Checking Greed

Humans have a natural tendency to respond to their situation with greed, if conditions are allowable. I don't believe that we are naturally or genetically driven to be greedy—it's more that the conditions we experience can promote it. Western society in particular has become very materialistic. The predominant economic system—capitalism—literally cultivates greed. In a similar fashion, I do not believe that people are inherently violent, but put them in a threatening and uncontrolled environment and violence will emerge. In other words, we have to have greed and violence modeled for us or taught to us, for these insidious emotions to prevail.

There is an alternative to consumption and greed. There is a culture—the longest-lasting human culture on the planet—that successfully checks and limits greed. It is the people often referred to as the Bushmen of South Africa—residents of the austere Kalahari Desert of modern Namibia. The Bushmen consist of several different tribes—pretty much all of which have names that we Westerners find literally unpronounceable, due to their native tongue being what is often referred to as “click languages.”

Bushman society has endured for about 200,000 years—pretty much from when anatomically modern Homo sapiens first came upon the scene. They live extremely simply, in the manner of hunter-gatherers; foraging daily for what their tough environment offers them. It's a struggle for us high-tech, industrialized people to grasp what their culture is like. It's hard for us to grant that—just in terms of longevity—Bushmen societies are the most enduring, successful human civilization ever. Our more modern societies have survived for far less time. 
 
We transformed from hunter-gatherers to being farmers and/or herders only about 12,000 years ago. We are the new and out-of-control kid on the block. When humans settled into farming communities, we began for the first time to accumulate things. (The Bushmen—frequently on the move—could not afford to stockpile; they had to travel light.) Rather than gather or hunt from nature's offerings as the Bushmen do, farmers planted, harvested, stored, and planted again. This style of existence brought much more food—hence the population grew and crops could be stored and used in trade. But people were now completely dependent on their crops; they were far more vulnerable than the hunter-gatherers, who did not specialize.

Fear and greed surfaced and flourished in farming societies. Fear of crop failures pervaded those societies—along with fear of wild animals that would destroy or consume those crops. In abundant years fear decreased and greed blossomed, as farmers stored their harvests and began to trade them for various material goods.

Bushmen took a different road. They never had an abundance or tried to store it for the future. It never even occurred to them. Nature provided for today and if not tomorrow, they'd simply move on. Their diet consisted of a wide variety of food, so if one thing did poorly, they simply switched to something else. Farmers instead literally had all their agricultural eggs in one basket.

In addition, however, the Bushmen knew that greed had a way of insinuating itself into society, whenever any individuals were able to feel superior to others. Any hint of inequality encourages greed. So the Bushmen developed rituals that kept inequality, and thus greed, in check. For example, when a particularly skillful hunter returned to camp with a generous hunk of meat, it would be shared equally—but the hunter had no hand in deciding the apportioning. Others took over and divided up the gift. They didn't stop there, however. From the minute that the successful hunter returned, through the division of his trophy, the band kept up a banter of derogatory comments. The meat was criticized and belittled, as if it was unsatisfactory. The hunter's skill was deprecated, as if the group was ashamed of him.

This good-natured ribbing also occurred when any member of the band excelled in other ways, or threatened to grow a larger head. It has been a very successful technique to stifle greed and arrogance, and to promote equality within the group. It's worked for some 200,000 years. It seems doubtful that modern human culture—in which greed is encouraged—will persevere anywhere near as long.

Bushmen Benefits

In the 1930s John Maynard Keynes, writing from the perspective of and influenced by the Great Depression, penned an essay titled “The Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren.” He was struggling with the financial doldrums of the times, but looked optimistically to the future. He believed in the American democratic and economic processes that he observed at the time, and thought that, due to (1) technological innovation, (2) productivity, and (3) long-term capital growth, the future looked good. America and the world would soon realize what he termed “economic bliss”.

Keynes predicted that his grandchildren would be able to satisfy their material needs by having to work only 15 hours per week. What would we do with all that extra time on our hands? He said it would free us up to pursue rewarding interests such as art, philosophy, music, religion, family, etc. He believed that soon we'd realize a life that would be four-to-eight times richer than that of the 1930s. 
 
On the one hand, Keynes predicted correctly, since our productivity has increased by a factor of four. On the other hand, he was wrong about working hours, as today Americans work longer hours each week than they did in the 1930s. The result is that, instead of turning to leisure, we've turned to accumulating things. We grasp for more.

What happened? One reason we still work long hours is that Keynes and other economists at the time (and over the next half century) assumed that economics is a rational science, which implies that people make rational economic decisions. That assumption has been discredited in the last few decades, as psychologists and sociologists have shown that most of our choices are anything but rational. Neuroscience confirms these findings and has added its own discoveries into the mix. From neuroscience, we now know that people's decisions are impulsive and often made subconsciously, without their even being aware of what factors led to them. The result: we are often slaves to our desires and are thus literally driven to accumulate. To do so, we seem to be willing to labor long hours to get what we want.

Keynes was not crazy, however, as there is a society that long ago learned to curb its cravings and achieve all its needs, with indeed about 15 hours of work each week: the Bushmen peoples of Namibia's Kalahari Desert region. Also called the San peoples, they have populated southern Africa for some 200,000 years as hunter-gatherers. The Bushmen had achieved Keynes's economic promised land long ago, and they did it without having any interest in labor productivity or capital accumulation.

Think about that. The Bushmen (still around today, although they're struggling with the interference of modernity into their lives) are the most successful, long-lasting human civilization in Earth's history! Their culture has prevailed for some 800 times the length of America's existence as a country and 20 times longer than the period of time since humans turned from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists (about 10,000 years ago). I will be looking at the astounding success of the simple-living Bushmen in future blogs.

[Based on the book Affluence without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen, by James Suzman, 2017.]