Social anthropology on how we seek and use energy (or “work with purpose”)

Review of Work: A DEEP HISTORY, FROM THE STONE AGE TO THE AGE OF ROBOTS By James Suzman

Suzman believes that traditional economics concentrates too much on scarcity, not just as an issue but as the defining condition of humanity. To move beyond this conception, which he argues is an anachronism fatally entwined with modern capitalist ideology, he looks to history in the very long term, beginning not just with man but life itself.

Unfortunately, the book starts with physics, in particular entropy, i.e. the second law of thermodynamics whereby energy dissipates as it spreads itself uniformly on a galactic time scale. Perhaps it is my stubborn practicality, but I have always found generalizations about its relevance to real-world problems somewhat ridiculous. Suzman informs us that life (a highly energy-organized phenomenon) actually contributes to entropy as it expends energy, hence is “likely” to occur in the universe in order to advance entropy. Uh, OK. I just find this kind of abstraction as ridiculous as it is useless – and it serves as a constant reference through the book.

After getting through the animal kingdom and their entropies, the book hugely improves once it comes to us hominids. Suzman goes through 4 distinct human stages of energy use – or purposeful work, as he puts it. First, there are the hunter-gatherers, who lived in essentially non-hierarchical societies, living to fill their immediate needs, usually benefitting from a lot of leisure time. They lived in the present, often in bands of less than 200, so everyone knew each other in the community. This was the form of life during the overwhelming majority of humanity’s existence. To support these mainstream ideas, Suzman talks a great deal about a well known contemporary hunter-gatherer tribe, the Ju’hoansi bushmen. He may well be right, but does not add any caveats about how hunter-gatherers today may differ from those of our collective past, in particular as having been pushed into the least hospitable locations.

Second, there is the Neolithic discovery of agriculture. While enhancing the living standards of many, farm goods also led to significant surpluses, which entailed the creation of hierarchies in the form of governing aristocracies, a longer time horizon, and eventually unprecedented  demographic growth, essentially erasing food gains. Beyond the downsides, such as extremely unpleasant work in the fields and laboriously grinding grains, to mention a few, this lifestyle took millenia to gain widespread acceptance. As Suzman argues, this was far from an undisguised blessing, which may explain why this transition took so long.

Third, the industrial revolution relied extensively on chemical energy, replacing water mills as well as human and animal muscle for work tasks. After a period of very primitive working conditions during early industrialization and rebellion, e.g., Luddites attempting to destroy industrial looms in favor of cottage looms, living standards improved. Obviously, this is one of the most significant developments in the history of mankind. By adding to the food supply with mechanized farming and fertilizers, it has enabled human populations to increase nearly 8-fold since 1800.

Fourth, with industrialization came rapid urbanization: huge agglomerations that contained thousands, then millions, of inhabitants, reaching upwards of 90% of the world population today. This aggravated the tendencies to alienation and isolation as well as created extremely complex logistical challenges – keeping everyone fed, with sufficient energy, etc. Moreover, it required the development of massive supporting bureaucracies to make sure everything worked. Here, Suzman has a bit of a hobby horse regarding jobs that he thinks are useless, in particular the university administrators that academics love to whale on.  

That is about it for the ideas. In terms of overall conception, for those already interested in these issues it is often very banal; I learned nothing particularly surprising or useful, even as it is a great pleasure to read as a review of mainstream ideas and written with impeccable style. The closest thing to a revelation would be the critique of economics as a social science of scarcity, but the book simply did not go in sufficient depth to be useful to me (as a professional writer on business and economics). So nothing new, at least for me, except perhaps in a few of the details.

If you want cutting edge social anthropology, I would suggest the Dawn of Everything. One thing that I felt was seriously missing from the book was the psychology of working and how it evolved, in particular as a source of personal identity in this urban-industrial age. Again, if mentioned a few times, the depth was lacking.

I recommend this book for undergraduates or engaged high school students. It offers an interesting synthesis – nothing particularly new, but a worthwhile intellectual journey.

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