Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

by Daron Acemoğlu

The emergence of political elites most likely created the transition first to sedentary life and then to farming. As the Natufian sites show, sedentary life did not necessarily mean farming and herding. People could settle down but still make their living by hunting and gathering. After all, the Long Summer made wild crops more bountiful, and hunting and gathering was likely to have been more attractive. Most people may have been quite satisfied with a subsistence life based on hunting and gathering that did not require a lot of effort. Even technological innovation doesn’t necessarily lead to increased agricultural production. In fact, it is known that a major technological innovation, the introduction of the steel axe among the group of Australian Aboriginal peoples known as Yir Yoront, led not to more intense production but to more sleeping, because it allowed subsistence requirements to be met more easily, with little incentive to work for more.