The First Technological Revolution and Its Lessons

This article discusses the social ramifications of moving from either a hunter gatherer society and/or a horticultural society to an agricultural society, and the social ramifications found by moving into a more technological direction. Mankind could not be persuaded, before technology, to follow any kind of leadership because each individual would provide for himself/herself and any surplus would be shared as gifts to others in the tribe as a form of insurance so that if that individual was in need, the rule of reciprocity would prove to be a survival technique. These were the early days when man learned to tame fire. Later, ideas would lead to technological advances, giving man the ability to control water, which meant no longer did mankind have to depend on seasonal rains or careful planning in flood plains to grow crops. Instead, he could become tied to the land and bring the water he needed for his crops, livestock, and his own survival to the land where he needed it. With this technological development, came a great deal of surplus, and the necessity to protect it. Mankind not only became very superstitious around the development of this technology, as they started to pray for the well being of their crops and livestock, for bountiful harvests, and protection from those who would just move in and take it. Eventually and swiftly there was a necessity for a permanent army to protect the surplus, and a form of government to turn to to resolve these problems. This gave rise to the chieftains, where family lines with the notion of direct lineage from the divine moved in and took claim of the land and its people and all that was created of it. Permanent armies could then be established, and the economy could then be controlled by redistributing goods and retaining surplus.
This technological development gave way to this day, our newest form of slavery, where we must work to obtain money to buy food, clothes, and shelter so that we might go back to work and repeat the cycle over and over again, without a true grasp of what it is we are doing. As our technology moves more into information preservation, and we find other societies to provide our food for us, when our economy begins to fail as it is now the division between the haves and the have nots becomes quite apparent. This society, on a world level, is equal to slavery as its construct leaves individuals with nothing of our own for all we've toiled. There's no inheritance for our children as we are taxed excessively. This article highlights an evolutionary process of the social aspects of the cost of technology. What it does not say is that there needs to be revolution to balance out the power from our governments back into the hands of the people to promote a more egalitarian existence, so that we are not ruled by superstition, fear, and financial isolation brought forth by imposed social classes.