Wouldn't it be fair to say that these societies have a different kind of complexity, rather than less complexity? I wrote this in Steal This Idea:
Edgar Anderson, who was associated with Missouri Botanical Garden of St. Louis, during the last 5,000 years, modern society has not domesticated a single plant that primitive cultures had not already used. He pointed out that traditional cultures had already managed to discover all five natural sources of caffeine: coffee, tea, the cola plant, cacao, yerba mate and its relatives (Anderson 1952, pp. 132-33). On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 02:41:01PM -0700, raghu wrote: > > > While acknowledging the truth of this statement, is it nevertheless > not true that industrial societies are orders of magnitude bigger, > more interconnected and more complex than tribal cultures? In the same > way that a large factory is more complex than a garage workshop. > > It seems to me that the danger lies in translating "more complex" into > "superior" or "better". > -raghu. > -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
