Economic Systems

Foraging

• Foraging is an economic system characterized by hunting and gathering that relies on minimal manipulation of the environment. It emphasizes social equality and has traditional cultural practices like flexible gender roles and informal authority.

Horticulture

• Horticulture is an economic system that involves the cultivation of plants using more intensive techniques than foraging, often including slash-and-burn practices. It supports structured social hierarchies and fosters a strong relationship with the environment through seasonal cycles and rituals.

Pastoralism

• .Pastoralism is an economic system centered around the herding and domestication of animals, which allows for enhanced social complexity and surplus production. It often leads to the development of social hierarchies, unequal status, and a stronger patriarchal structure within communities.

Intensive agriculture

• Intensive agriculture is an economic system that emerged around 6,000 to 5,000 years ago, involving advanced techniques and tools that drastically alter the environment. It fosters significant surplus production, supports larger sedentary societies, and often results in rigid social hierarchies between landowners and laborers.

Industrialism

• began 1760 England, continues in some “emerging markets” today, means of production include machines and factories, relations are social classes, involved wage labor, unprecedented surplus, large cities (megalopolis), inequality.