Hunter-Gatherer Societies: A Comparative Perspective

What was it like to live in a hunter and gatherer society? John Gowdy covers all of the differences between our two societies. Hunter and gatherers are better with thinking about the earth and not taking too much. They don’t want everything, because they can’t take it. Everyone is of the same class so no one is above anyone else. Overall they were a much better society then we are today.

In Gowdy’s paper he talks mainly about the differences between what we think is the “economic man” and what the man really is. He starts out with how they spend their leisure time, which consisted of eating, drinking and socializing. What we think to be human nature is false. Humans no think that it has to do with being competitive and acquisitive, wanting to make himself better. Scarcity is a big problem now, nowadays we want, and want, and that leads to everything getting to a point where things are scarce and hard to find. Hunter gatherers didn’t want and want because they were always on the move.

They had to be able to move around with the weather and animals. They didn’t necessarily “own” anything to themselves, they would share almost everything. When it came to distributing food they were very particular about how they distributed it. They made sure that everyone got the same amount, nowadays how much you get depends on how much you contribute to society. Usually today a person with more education gets more money, hunter gatherers got the same amount where they earned it or not. We are told that more is always better than whereas hunter gatherers always had very little technology, but they lived happy egalitarian