CHAPTER VII

The Societal Context of Self

The Evolution of Human Societies

The Ancestors of Us All

If we were to trace our ancestors back a sufficient number of generations, we would find that
each of us came from people who lived in hunting and gathering societies. This is the earliest form
of organization in which any of our ancestors lived.
Those of us from the technologically more advanced societies would scarcely recognize a
hunting and gathering society as a society. They are extremely small, averaging only 40 to 50 people
in the entire society.1 Technically they are societies because they are autonomous from any other
group. It is also difficult for persons living in technologically more advanced societies to
comprehend the leadership of these societies. The leader or headman in a hunting and gathering
society, in general, cannot command. If the other members of the society disagree with the headman
as to what should be done in a particular situation, he has no effective way in which to make them
comply. In general, the headman consults with the other members of the society and then renders
a decision. Because the headman has proven himself to have had a sound judgement in the past, the
people in general find it to their advantage to follow his advice. Such consultation can only take
place in a very small society. Consequently, their small size contributes to the considerable degree
of democracy that they enjoy.
Even though the hunters and gatherers are characterized by an extreme degree of equality,
their material equality is a two-edged sword. That is, they are equal in their lack of material
possessions. More advantageously, they are also politically equal in the sense of each person having
considerable say in the activities of their society. Those of us from the industrial societies can easily
envy the political freedom enjoyed by these people. However, we probably would not want to give
up our present material standard of living in order to obtain an equivalent degree of political
freedom. When we think of trying to stay warm on a cold rainy night by wrapping ourselves in an
animal skin, we realize that the primitive technology of the hunters and gatherers has a definite
negative side as well. The same technology that makes sharing and equality the most logical

140
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 141

solutions to living also leaves one basically at the mercy of ones physical environment. Thus, the
hunters and gatherers do not so much favor equality and democracy as it is virtually forced on them
by the logic of the situation in which they find themselves.
Those hunting and gathering societies, in which the members have not shared with one
another, have most likely been selected out by evolution. That is, under conditions of scarce food
supply in those societies in which members were selfish many people would likely have starved and
the society would have gradually become extinct. After all, even the best of hunters would have
streaks of bad luck, illness, or injury and be unable to provide for their families. The most logical
thing to do, given the technology of hunting and gathering, is to share. That is, the most logical
social structure under these conditions is one involving relationships of sharing. Likewise, the most
logical culture is one that has an ideology that emphasizes the moral value of sharing
There are only remnants of hunting and gathering societies left today although a mere fifty
years ago a number of them still existed in their traditional form of organization. Examples include
the San people who we call the Bushmen who were then to be found in the Kalhari Desert of
southern Africa. Closer to home were people such as the Inuit, who are among the people that we
call Eskimos following the usage of the Cree Indians. However, the Mbuti Pygmies of the Itari
Forest in central Africa provide the best example of how hunting and gathering must lead to a life
style quite outside our experience. This way of life must involve significant sharing of nearly
everything. Even though the particulars of their life in a rain forest in central African are very
different form the San and the Inuit, the general form of their experiences are the same because their
technology is essentially the same. This makes their fundamental way of making a living similar.
The Itari is a rain forest in the now Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, and
before that the Belgium Congo. The Mbuti typically hunt small game such as rabbits or even
medium size animals such as deer through group hunts in which beaters scare the game in the
direction of waiting hunters. However, they are best known as elephant hunters.2 Yes, these hunters
seldom exceeding 4' 10" in height sometimes hunt elephants. Traditionally, they would be armed
only with a wooden tipped spear. Given that such a device can only penetrate the hide of an elephant
in its soft underbelly, the hunter must sneak up under an elephant and jab upward with his spear
hoping to penetrate the bladder of the great beast. If he is successful he still has the problem of being
underneath an enraged elephant perhaps 10' high at the shoulder. Needless to say the death rate for
hunters from hunting accidents is significant. If he escapes, he must track the wounded animal for
perhaps days as it bleeds to death. But what should he do when he finally determines that it is dead
given that his prey is still taller than he is even though lying on its side?
If he was a full participant in our culture, he might feel compelled to climb atop the fallen
beast and scream at the top of his lungs Mine, mine, all mine! But that is not the way of the
hunters and gatherers. Particularly in the case of an elephant, they would have no reason to claim
ownership. There are only about forty of these small people in the hunters entire society. How
much can they eat? With proper smoking and drying of the meat, they still have only about nine
days before the maggots nearly out-weigh the remaining meat! There is no reason not to share and
every reason to share.
Since the people are nomadic, they are not greatly interested in owning many things that must
be carried from place to place. Thus, there are no substantial material differences between people.
Even when small differences come into being the cultural emphasis on sharing quickly removes them
142 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

and an item once in the hands of one person passes eventually to another. There are some status
differences between the members of hunting and gathering societies, but these are not passed along
in families from one generation to another. Rather, they are based on valued personal qualities. For
example, a particularly skilled hunter will enjoy high status. Of course, in technologically more
complex societies a person may enjoy high status simply by being born into a rich family no matter
what their personal attributes are.
Because there is very little in the way of material rewards, there is accordingly very little
social conflict over the proper and just distribution of the products of these societies. Consequently,
there are no elaborate mechanisms of social control such as provided by the law and the police in
more complex societies.
The fundamental difficulty with hunting and gathering is
that one can never be sure of finding the provisions for ones next
meal. If for some time one of the hunters is unsuccessful on the
hunt or even dies on the hunt, his family would face malnutrition
or starvation, except for the fact that the family and the hunter live
in a society. It would not be practical for a small society to let
some of its members become malnourished or even starve when
others have food to eat. This would surely weaken the society as
a whole. Thus, hunting and gathering societies that promote
sharing are more likely to survive and thus pass along their culture
of sharing than those that do not. It is, thus, in the interest of the
individuals of such societies to share. Of course, at the moment
of sharing they might wish that they could keep whatever it is that
they are sharing. But they know that in the long run they will
someday need the gift of food from another person. Sharing is a
kind of structurally and culturally supported insurance policy for
meeting ones basic needs.3
There is another very important reason for not claiming a
personal victory over the elephant. Being so directly and
obviously dependent upon the health of the ecological systems
within which they live, hunters and gatherers are concerned about
what they remove from it. Perhaps even more importantly, by being so close to nature they feel as
though they are a part of nature. The religious conceptions of such people involve a sense of oneness
among all thingsa sense that an unobservable essence, that is, a spirit, inhabits all things. The rock,
the tree, you and me all have a spirit and all are apart of an interconnected cosmos. When the hunter
takes the life of one of these earthly embodiments of a spirit, the first thing that he does is to
solemnly ask that spirit to forgive him. He promises that spirit that he will kill only to the extent
necessary for himself and the fellow members of his small society to live.
Native Americans speak of this cultural idea of the interconnection of all spirit in terms of
Mother Earth. Ancient hunters and gathers in Europe seem to have done the same thing and
symbolized this understanding of the world through carving small figurines. The most notable of
these is the Venus of Willendorf (shown above).4 Coming chronologically after the Mother Earth
figurines, Goddesses also embodied interconnected life. An example of such a deity was Artemis
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 143

so named by the Greeks and called Diana by the Romans. Even long after European societies had
turned away from hunting and gathering, Goddesses remained venerated for thousands of years only
gradually being replaced by male Gods such as Zeus. Indeed, Paul (Saul of Taurus) and the
community of Christians which he founded at Ephesus clearly contributed to the fall of Artemis
whose great temple in Ephesus was known as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. But why
should they ever have been replaced at all? How and why did our conceptions of the scared change
so much over time? The answer perhaps lies in control.

More Like Our Present Lives

We can better understand the logic of our own societies if we first compare the logic of the
organization of the hunting and gathering societies with the logic of the herding societies or
pastoralists as they are sometimes called. The ancient Jews were herders. Genghis Khan and the
Mongols he commanded were other noted herders. Some herders still exist in Africa such as the
Masai and Dodoth people. Herders make their living by tending to a herd of animals--cows, goats,
camels, or whatever it may be. They kill some animals for meat as well as take milk and blood for
nourishment from those they do not kill. A good blood pudding may not sound very appetizing to
many of us, but it is nutritious. The herding or pastoral societies are very interesting, but not because
their technology is well advanced beyond that of the hunting and gathering societies, since it is not.
With relatively the same complexity of technology herders, nevertheless, live a very different
lifestyle from the hunters and gatherers because their technology is different in its fundamental form.
Also, the herders are interesting to us because we are much more like them than we are like the
hunters and gatherers.
The first difference to note between the herders and the hunters and gatherers is that the
former live in multi-community societies and the latter do not. Consequently, the size of the herding
societies is much greater than that of the hunters and gatherers. As noted above, the average size of
a hunting and gathering society is only about 40 people. However, the average size of a herding
society is about 2000 people.5 Now, if these facts do not seem particularly interesting, one should
ask why the difference? Why are herding societies large societies with many individual communities
and hunting and gathering societies are small with but a single community? Interestingly, the answer
will reflect on the reasons for the form of social organization held in the industrial societies.
If it is logical for the hunters and gatherers to share, is it also logical for the herders to share?
The answer is an emphatic No! The reasons for this lie in the nature of the herd. The herd is not
perishable to the degree that food taken on the hunt or gathered from the environment is perishable.
Indeed, with care the herd will actually grow in size. There is one further advantage to the herd: it
is divisible. If one family from the society runs off with a portion of the herd at night, it is theirs
until they are caught. This is no longer a matter of sharing, but of controlling.
Because the herd is both nonperishable and divisible it is a societal product that must be
protected. It is in the personal interests of the individual members of the society and in the interests
of other societies to take this product for their own. An initial form of social control is power. When
we speak of social power we mean the ability to make some person or some group do what they
do not wish to do. The ultimate exertion of power is through successful military action. Thus, it
is not surprising that the herders are very aggressive and very militaristic. Indeed, in this respect,
144 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

herders are, just the opposite of the hunters and gatherers. And as herders are also more like us, it
is important that we examine how religion is related to social power among the herders.
The problem with social power is that it is expensive. The implementors of power must, in
general, be rewarded or power cannot be exercised. That is, for a ruler to wield power in a society
means that his warriors or soldiers will have to have some compensation for their efforts at carrying
out his bidding.6 If, for example, they collect taxes for the ruler, then they will have to receive a
portion of the tax or some other compensation for their efforts. Receiving some reward for
obedience will tend to keep them from a risky challenge of the leaders power in an attempt to take
the whole tax for themselves. For the ruler this compensation to subordinates is an expense of
wielding power. There is, however, an alternative to power. To understand this alternative we must
understand the distinction between power and authority and in doing so we will see one of the
reasons herders are so much like ourselves. Authority is the ability to have people voluntarily do
what the person holding authority wishes because the people believe that this is the proper thing to
do. I obey the leader because that is what I have always been taught to do or even better I obey
because the leader has always been successful in defending my society from its enemies. It can
quickly be seen that relative to power, authority is very inexpensive to exercise. If the ruler says that
one should pay taxes and one believes that the ruler has the right to make this claim, then one
complies without being forced to comply.
The problem with authority is that people may not be easily convinced of the correctness of
investing authority in a certain person or position. The person holding authority may have to prove
himself or herself over a long period of time before that authority is invested in them. For example,
if a brilliant leader has gained the trust of his people, not all of that trust will carry over to his
incompetent grandson who eventually inherits that position of leadership. Because of this, a logical
ploy to gain authority is to have it automatically conferred to an occupant of a position by the
societys religion. The most common variation of this procedure in the Western nations was known
as the Divine Right of Kings. Where people accepted this ideology, they assumed that what the
king said to do was not really what a human being wished to have done, but what God wished to
have done. Gods wishes were merely spoken through His earthly servant--the King. This is a most
important form of authority because it is so strong. After all, the consequences of disbelief are much
less for disobeying a mere human. All that any earthly ruler can do to a person is to torture and kill
him or her. God could condemn one to Hell, where one would never find relief from everlasting
torture. A ruler is much more likely to be given authority by his people if they believe that he is the
earthly servant of God. And again the control that comes with authority costs him little or nothing.
It is not important here to argue theological points such as whether or not there really is a
Hell. Rather, an important assumption about human relationships is being made. The assumption
is that since religion can be abused, it will in fact be often abused. It is likely even better to say
misused and abused. Authority is legitimate power. For something to be legitimate there must
be some strong reason or justification for it. When religion is used to legitimize anything, it is a very
strong legitimation. This is because to many people, nothing is more important than their religion.
This is overwhelmingly true in preindustrial societies. Here, most people are religious, unlike the
situation in most of the industrial societies. Because religion is so important, it is a prime target for
manipulation by the unscrupulous. Unfortunately, many of us can be blinded by greed and ambition
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 145

more easily than we think. Thus, we may, unknowing to our conscious selves, take liberties with
our respective religions in ways that benefit us whether we are a leader or not.
But not all forms of religion can be used to confer authority. The interesting thing about
human societies is that types of religion are not randomly distributed across the various societal
types. An examination of the religions most often practiced in the various societal types shows an
interesting pattern. Those societies having strong centralized control have a different form of
religion than those societal types that do not. Thus, on the average, we would expect very different
religions between hunting and gathering societies and herding societies. This is precisely what we
find.
Hunters and gathers have virtually nothing that can be controlled. They must hunt and gather
over very wide territories and thus must be mobile. With such a nomadic lifestyle, possessions
become more of a burden than an advantage. If a leader attempts to control the other members of
the society to his advantage, people vote with their feet by moving their families away to hunt and
gather on their own. Not only is their no purpose in attempting to control them, there is no way to
take their livelihood away from them. In contrast, if a herder is ostracized from his society, he has
to return to hunting and gathering to live, but is no longer very skilled at doing so. Furthermore,
since herders control people as well as animals, he may be enslaved by his own society or another.
Being outside of the society can be very dangerous for the herder.

Comparing Religious Apples and Oranges

Also, because of their understanding of nature, the hunting and gathering societies are on the
whole characterized by animism as noted above. This is a belief that spirit (a living but not material
essence) resides in all things, even including things that we would consider inanimate such as
mountains or rivers. The hunters and gatherers generally do not have a creator god. And even when
they do, this god is not concerned with their earthly activities and does not intervene either positively
or negatively in their affairs. They do not see themselves as subjects of a god but at one with the
universe. This is a perspective in line with their ideas that all the universe is interconnected and of
equal value. Just the opposite point of view is generally held by herders. They believe in a creator
god who is both concerned with their morality and actively intervenes in their lives to uphold that
morality. They see themselves as the subjects of this god. They know that if they disobey they will
feel the consequences in this life and perhaps in the hereafter as well.
The adoption of a religion by a society is not a random process. Religions that are useful to
the leadership are more likely to be successful in gaining a hold within a society where control is the
organizing principal. The matter of the development and spread of religion is an evolutionary
process. Certain religions and certain parts of religions are selected out and pass out of existence.
Other religions are successful innovations and spread widely. Probably all religions add additional
beliefs over time. This latter evolutionary process can lead to changes in a religion that reflect the
interests of the more powerful members of the society. For example, among the herders the leader
has influence on which religion is promoted. A religion that legitimizes his control of the society
would be of more interest to a leader in a herding society than one that does not. Indeed, since
hunting and gathering societies preceded herding societies, persons who eventually switched to
herding for their livelihood were undoubtedly familiar with the world view and religion of the
hunters and gatherers. That this powerful faith in the oneness of all things was eventually erased by
146 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

life in the herding societies tells us that even our spiritual needs can be sometimes subverted to the
more practical demands of our existence. A very important lesson for us is that we must consciously
strive to question and gather evidence for our understanding of the world. If we do not, then we are
likely to believe in ideas that reflect the way we live rather than ideas that shape the way we live.

The Dark Side of Humanity

The influence of societal type on religion became positively bizarre after humans started
planting for their main source of food. We still have such societies located in remote regions such
as the Yanamamo people living far up the Amazon River. This story is very complex and well
beyond the space constraints that we have here. However, the short version is that as more societies
turned from hunting and gathering in order to provide for their increasing numbers land became
scarce--herding being practical only where planting was not. This led to disputes over territory
which were resolved through combat. Most societies turned to a simple form of planting called
horticulture, and the more technologically advanced societies evolved from such societies.
Eventually, the horticultural societies that practiced female infanticide gained a military advantage
by having more males than females in the limited population that their territory could support. The
need for aggressive males to defend them from the aggressive males of other societies produced a
culture that clearly privileged males. These cultures typically developed a religion of ancestor
worship and magic with a strong emphasis on masculine and military themes. For example, some
such religions stressed a ritual cannibalism in which a captured warrior was ritually murdered and
eaten as a means of supposedly ingesting his military prowess. Also, ritual procedures to protect
ones self from ghosts of vengeful ancestors are common place in some of these societies even into
the 21st century.
Our common assumption about such practices is that they are carried out by savages--that
is beings who are genetically and culturally inferior to ourselves. Yet, genetically we are almost
identical, and our culture is based upon different problems and needs than theirs. An in depth study
of these societies which we call land constrained Simple Horticultural societies would lead us to see
that as disgusting as their religion is to us, it is understandable how they tended to develop such
ideas. We would note that these appalling practices very often contributed to solving their problem
of how to live within their means. By practicing female infanticide they were not only protecting
themselves by getting a higher proportion of males within their societies but they were also holding
down on their total population growth. This is because with fewer women they would have fewer
children. To make this clear think what would happen if they biased their population to the other
extreme where there were all women except one male. The society would have one very happy but
exhausted male and a population that was exploding. Of course, the usual result of having more
males than females is that of keeping the population at a level that is sufficiently small so as not to
destroy the fertility of the land through excess food production. After all, their very existence
depends upon the fertility of the land that they control.
Nevertheless, the ancestor worship religions of the land constrained simple horticultural
societies were not useful to subsequent societal types, all of which had to stress conquest just as the
herding societies. Consequently, Western cultures recognize their own understanding of the world,
including religion, to be much more like that of the herders than the hunters and gatherers or the land
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 147

constrained simple horticulturalists. Indeed, the widespread Judeo/Christian/Muslim tradition has

it origins in Jewish herding societies.
The American colonies fought for their independence from a king who ruled by Devine right.
Various forms of Christianity and Islam justified the conquest of much of the world. Religion
legitimated the rule of various monarchs and added the threat of eternal damnation for disobedience
to those monarchs. Such religious ideas were again very practical in societies where control of land
for agricultural production was essential.
Finally, we would want to note one more thing about religion. To do so, we must remind
ourselves that the religions of the land constrained Simple Horticulturalists are very different from
other religions. They condone brutal torture of prisoners of war followed by ritual cannibalism, as
well as the supposed magical manipulation of malevolent spirits. It does not appear that all religions
are just different expressions of the Devine. Indeed, the religions of the land constrained simple
horticulturalists appear tame compared to, for example, the religious practices of the Aztecs. Yet,
an argument can be made that even for the Aztecs the cutting out of the beating heart of their
sacrificial victims was also influenced by their technological and ecological situation.7

Industrial Societies
Let us turn now to the most recent full change in societal type. This is the movement from
agrarian societies (where control of land is central) to the industrial societies (built on
manufacturing). England was the first society to make this most recent transition becoming an
industrial society around the 1750s.
During the period that we refer to as the industrial revolution, budding science stimulated
technological innovation which in turn contributed to increased economic productivity. A generally
accepted estimate is that once developed the average industrial society was about a 100 times more
productive per worker than its predecessor the agrarian society. This gave a level of productivity
sufficient to support a large middle class. Since business cannot be conducted effectively where a
government is exerting excessive control, a centralized form of government like a monarchy was not
suitable. Furthermore, the control of this production through business gave the business community
the power to rest control of the societies from the large land holders who had ruled before through
a monarch. Thus, both business and the more educated public (needed to make use of the new
technology and that constituted an expanded middle class) wanted a say in their governance. This
was conducive to a more democratic form of government than was possible under a monarch. Thus,
the industrial revolution made possible a great improvement in the quality of the economic and
political lives of most members of the industrial societies.
Like the societal-types before it, the industrial societies also developed a culture that reflected
the technological and social structural changes that produced it. Again, the basic technology of these
societies also influenced religion. Interestingly, all the early transitions to industrial societies took
place in Protestant societies. Even before Englands full transition to industrial societies, the
upcoming business communities in a number of European societies tended to embrace Protestantism.
They had found Catholicism to be stifling to the growth of manufacturing and business in general.
As the power of the new manufacturers grew with the success of their businesses, the power of the
land holding, largely Catholic, aristocrats declined. Overtime the business community significantly
influenced the theological principals upon which Protestantism was based. In other words the
148 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

industrial societies and Protestantism developed together through mutual reciprocal influence.8
Eventually, societies that had remained predominantly Catholic also industrialized as well.
Nevertheless, the Protestant emphasis on individualism was very important to freeing the new
industrialists from tradition and undermining the power of the monarchs who ruled the agrarian
societies. Thus, with the rise of the industrial societal-type there was a very significant movement
away from the emphasis on community that was central to Catholicism.

Information Societies?
Yet again we find ourselves undergoing tremendous change in the way our societies are
organized. In the U.S. we probably left the mature industrial society in the mid-1950s. The direction
in which we are headed is more often being referred to as an Information Society. No one knows
when a fully formed Information Society will exist, if ever. However, it is easy to say that we are
still many decades away. Still, achieving a viable form of such a society would almost undoubtedly
be accomplished only by protecting the ecological systems upon which it is based. Thus, one
dimension of its necessary form will include sustainable resource use and production. Obviously,
to make this happen will require an attentiveness to interconnections, that is, relationships far
beyond how we thought about such things in the industrial societies. Extreme individualism will
not likely be widespread in a successful information society.
There are many impediments to reaching a viable Information Society. One of them involves
an extension of what made the industrial societies so successful--increased productivity. Indeed,
productivity is still increasing. One of the major blocks to full recovery from the Great Recession
of 2008 is that increases in the productivity of existing workers has in many cases made up the
shortfall of those workers who were laid off. Not being needed, they were not hired back.
Consequently, unemployment remains high. But is this just a continuation of a trend that will lead
eventually to a significant proportion of eligible workers either being under-employed in part-time
positions or unemployed? Clearly, large numbers of unskilled workers are no longer needed.
Almost every worker needs some skill set. Obviously, intensified education would help with
developing skills. However, if fewer workers are actually needed, just having more workers with
skills will not in the long run solve the problem. We may have to re-invent what it means to have
a meaning full life without paid employment. Or we may have to expand what we can do for pay.
Either way the challenge is both great and almost assuredly will involve cooperative community
efforts based upon valuing human beings rather than the acquisition of things. And, of course,
values are philosophically or religiously based.
So what will be the predominant religious emphasis in the Information Societies? Will it be
a waning of religious ideas as we see in Europe today? Or will it be a stronger emphasis on religions
that embrace interconnections among people and among people and the ecological systems upon
which their societies rest? It would seem that some philosophy or religion stressing interconnection
will be needed or the subsequent societal form would not be successful. That is, it will be necessary
to have some sense of the importance or sacredness of relationships between ourselves and our
environment and among each other. Without such a vision, we would only be using more advanced
information technology to enhance the exploitive relationships which now characterize life on this
planet.
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 149

An information society will be no heaven on earth, yet neither will it be anything like the
transition which we are going through today. The conflicts we see today over so many issues such
as how we will define masculinity, whether or not we will accept persons with a same sex sexual
preference, blaming minorities for our problems, the tremendous influence of transnational
corporations on our governments and our lives, and many more difficulties are problems of the
transition. That is, they are problems of the transition from the industrial societies and the agrarian
societies to information societies or perhaps even a world level information society. The breakdown
of the cultures of the Industrial Societies has led to wildly varying attempts at replacements for how
we are to understand the world. Many of these issues will have to be resolved in order for us to be
able to build a truly sustainable society and thus a viable form of an information society. Thus, these
issues are a product of the transition to such a societal type not a reflection of its organization.
Most important will be necessary modifications of our capitalist-market economy and the
transnational corporations which are so influential within it. Because this seems unlikely to some
observers, they doubt the possibility of an information society and predict that our future will be
nothing more than a sophisticated form of an industrial society. Yet, we have changed so greatly
from the industrial form of organization and the destruction of the Earths ecosystem has been so
great, that we will be changing significantly from that form of organization. As we noted in Chapter
II, even conservative fundamentalist Christianity has begun to use a perspective involving
relationships in what they call good stewardship with respect to the environment.9

Coming Full Circle?

Indeed, most of us will have to come not really full circle from our roots in hunting and
gathering societies, but something akin to it. As we have already noted, our most ancient ancestors
had a spiritual attachment to the environment. Put more accurately, they likely felt that they were
a part of the Earth and indeed the cosmos as a whole. This is rather a different feeling from a
concern with ones surroundings or environment. To be a part of all spirit is to lack an environment.
That which we call an environment is in a fundamental way a part of self for the hunters and
gatherers. As technological development took us away from hunting and gathering it changed our
conception of spirituality as well. Today most people see the world more as herders do. Our
traditional religions were largely formed in agrarian societies where another form of control was
central--control of land instead of a herd. Here religious justification of the Devine Right of Kings
functioned much the same as religious legitimation of the authority of the leader in herding societies.
We have inherited the male dominant enforcer of rules conception of the Devine from those agrarian
societies as it has persisted through the industrial societies with some modifications brought on by
Protestantism. As we move toward an information society, many people will persist in clinging to
this inheritance just as the Goddesses were still worshiped well into the beginnings of the agrarian
societies. Yet, for a viable form of an information society to develop it is likely that some level of
reversal of this process will have to begin.
A deep reverence for the web of life will have to become more commonplace. This in turn
is a way of thinking that has similarities with the ancient idea of Mother Earth. We have already
seen this form of thinking in what is called deep ecology introduced by the philosopher Arne Nace
in the 1970s and also in much of the work known as eco-feminism.
150 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

One word of caution. The need for a perspective compatible with the idea of Mother Earth
should not serve as pretext for male-bashing. Some persons could puff up with pride at the thought
that had they lived, for example, in a herding society that they would still have embraced the idea
of Mother Earth and promoted justice and equality. Such a thought is noting more than the soaring
imagination of someone quite ignorant of the circumstances prevailing in such a society where
military control was central to ones existence. The flower tossing, love and kisses throwing hippy
herder would not just have been out of place. He or she would either have been killed or more likely
taken as someones slave. One must understand, that even in such societies where women were
relegated to being near helpless and often abused servants of men, it was still in the interest of most
women to be surrounded by very aggressive, highly militaristic men of their own society and culture.
This predilection, as odd as it may at first seem, was usually infinitely preferable to being taken by
warriors from another society to be even more brutally abused and worst of all to see their children
abused or killed. The replacement of the conception of Mother Earth by dower vengeful male deities
may seem to some of us today like a bad choice that people made in the past. However, they did not
have the choices then that we do now. Invoking the blame game at this point is not only to show our
lack of understanding of societal evolution, but worse it is to disrupt the consensus building efforts
that must predominate today.
That some environmentalists have come nearly full circle in their spirituality is quite
intriguing in an evolutionary sense. This is doubly interesting when we note the extremes to which
the Federal Government has gone through the Bureau of Indian Affairs to eradicate Native American
religion. Extreme efforts have been put forth to make Christians of Native Americans. Now it
seems that Christianity itself may be undergoing some changes at least in the minds of some
Christians. The call of the Old Testament to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the Earth was
emphasized by most Christians throughout the industrial era. This was a very comforting religious
legitimation of what the industrialists wished to do in order to make more money. This Old
Testament idea is now being challenged by the New Testament stress on being a good steward of
that which, presumably, God has given. This latter point of view has some considerable
compatibility with Native American thought and will likely allow greater cooperation between
Christians and practitioners of Native American religion. As in every religion, we tend to emphasize
interpretations of our own religion with which we are comfortable in our present circumstances. The
agenda of many persons today as throughout the industrial era is to use religion to justify their
attempts to control the environment for their own gain. Yet, as noted above there are also many
religious persons who are accentuating the reciprocal relationship between humans and ecological
systems. Thus, at least for some persons there has been a spiritual coming nearly full circle from our
hunting and gathering meaning in life to acceptance of dominance and control and now back again
to ideas of oneness.

So as we can see, the fundamental way in which our societies are organized has a very
significant influence on the way most people understand life and what they see as scared. We ignore
that influence at our peril. This is the case in much of the Muslim world today where the debate of
how Islam can be practiced in technologically advanced societies is one that is only in its infancy.
We all have a tendency to believe that we see the world clearly and that many of our problems come
from the inability of others to see as clearly as we do. Yet, how accurate is our thinking when we
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 151

do not consider the influences on our ideas with respect to understanding, meaning, and control that
come from the way our societies are organized? Clearly, the evolution of societal organization has
influenced our conceptions of understanding and meaning, and given us new means of control all
of which influence the self and our conceptions of the scared. Control especially has also
enormously increased our numbers with consequences for the Earth as an ecological system.

People, People, People

Demographic Problems
It is clear to everyone that human societies have evolved to greater and greater complexity
of technology. A major consequence of such change is the ability to support much larger populations
than simpler societal forms, including even the very large agrarian societies. Yet, the phenomenal
growth of societal populations within the mature industrial societies is presently being dwarfed in
the postindustrial societies. If such populations were supportable, this would not be a problem, but
this is likely not the case. The viability of the entire ecosystem of the planet is threatened. Such
growth is also a source of major problems for individual societies. Every person in the world is
effected, as we shall see through the following examination of the demographic dimension of the
population component of sociocultural systems.
The distribution of people into various populations and the characteristics of those
populations, such as the total number in the population, can greatly influence our lives. It might at
first seem that the growth in populations in other countries would not be of any great concern to
ourselves. A moments thought about the matter would lead us to quickly change our minds. The
problems of other people can generate problems for us as well. Take, for example, the present
tremendous growth in the populations of many technologically less-developed nations. These large
numbers include many persons willing to work for very little compensation relative to what a worker
needs to survive in an industrial or postindustrial society. Corporations seeking to cut labor costs
have been moving jobs from the latter to these overpopulated areas since the 1960s. This has had
a profoundly debilitating effect on the standard of living for millions of people with modest skills
living in industrial and postindustrial societies.10 At first it increased the incomes of other persons
who were highly skilled, although by the beginning of the twenty-first century many of them began
to suffer as well. Rapidly increasing populations also contribute to political instability, as it becomes
difficult to educate and provide work for these growing numbers of young people. Leaders in the
industrial and postindustrial societies may feel their interests sufficiently threatened by such
instability that they attempt to intervene militarily. The lives of average persons or the lives of
persons they care about are put in danger through military service in such an intervention. Again,
one may feel the brunt of what appears to be someone elses population problem.
Genetics, including race, is only one dimension of the Biological Members Component of
sociocultural systems. The demographic dimension can tell us much as well, such as where the
152 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

members of socially constructed

races are located geographically.
Demography refers to the study of
the distribution of people by
attributes and geography. People
have many different attributes and
are found in many different
geographical circumstances. For
example, it makes a considerable
difference in the organization of a
society if most of the population is
rural or if most of it is urban.
An example of the
distribution of people by attributes
is the distribution in any country by
gender. In other words, knowing
the proportion of males to females
is important. Consider Russia, for
example. At the end of World War
II, it was even more important to be
a male in Russia than before the war. So many men had died in the war that the sex ratio (the ratio
of males to females) was greatly biased toward more females. A man had a much wider choice of
companions of the opposite sex than did a woman. The same is true for the upper age brackets in
the United States today--more women than men. The present sex ratios in the upper age brackets
may change somewhat, though, due to lifestyle changes. Youve come a long way baby!--so the
sexist commercial for female cigarettes proclaimed in the 1970s.11 You too can now smoke and
develop lung cancer. Women have been smoking in significant numbers since the 1960s.
Consequently, we are seeing a nasty increase in deaths from lung cancer for females. Because of this
increase, the sex ratio in the upper age brackets may not be quite so skewed in the near future.
Age, as well, is another important attribute for which demographers calculate distributions.
In Japan today people are living longer, while fewer babies are being born than in the past. If this
trend continues, eventually, there will not be enough people of working age to support the elderly.
Perhaps the most important demographic issue in the world today is the tremendous growth
of the population of the world. This growth is taking place in the nonindustrial countries. It not only
has led to overcrowding and a strain on the food supply, but it has produced many secondary
problems. Deforestation is one of these. People cut down the trees in their vicinity for their cooking
fires. People in rain forests burn great patches for planting. Because of this process, carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere has increased. In turn, the Earths ability to produce more oxygen and to absorb
excess carbon dioxide has decreased.12 This increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, in turn,
has contributed to the greenhouse effect that produces global warming, which portends major
problems for many parts of the world.13 Population growth, thus, contributes to environmental
problems, which in turn generate health problems and problems in making a living. One of the most
overlooked consequences is the political unrest of people who find it more difficult to even find a
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 153

job, let alone one with enough compensation to allow them to survive. Industrialization, of course,
also makes a major contribution to all these problems. Nevertheless, population growth by itself is
a major factor in the above and in many other problems.
Why have the nonindustrial societies grown at such a tremendous rate? The answer relates
to good people. Good-hearted people from the industrial societies found the high death rates in other
countries to be intolerable. They knew that even with simple medications and simple hygienic
practices they could make great strides in lowering the death rate. They gave money and expertise
through various agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO). Of course, persons in
the preindustrial societies also actively sought the knowledge and the technology of the industrial
societies to improve the health of their people.
Good-hearted people from the The results were dramatic and seemingly
industrial societies found the rewarding. The death rate around the world
dropped significantly. Eventually, however, this
high death rates in other has not turned out to be such good news, as
countries to be intolerable. noted above. Although birth rates in these countries
have dropped, they have not dropped nearly as
much as the death rates. Of course, total population size is simply inflow (births and immigration)
minus the outflow (deaths and emigration). Migration is limited because it depends in part on the
acceptance of a host country to receive the migrant. The principal source of growth, then, is more
births than deaths. However, the United States is an exception because of its still large immigration.
Knowing that a child or anyone else is dying somewhere is difficult for many of us in the
industrialized world. We become doubly distressed when simple medical care or health practices
could save a life. We have been generous in supplying assistance. However, what we have begun
to realize is that these problems are systems problems. One cannot lower the death rate and ignore
the birth rate. As we began to understand these connections, we attempted to give assistance in
lowering the birth rate. Unfortunately, lowering the birth rate of a nonindustrial country is much
more difficult than lowering its death rate.

The Demographic Transition One cannot lower the

The agrarian societies (the large preindustrial
societies) had high death rates and slightly higher birth death rate
rates producing long term slow growth. The lowering of and ignore the
the death rate and birth rate in the industrial societies
is called the demographic transition. Such a transition
birth rate.
from the agrarian demographic pattern of births and deaths to the industrial pattern takes many
decades. In the long term it often produces no growth or even produces a population decrease.
Diagram 7.1 shows the stages of the demographic transition. In the first stage both birth rates
and death rates are high. This is the condition of the agrarian societies before industrialization.
Stage two begins with the arrival of improved health care and shows a drop in the death rate. Later,
at stage three, the birth rate begins to decrease because of changes in the social structure leading to
smaller desired family size. As the social structure changes to an industrial pattern, children become
greater economic burdens. Children need an education to get jobs in an industrial social structure.
154 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

This means paying for their education for many years, rather than having them working and
contributing to the family income from a very young age. Furthermore, improved sanitation and
N ote: R ates are average annual grow th rates for each decade 1950-60 through 2010-2020.
health care mean more children
are likely to live to be adults.
Thus, parents no longer need to
have such large families to
insure some living sons to
provide care for them in their
old age. During stages two and
three, the difference between the
birth rate and the death rate
leads to rapid growth in the size
of the population. Not until
stage four, when birth rates are
more equal with the death rate,
has the growth rate returned to
its low historical level. Indeed,
until the agrarian societies
become more industrialized,
there may be little lowering of
the birth rate. Likely, this is
because of the pressure for
Source: Table A-1 and U .S. Bureau of the C ensus, International D ata Base. smaller families that comes with
the completion of th e
Diagram 7.2
demographic transition, itself a
product of industrialization.14

Exponential Growth--Adding Billions

The agrarian societies of Asia, South America, and Central America, as well as the advanced
horticultural societies of Africa, are often called the developing nations or third world. Some
are in transition to the industrial type. Perhaps, a few will skip this stage and transform directly to
information societies. Nearly all, however, are presently in stage two or three of the demographic
transition. Consequently, their growth rates are tremendous, as shown in Diagram 7.2. The
comparison in this diagram with the so-called More Developed Countries (MDC: gray shading)
shows a major difference. Clearly, the bulk of the huge growth in the population of the planet is
coming from the Less Developed Countries (LDC: black shading).
Another way to understand the extent of this growth is to examine Diagram 7.3. It took tens
of thousands of years for humans to reach the 1904 number of one billion people inhabiting the
planet at once. However, population growth has greatly changed with developing nations
technologically induced drop in death rates. In consequence, time between the addition of successive
billions in population numbers became ever smaller until a slight increase very recently. Adding a
sixth billion took a mere twelve years! The latest projection for the seventh, according to Diagram
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 155

7.3., will take all of fourteen years.15 The good news is that global population growth seems to have
peaked. Adding each additional billion will continue to take longer until we are no longer growing.

A major problem with additional growth is the possibility of exceeding the carrying capacity
of the Earths ecosystem. One estimate is that the Earth could sustain six billion people without
permanently degrading its resources. When we exceed the carrying capacity of an ecosystem it will
over time be able to support fewer and fewer members of a population, as it further deteriorates. We
desperately hope that this is an erroneous estimate. Not only have we already exceeded this limit,
but we will add many billions in the future before we can bring our population under control.

Young Populations Are Growing Populations

Many people find it difficult to understand that even if birth rates were to drop immediately
to only two children per family, population would continue to grow. To understand the reason for
this, one should note that the average birth rate for replacement is 2.1 children per family in the
industrial societies. That is, if
the average family size
included 2.1 children this
number of births would just
offset the number of deaths.
This then would be a stable
population with no growth or
population loss. Thus, an
average of slightly more than
two children per family would
give a stable population. This
is because not everyone lives
to adulthood. Of those who
do, not all marry, nor do all
marriages lead to children.
Even if the birth rate were to
drop to slightly less than
replacement, the worlds
Diagram 7.3 population would continue to
grow. Of course, under these circumstances it would eventually cease to grow. Yet, that would be
many decades from now.
One can most clearly understand the reason for this seemingly contradictory state of affairs
graphically. An examination of Diagram 7.4 shows the nature of the problem. At the top of the
diagram is an age and sex distribution of the population of an average developing agrarian society.
Each of the horizontal lines represents a five-year age group starting with infants age 0-4 in the
bottom most block. Children 5-9 are in the next block, then children 10-14, and so on. The width
of each block tells us the number of people in that block. The narrower, gray blocks represent the
population for 1996 with the black blocks representing the changes projected for the year 2020. The
blocks on the right side represent females and the left side males. Through this graphic
156 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

representation, one can obtain an image of the distribution of the population in a society. This
picture, as the Chinese saying tells us, is worth a thousand words.
It is easy to see that the youngest age bracket numbers greatly exceed the population of the
age brackets representing the parents of those children. Basically, the populations of most developing
countries today still have this form of population distribution. Thus, if the children living today have
only one child each, when they reach maturity the population, as a whole, will continue to grow
somewhat. This is because there are already so many children. There are so many children because
their parents had more than two children per family. When the parents and other older people die,
this will decrease the population a little. However, since there are fewer of them than the children,
this decrease in population
will be less than the increase
resulting from their
grandchildren. This would
continue for many decades
until the children born when
the birthrate was low reach
old age. Provided that the
birthrate remained low, the
shape of the distribution
would eventually be more like
a column than a pyramid. It
would then be similar to the
industrial nations in which the
number of children born is
about the same as the number
of persons in the oldest age
brackets. Thus, over a
number of decades this would
gradually produce a nearly
stable population, that is,
where there would be
virtually no growth. Over
time, the worlds population
will gradually come to look
more like the bottom of
Diagram 7.4.
A comparison of the
top of Diagram 7.4 with the
bottom of Diagram 7.4 may
make this point clearer. The
bottom of Diagram 7.4 is the Comparison of Industrializing With Industrial Age Structures
population distribution of a Diagram 7.4
typical industrial society.
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 157

Note that the small percentage of children creates a near stable population size for these societies.
However, when we find a pyramid-shaped population distribution like that of the less-developed
nations, we know that the society has a rapidly growing population. A young population is a
growing population.
Many people think that protection of the environment from population growth will come with
industrialization and eventual movement through the demographic transition. However, industrial
people place much more of a burden on the environment than preindustrial people. Indeed, the
average person in the United States is fifty times more of a burden on the environment than the
average villager from a preindustrial society. Thus, a cloud hangs over the industrial solution to
cutting world population growth. Can the Earths ecosystem stand the pollution and resource
depletion of additional billions of industrial people?

The Good News and the Bad News in Population Growth

The good news in population growth is that the growth rate for the developing nations has
declined significantly in recent decades. Looking back to Diagram 7.2 , one can note the line graph
is distinct from the bar graph showing total population. The top line shows the percent increase in
population per year of the developing countries. This growth rate peaked around 1965 at a little
more than 2.4 percent per year and has declined ever since. It was only a little more than 1.6 percent
in 1995 and is projected to decline further.
The bad news has two dimensions. First, the worlds population is still increasing, and it will
take many decades before this growth finally comes to a halt. In part, this results from the temporary
growth accompanying young populations even when their birth rate declines. Second, urbanization
and industrialization have accompanied the growth of a world market economy. These processes
have produced tens of millions of more middle-class, industrial-thinking people. Such people tend
to have fewer children, but they live a more comfortable life at the expense of the environment, as
in the United States.
There is also an interesting aspect to population developments in more-developed countries.
Even though industrial populations are greater burdens on the environment than agrarian villagers,
the size of the presently existing industrialized nations is declining. Most of Europe is declining in
population. The United States is still growing but only through immigration. So far it seems that
postindustrial people have on average fewer children than the replacement number. For now, this
trend helps buy time since fewer people born in a nation puts less strain on the environment. It will
be interesting to see whether in the distant future this trend itself becomes recognized as a social
problem. For example, if fewer people are born, will they be able to take care of the large numbers
of elderly persons found in such societies?

We learned in Chapter III that the Biological Members Component of social systems is
composed of people as symbol users and their domesticated animals--the genetic dimension. Also,
we now understand that the second dimension of this component tells us how those beings are
distributed by attributes and in geography. We must keep the two dimensions of this component
clearly in mind when we wish to examine societies from the systems perspective. Far too often
people wish to invoke race (a perversion of the genetic dimension) and ignore demographic issues
which are far more difficult to understand compared to finding bad guys. The biological members
158 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

component is particularly important today as world population growth is made up predominately of

people who have been treated as inferior races in the past.
This chapter, by completing our examination of the Biological Members Component, has
allowed us to examine the evolution of human societies in terms of all four of their components. By
applying the concepts of understanding, meaning, and control to past societies we have gained
insight into the creation of great inequality such as in Herding Societies and Agrarian Societies.
Now equipped with these tools, we must dig deeper into our present day situation. We begin this
in the next chapter by looking at how we are controlled and who gets the rewards of our labor.

NAFTA: Joining Apples and Oranges

Rapid world population growth complicates our existing problems and leads to new
problems. Mexico is particularly interesting in this respect because of the formation of the Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The prospects for this
alliance are all too often viewed from a perspective generated in an industrial society. This makes
sense as the leadership in all three of these societies is industrial in outlook. However, despite the
industrial viewpoint of some of its leaders, Mexico is only recently an industrial nation and still
shares many of the attributes of pre-industrial societies. It has many problems carried over from its
pre-industrial day, including a major population problem. As the U.S. has moved further toward
being an information society, it has lost a huge proportion of its industrial jobs. This has led to lower
paid employment for many workers who have had to shift from industrial jobs to service sector jobs.
This impoverished segment of the U.S. population is already in competition to a considerable degree
with low-cost Mexican labor. The North American Free Trade Agreement seems to have
exacerbated this problem. It has proven difficult under this alliance to benefit the middle and lower
classes of these nations and not just the upper classes who clearly benefit. A major reason for the
difficulty is that the treaty is between two mature industrial nations and one very recently
industrialized nation with many remaining agrarian societal attributes, including an incredible
population problem.
Ross Perot has spoken of a great sucking sound as people in the U.S. hear their jobs going
south of the border. This process had already begun without NAFTA and has increased with the
agreement because of two factors. One, in a society with a significant population increase, those
laborers who are not in unions will work for increasingly lower wages over time. This lowering of
wages is due to competition resulting from population increases glutting the labor market with too
many workers. People without work, and there will be many of them in a rapidly growing
population, will work for almost nothing. Second, maintaining unionization in a country with a
rapidly increasing population is very difficult because competition for jobs is so intense. Nonunion
workers eager for any kind of job can easily replace union members striking for better wages or
working conditions. Without unions to protect the interests of workers, it is easy for management
to disregard even the minimum needs of workers. Workers in a society with a higher standard of
living must earn more. Also, they demand safer and healthier working conditions than nonunionized
workers in an overpopulated agrarian society demand. Consequently, management can often make
 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF 159

more profit (for production that mostly requires low-skilled jobs) by moving production facilities
to societies in the midst of rapid population increase. This has already occurred for tens of millions
of jobs that moved out of the United States to many other countries.16 Thus, in certain industries
where large amounts of low-skilled labor are needed, jobs south of the border are going to be very
enticing to management north of the border.
Clearly, the history of NAFTA has shown a massive movement of jobs to Mexico since its
signing. History has also shown enormous health and pollution problems for the Mexican workers
and residents in areas near increased factory development. What is lacking in this treaty and in
similar proposed treaties is any real consideration for the lives of the displaced workers or the new
workers.
At best, it is said that new workers in countries outside of the U.S. have benefitted by having
jobs that pay relatively higher wages to what they received before. This is true; although there is
seldom any mention of the health problems they face from uncontrolled pollution problems.
NAFTA has not effectively addressed such pollution problems. It simply allows manufacturers to
move from areas where pollution is somewhat controlled to where it is not. In doing so, producers
are able to eliminate the costs they incurred from reducing pollution in the industrial country where
the jobs originated. This may increase their profits and/or allow them to be competitive in a world
market where their competitors do not pay for the pollution effects of their production either.
As for the displaced U.S. workers, it is often said that they should upgrade their skills to be
competitive in the world market. However, little is ever done to help provide such training, and
there are far fewer jobs available than there are displaced workers.
Thus, trade treaties like NAFTA are oriented toward the interests of transnational
corporations. Such treaties take advantage of the cheap labor available in rapidly growing pre-
industrial societies. Concern for the general populace of the these societies is not even an
afterthought. It simply does not seem to exist at all.

ENDNOTES

1. Statistically there are three measures of central tendency or averages. The datum reported in this
passage is technically a median. However, at this point in understanding human societies the reader need
not be concerned with these distinctions. The lay conception of average is sufficient to understand this
passage.
2. Turnbull (1968).
3. In other words, we are arguing here that sharing and equality arise in hunting and gathering societies
through an evolutionary process.
4. Venus of Willendorf, from Austria. c. 25,000 - 20,000 BCE Limestone, height 4 3/8" (11.1 cm).
Naturhistorischesmuseum, Vienna
160 THE SOCIETAL CONTEXT OF SELF

5. Lenski and Lenski, 1982: 91.

6. Herding societies as they are highly militaristic are almost invariably led by males.
7. Harris (1977).
8. Tawney (1998).
9. Pibel (2005: 9). Recall our mention in Chapter II of the Call to Civic Responsibility launched at the
March 2005 annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals. This is an umbrella organization
of fifty-two Christian fundamentalist denominations representing about thirty million members. This effort
to protect the environment demonstrates at least a modest emphasis on interconnectedness from a source
many of us might not have expected.
10. Of course, cheap labor in other parts of the world makes it possible to have cheaper goods, even for those
persons who have lost their jobs to cheap labor. However, with replacement jobs that pay less or no job at
all, even cheap goods cannot always be affordable.
11. The advertisement treats women as not full adults by calling them babies. This is comparable to a black
man being called a boy(Robert St. Clair, personal communication August 2002, University of Louisville).
12. Upper-class ranchers clear the forests also.
13. Until recently when China surpassed it, the U.S. was the largest contributor to CO2 pollution in the world.
Because of the social construction of reality, it is easy to forget this fact and blame all the problems caused
by the greenhouse effect on others, principally Brazil.
14. Sometimes population increase is used as an excuse to cover up other problems, such as improper
management of resources or movement of excessive wealth to the upper class. Nevertheless, population
growth in its own right is already causing significant problems with more to come if it cannot be brought
under control. Writers, such as Simon (1977) and Kasun (1988) who argue that the Earth can support very
large populations, may be correct that low estimates of total population may not be as dangerous as first
thought, but they have clearly overstated their case.
15. The population of the world reached six billion in October of 1999.
16. Bluestone and Harrison (1982).