From Scarcity to Abundance
99% of our time on the planet, human beings have lived in the Original Affluent Society. As documented by Yuval Harari in his book Sapiens, our hunter gatherer ancestors would have enjoyed a more comfortable lifestyle than the peasants, labourers and office clerks who came after them. People in the most affluent societies in the world today work on average about 40 to 45 hours a week. Hunter gatherers actually worked fewer hours than most people in the world today.
Then around 4000 BC, humanity went through a process of desertification. With scarcity, humanity made a shift from Tribalism to Civilization. Equality was replaced by hierarchy.
Today, thanks to technologies, abundance for all has actually become possible and yet we continue to live in a world of competition and permanent scarcity.
In this 3 hour talk, we will attempt to reply to the following questions:
- How is it that despite all our efforts to create a better world, despite all our knowledge and intelligence, despite all our NGOS and well-intentioned people, how is it that nothing seems to be really improving… we are at war with the Earth… desertification is spreading, forests are being felled at an alarming rate… we are at war with each other with atom bombs and chemical weapons of mass destruction... the entire planet is ablaze with more and more ravaging conflicts? And our personal lives are also marred with conflicts.
- How can neo-tribalism (community based model of social organization) be a social model to make a shift from scarcity to abundance?