Introduction to Sociology

Economics of Agricultural, Industrial, and Postindustrial Societies

Figure 2. In an agricultural economy, crops and seeds are the most important commodity. Commodities are raw materials or basic goods that are often used as inputs to create other products. They are easily interchangeable, or fungible, meaning that there is little to no difference with other commodities of the same time—for example, wheat grown in Texas is essentially the same as wheat grown in Idaho. Or a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia is the same as a barrel of oil from the Gulf of Mexico. In a postindustrial society, information is the most valuable resource. (Photo (a) courtesy of Edward S. Curtis/Wikimedia Commons. Photo (b) courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns/flickr)

Our earliest ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers. Small groups of extended families roamed from place to place looking for subsistence. They would settle in an area for a brief time when there were abundant resources. They hunted animals for their meat and gathered wild fruits, vegetables, and cereals. They ate what they caught or gathered more or less immediately, as they had no way of preserving or transporting it. Once the resources of an area ran low, the group had to move on, and everything they owned had to travel with them. Food reserves only consisted of what they could carry. Many sociologists contend that hunter-gatherers did not have a true economy, because groups did not typically trade with other groups due to the scarcity of goods.

TRY IT

1. 
   Which of these is an example of a commodity?
   
   1. 
      A book, blog entry, or magazine article
      
   2. 
      A college lecture
      
   3. 
      A restaurant meal
      
   4. 
      Corn
      

Check your answers at the end of this document

The Agricultural Revolution

The first true economies arrived when people started raising crops and domesticating animals, both of which required staying in one place for a period of time. Although there is still a great deal of disagreement among archeologists as to the exact timeline, research indicates that agriculture began independently and at different times in several places around the world. The earliest agriculture was in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East around 11,000–10,000 years ago. Next were the valleys of the Indus, Yangtze, and Yellow rivers in India and China, between 10,000 and 9,000 years ago. The people living in the highlands of New Guinea developed agriculture between 9,000 and 6,000 years ago, while people were farming in Sub-Saharan Africa between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago. Agriculture developed later in the western hemisphere, arising in what would become the eastern United States, central Mexico, and northern South America between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago (Diamond 2003).