer their territories, people, or resources.

Farming brought humans both excess and lack. Every season there are things to trade, steal, store, and guard, or if not, people are hungry. It also brought us infectious diseases, many from livestock, another scourge the hunter-gatherers avoid. Plus farmers always need more land, so tribes, wildlife, and habitats must yield.

I was surprised to learn the genetic pool of the Bushman of the northern Kalahari, whose lifestyle is relatively intact today, is much more diverse than the genetic pool of Westerners, even though there are so many more of us. The Bushman did not mix even with similar tribes 100 miles away, and their population avoided trauma. Homo sapiens venturing out of Africa were repeatedly subjected to mass killings due to war or disease, which removed significant genetic material from the population permanently.

It does not escape my notice that this “idyllic” life does not include opera, symphony, books, travel, movies, or any of a number of other things I very much consider key to my happiness. People with debilitating congenital conditions probably did not survive. No one could live in harsh environments, limiting the spread of our species.

The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is so different from what we are now that it’s hard to imagine how it could have survived. Yet it persisted for more than 90% of the time our species has existed.