The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

Graeber and Wengrow begin the chapter with an extended analysis of the concepts of work and affluence, as well as an investigation into the origins of private property. Their aim is to dismantle the conventional wisdom surrounding such concepts and how they pertain to early human societies versus modern societies, respectively.

They conclude that, contrary to prevailing beliefs, people in hunter-gatherer societies likely worked far less than their modern counterparts. The idea that technology lightened the burden of work, conceived during the 19th century, is not borne out by the evidence. The same can be said of the concept of affluence. If wealth is defined as having as much as (or more than) one needs or wants of certain material goods, then, the authors reason, hunter-gatherer societies can be seen as more affluent than many modern societies. However, they also caution against sweeping generalizations: “Not all modern hunter-gatherers value leisure over hard work, just as not all share the easy-going attitudes toward personal possessions” (139). That is, looking back to prehistoric societies, “[t]here was no truly ‘original’ state of affairs” (140).

They also note that, contrary to conventional wisdom, prehistoric human communities ranged over far more territory than that of their modern counterparts; indeed, they “spanned continents” (123).