The changes Brought about by Agriculture

In my last letter, I told you something about the division of labour. Right at the beginning, when men used to live by hunting only, there was very little division of work. Everybody hunted and they could, with difficulty, get enough to eat. The division of work or labour must have begun between men and women- the men hunting and the women staying at home and looking after the children and domestic animals.

When people learnt about agriculture, many new developments took place. There was, firstly, a greater division of labour. Some people hunted, others looked after the fields and ploughed. Then again, as the time went on, people learnt new trades and specialized in them.

Another interesting result of tilling land was that men began to settle down in villages and towns. Before agriculture came, people used to wander about and hunt. It was not necessary for them to live in one place. They could hunt wherever they went. And often they had to move about from place to place because of the cows and sheep and other animals they had. These animals required pasture lands where they could graze. After grazing in one place for some time, the land did not produce enough for the cattle, and so the whole tribe had to move to another place.

When agriculture came, people had to stay near the land. They could not leave the land they had ploughed and sowed. And so they worked there from harvest to harvest, and villages and towns grew up.

Another great change that agriculture brought about was to make life easier. It was far simpler to grow food on the land by agriculture than to hunt all the time. The land also gave more food than could be eaten up at once. This was kept carefully.

Now let us note an interesting development. When man was a hunter pure and simple, he could not hoard anything or at any rate very little. He had to live, as they say, from hand to mouth. He had no banks where he could keep his money or other goods. He had to earn his food every day by hunting. With the coming of agriculture, he got more from the land at one time than could be used. He hoarded up this surplus or extra food. Here we find the beginnings of surplus food. People got this surplus food because they worked a little more than was quite necessary for them to produce just sufficient food.

You know that now we have banks and people deposit money there and draw it out by cheques.

Where does this money come from? If you think about it, you will see that this money is all surplus, that is people do not want to spend it all at one time and so they keep it in banks. The rich people today are those who have plenty of this surplus, the poor have none at all. Later, you will see how this surplus comes. It is not so much because one person works more than another, but nowadays a person who does not work at all gets the surplus, while the 'hard worker often gets no part of it! This seems a very silly arrangement. Many people think that it is because of this stupid arrangement that there are so many poor people in the world. This may seem a little difficult for you to understand now. If so, do not trouble yourself about it. You will understand it soon enough. At present I should only like you to note that agriculture resulted in producing much more than could be eaten up at once. This was hoarded up. In those days there were no banks or money. People were called rich who had many cows or sheep or camels.

Source:  http://indiragandhi.in/en/philosophy/letters/2