The Agricultural Revolution, a real breakthrough for humanity, or the price of lost freedom and abundance?

While the Agricultural Revolution brought stability and progress to humanity, it has also been criticized for causing us to lose the abundance and freedom of the hunter-gatherer era. This raises the question of whether the Agricultural Revolution was a true development or the biggest hoax in history.

 

Before the Agricultural Revolution, Homo sapiens lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. We have little solid knowledge of what life was like exactly, but we can assume that we lived in small groups compared to modern times, and that we probably traveled around in search of food. Most people assume that life as a hunter-gatherer would have been harder and less happy than life after the agricultural revolution. However, Yuval Harari, author of Sapiens, argues that hunter-gatherer life was peaceful, abundant, and happy. He calls the subsequent agricultural revolution the greatest hoax in history, arguing that it led to people living in worse conditions and being unhappier.
Sure, the Agricultural Revolution expanded the total amount of food available to humans. But it didn’t increase the amount of leisure time most people had, and in fact, he argues, led to worse conditions than during hunter-gatherer times. This argument is very interesting, but we need to look more closely at the difference between hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies.
It’s clear that after the Agricultural Revolution, Homo sapiens advanced at a remarkable rate, which was the bridge to the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions. Additionally, the subsequent explosion in population and the dramatic increase in longevity demonstrate the evolutionary success of humans after the Agricultural Revolution. Along with this, human evolution has led to a redefinition of our role and place in interaction with nature. No longer were humans simply living as part of nature, but rather, they saw themselves as agents who could utilize and control nature.
But consider domesticated animals, such as cows and chickens, whose populations exploded during the Agricultural Revolution. Based on population numbers alone, these animals are an evolutionary success. However, they lived a life where they were managed against their will and eventually slaughtered at a certain time. Considering the miserable deaths of these animals, it’s clear that there can be a huge disconnect between evolutionary success and individual happiness. The same can be said for human societies. We need to think deeply about whether our evolutionary progress has really led to individual happiness.
First of all, it’s true that the agricultural revolution did reduce the quality of human life to some extent during certain periods. Humans in hunter-gatherer societies would have lived a relatively unconstrained and free life, unlike today. They lived according to the rhythms of nature and were not tied to a specific place, moving around according to their needs. However, when we entered agricultural societies, we were forced into a rut. In a way, our work changed to match the life cycles of crops like wheat and rice, rather than the life cycles of humans. Living according to the life cycle of a single crop was probably not what humans wanted.
But on the other hand, the agricultural revolution gave humans a stable foundation for life. Stable shelter and food supplies gave humans a more predictable and secure life, which allowed for long-term planning and development. These developments led to scientific discoveries and technological innovations that were not possible in hunter-gatherer societies. For example, ancient civilizations were based on agriculture, which allowed for the development of basic sciences like astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Scientific advances eventually led to the Industrial Revolution, which helped improve human living standards by leaps and bounds.
The transition to an agricultural society also contributed to humanity’s ability to understand and control nature in a more organized way. Humans could now go beyond simply using nature for survival to transforming it and creating new environments. This ability was crucial to our emergence as the dominant species on Earth.
Nevertheless, humans faced significant challenges in the early days of the Agricultural Revolution. Agriculture was highly demanding of human labor, and the nutritional value of the food we received in return was less than that of hunter-gatherers. As omnivores, hunter-gatherers had access to a wide variety of nutrients, although this could vary depending on the region. As we transitioned to an agricultural society, our diets became radically simplified. Nutrients such as proteins and fats decreased, and we were able to consume mainly carbohydrates, which were often not available in sufficient quantities depending on the season.
This transition to an agricultural society had its advantages for humans. The predictability and stability of life must have been very satisfying for humans who, until then, had no place to stay for long periods of time and were unable to make long-term plans. The change to a settled society, where humans could only think about the day or the season, allowed them to do things they hadn’t been able to do before. Without this stability, scientific progress would not have been possible.
Much of the scientific progress of the Middle Ages and modern times was made possible through the continued support of states and patrons. Considering these facts, what would have happened without the accumulation of wealth and predictable, stable lives that were facilitated by the transition to an agricultural society? The question remains, would the advancement of science have been possible? If we had remained a hunter-gatherer society, the size of individual human groups would have been too small to make progress, interactions with each other would have been limited, and there would have been clear limits to the ability to stably increase our population. As a result, it would have been impossible for us to become the most powerful species on Earth, as we have no significant advantage over other animals, other than our brains.
The difficulties that humans faced in transitioning to an agricultural society may seem like a very long time. But when you consider the entirety of human history and our future, it’s not a long time. In the early days of the Agricultural Revolution, instead of enjoying an evolutionary success with an explosion in population, humans actually regressed in terms of individual quality of life. However, this regression in quality of life had less to do with the Agricultural Revolution itself and more to do with the fact that the people who embraced it were not yet accustomed to living and working in an agricultural society. After a period of adaptation, the quality of human life improved remarkably.
And we didn’t stop there after achieving this material and evolutionary success. Now, humanity is striving for growth in various areas such as happiness, human rights, and ethics. In the modern world, it’s not just the developed world that’s developing, but also the Third World. We are seeking a balanced development of humanity as a whole, and the right to life of animals is being actively discussed. This shows that humanity is getting closer to an equal and happy society.
Considering these points, it is difficult to directly compare hunter-gatherer societies with agricultural societies, which have left few records, but it is safe to say that the Agricultural Revolution was more of a success than a fraud for humanity.