******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
Things may not be as they seem... Bruce Pascoe's wonderful book, "Dark Emu --Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture" is turning the hunter/gatherer assumption on its head. https://is.gd/lf4xh8 ..which further research confirms. I think the 'birth of agriculture' as a lifestyle, cannot be reduced down to a generic judgement as it is an embrace ruled by history. The 'mistake' made isn't the agriculture but the way the food was grown. And that's as true today as it was thousands of years ago. The Polynesian/Micronesian sweet potato/yam culture and the traditional “Milpa” system of the Americas were ecologically kosher and sustainable. The complication of the shift is the continuing problem posed by the dependency and fertility loss inherent in monocultures and the cutting down of trees for fire and cooking. Soil disturbance through the invention and use of the plough has to be seen as a key mistake. That, and maybe the embrace of grains as the core carbohydrate source. Today that is still a major environmental headache -- these grains. Annuals that they are. That agriculture is marked down because it is vulnerable to drought, weather vagaries and overpopulation is addressed by various means in the history of agriculture. And Mike Davis points out in 'Late Victorian Holocausts' -- you cannot separate the 21st century hindsight view of agriculture from the onslaught of capitalism and imperialism. Even in Marx's take on metabolic rift, a driving dynamic was the separation of town and country that began the process of closing off cyclical renewal. dave riley _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
