{"id":11916,"date":"2025-11-17T19:27:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T23:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/caveman-economics\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T19:27:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T23:27:56","slug":"caveman-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/caveman-economics\/","title":{"rendered":"Caveman economics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Profit<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

Marshall Sahlins and others showed that early hunter gatherer societies generally didn’t work very hard. Two or three hours a day were spent gathering food, and the rest of the time was for social engagement and family.<\/p>\n

With all the technology and innovation that has followed, why do we work four times as hard?<\/p>\n

One reason is leverage. The tools we have offer apparently bigger prizes in exchange for the next unit of incremental labor. There wasn’t a point in working harder to get more berries, because you already had enough berries.<\/p>\n

And the second reason is that the systems that created our culture have their own needs in mind. Landlords don’t provide housing as a public service–they do it to make a profit. And the wedding-industrial complex makes happy brides as a byproduct of making a profit. They’re the side effect, not the point.<\/p>\n

Systems use status and affiliation within culture to motivate individuals to play along.<\/p>\n

When it’s working as we hope, the system of systems produces possibility, civility and achievement. It increases health, connection and even joy.<\/p>\n

But no one is in charge of these systems, and, especially as they become concentrated and powerful, they often fail to produce the outcomes we might be hoping for.<\/p>\n

Many are intransigent and sticky, and they work hard to remain invisible. When we see the systems, we have a chance to do something about them. The hard part is organizing the community to push back before the new normal becomes permanent.<\/p>\n

\"Profit<\/a>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marshall Sahlins and others showed that early hunter gatherer societies generally didn’t work very hard. Two or three hours a day were spent gathering food, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-purpose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parmaks.com\/Resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}