There is no space in this website to track the development of farming communities over 10,000 years from the big farms, small farms, tenant farms, big traders, small traders, unemployed or casual labourers etc. to the vast consumer society we have nowadays – but it is worth remembering that we are where we are today because our most basic need is (obviously) food.
And it is also worth remembering that different classes in society in our modern world are a result of hundreds if not thousands of years of unfairness and injustice.
The subsequent anger and fear, and, indeed, disingenuous game-playing that are constant companions of unfairness and injustice (that I referred to in the Chapter on Power and Control in Society) are largely due to differences in class.
And class difference exists throughout the world and in every nation state. It straddles East and West, North and South, religious fundamentalism, caste systems, developed and underdeveloped world – and is endemic in what we call the democracies of the Western World.
Hunter-gatherers are truly exceptional in this respect!