How work has shaped society | James Suzman
What this covers
From hunter-gatherers to the American Dream: How humanity’s definition of “work” has developed over time.
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Humans used to hunt and gather. Now, we have 9-to-5 jobs. Anthropologist James Suzman joins us to talk about the historical roots of our desk jobs and how they all connect back to the agricultural revolution.
The definition of work is ever-evolving, with each new era posing unique challenges. In this interview, Suzman explains how each era has actively contributed to humanity and how we can use this knowledge to help us prepare for (and even reconsider) our future.
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About James Suzman:
Dr. James Suzman a PhD an anthropologist specializing in the Khoisan peoples of southern Africa. A former Smuts Fellow in African Studies at the University of Cambridge, he is now the director of Anthropos Ltd., a think-tank that applies anthropological methods to solving contemporary social and economic problems. Dr. Suzman's latest book is Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots.
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The speaker argues that modern economies are organized around agricultural-era mental models and debt structures that are fundamentally misaligned with today's automated, high-productivity world, requiring deliberate reorganization to distribute abundance more equitably and reduce systemic risks.
- Financial and economic vocabulary (capital, debt, wealth accumulation) derives from agricultural societies where effort directly produced reward, but this model breaks down in automated economies where individual work generates less wealth
- Historical transitions (fire, agriculture, cities) show economies reorganize around available energy and labor structures; modern automation represents a fourth revolution requiring new organizational frameworks
- Wealth inequality stems from the fundamental mismatch between old economic structures (inheritance and capital returns) and new productivity levels (where individual labor cannot generate sufficient wealth for social mobility)
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The words 'cattle' and 'capital' share etymological roots and mean the same thing; the metaphor of capital and capital growth is literally a herd of cows, reflecting that in early agricultural societies livestock (particularly cattle) performed labor and formed the basis of wealth.
“There's no coincidence that the word 'cattle' and the word 'capital' have the same etymological roots- they mean the same thing. So when we talk about capital and capital growth, actually, the metaphor is very much a herd of cows.”
The invention of fire enabled humans to outsource energy needs to stored energy sources (wood, coal), fundamentally changing how humans organized work and living, and was the source of the invention of leisure.
“the invention of fire. Just the sheer ability to be able to make fire meant that humans were able to outsource some of their energy needs to energy stored in wood or coal or something that they could burn, and this was a fundamental transition in the way that they organized their living-working life; partially because it expanded the number of foods that they could eat. So suddenly things like potatoes and tubers and things which are basically inedible raw, they discovered you cook them, you concentrate the energy, and it was fundamental change. It was, I believe, the source of the invention of leisure.”
Agricultural societies became considerably more productive than foraging societies, and agriculture is fundamentally a growth-based phenomenon requiring everyone to contribute proportionally to energy invested versus energy obtained.
“The societies that developed agriculture became considerably more productive than the societies that were still living a life of foraging- and agriculture is a completely growth-based phenomenon. It's very important that everybody pulls their weight because the amount of energy you put in was very close to the amount of energy you got out. Everybody had to do their bit.”
Agricultural societies supported larger populations that grew rapidly to maximum productivity of the land, and when population exceeded carrying capacity and harvests failed, the instinctive response was to expand into new land, making agriculture a great expanding force.
“This supports larger populations and populations always grew rapidly to the maximum size, the maximum productivity of that land. The instinctive thing you do is when that population goes up and then the harvest perhaps fails then suddenly you think, 'Well, we need more land.' So agriculture became this great expanding force.”
In early agricultural societies, meat was expensive and rare; livestock like cattle were primarily used to perform labor for humans and formed the economic basis of wealth, not as a food source.
“in the case of early agricultural societies, meat was something very expensive and very rare, and in fact, what people used livestock for, in particular cattle, was actually to do work. Cattle basically could do labor for you, and cattle in a sense produced the basis of what our idea is of an”
Modern societies face the fundamental problem that in highly automated, productive economies, the work any individual can do generates less and less wealth, making it nearly impossible to implement the American Dream of working one's way from poverty to tremendous wealth.
“One of the fundamental problems of a more automated, more productive economy is the work that any individual can do is less and less capable of generating huge amounts of wealth. Now, the best way to generate wealth is to inherit a bit of wealth and put that wealth to work. In other words, very difficult for people to be able to get any kind of the idea of the American Dream of being able to work your way up from poverty to tremendous wealth. It's no longer possible to do it.”
A significant amount of work in modern economies has been created not out of genuine necessity but because societies are organized around the assumption that humans cannot live without organized work.
“There's an awful lot of work which I think is work we've simply created because we feel that humans cannot live without organized work- and also 'cause we organize our societies on that basis.”
Modern financial vocabulary and economic concepts (such as asset protection) have their etymological and conceptual roots in agricultural practices and structures, and remain embedded in economic organization despite being unsuitable for highly automated modern economies.
“Much of our financial vocabulary comes from this basic idea of Protecting your assets is exactly like having a young herdsman standing there protecting it from potential predators. You see these references and we forget them but so many of the concepts around which we organize our economy now actually have their roots firmly planted in the fields of the agricultural revolution, and in many ways, are not particularly suitable to the highly automated modern world in which we live in now.”
The micro-revolution within cities created completely different spaces and a long-term divide between rural and urban worlds, but in many senses cities were like time-traveling microcosms of the future we are now in: very few people work the land, and energy comes from both farmer-produced and fossil fuel sources.
“So that micro revolution that happened within these cities to completely different spaces and that's always why there's been this long-term divide between rural world and city world but in many senses, those cities were like sort of time-traveling microcosms of the future that we're in now. The future we're in now is one where very few of us work the land at all and we're actually all in the business of expending energy, acquired one, by farmers in the land outside but also two, energy that we plucked out of the ground in the form of fossil fuels and so on.”
In farming societies, the fundamental relationship was debt: farmers held debt with the land itself, and individual farmers who invested effort in fencing, weeding, and water management would succeed because there was a direct relationship between effort and reward.
“In farming societies, it was almost all about debt 'cause the first debt was between the farmer and the land, and those farmers who go to the effort to have the best fences, to guard their fields, weed the most diligently, to schlep up water from the riverbed if there's not enough rain, those are the farmers that will succeed. So suddenly there's a very clear relationship between effort and reward.”
City life encouraged two transformative developments: (1) the ability to control, manipulate, and use surpluses from the countryside to accumulate power and wealth; and (2) the emergence of vast new professions and creative pursuits (artisan skills, cooking, arts, music) because humans are naturally creative and do not like to sit still.
“Life in the city encouraged two things: First of all, it encouraged the ability to control and manipulate and use surpluses from the countryside as a means to accumulate power and wealth. It created this great melting pot which allowed for this vast efflorescence of new professions because humans, we do not like to sit still. We are naturally creative species. And within the cities, people began to create using that spare energy.”
Modern societies must experiment with reorganizing economies to respond to the fact that current economic organization poses far greater risks than benefits, treating this as an engineering problem—like building a bridge over a river.
“So what it is incumbent upon us to do is to experiment. We don't know what it is like to deal with all these different things we have. But we should approach the problem as if we approach any other problem, an engineering problem, building a bridge over a river and we now have the challenge of reorganizing our economies in such a way that responds to the fact that actually the way we organize our economy now is posing far greater risks than it potentially brings us benefits.”
Hunter-gatherer economies focused on meeting immediate daily needs rather than long-term planning, while agricultural societies required forward-planning and future-focus as fundamental organizing principles.
“Hunter-gatherer economies always focused on the here and now. People did not spend a great deal effort doing anything which was more than meeting their specific needs for that day. In agricultural societies on the other hand, everything was to do with forward-planning. Everything was to do with being future-focused.”
The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture remains unexplained by historians, though it occurred independently in multiple regions (Middle East, South/Central America, East Asia, Africa) following periods of climate change that disrupted traditional food sources.
“Nobody actually knows what brought about the transition from foraging to agriculture- but whatever happened, agriculture suddenly took hold in the Middle East and then subsequently in South and Central America, in East Asia and in Africa. It happened in many different places”
Hunter-gatherers were supremely adapted to making a living through hunting and gathering, engaged the land with consummate skill and ease, and for the most part living off the land was a straightforward way of making a living despite periodic intensely difficult times from climatic change and genetic bottlenecks.
“Hunter-gatherers engaged with the land by making a living from harvesting and of course hunting. And that is done with consummate skill and consummate, in some ways, ease. Now, of course, it sounds a little bit idyllic and hunter-gatherers went through intensely difficult times, periods of climatic change and so on, and there are genetic bottlenecks in hunter-gatherer history but for the most part, living off the land seemed a very straightforward way of making a living, and we are again, supremely adapted to making a living as hunters and gatherers.”
The creation of cities, beginning approximately 7,000 years ago, represents the third great revolution in the history of work, though in most agricultural civilizations 80% of people still lived and worked the land focusing their labor on producing energy needed to survive.
“Ever since 7,000 years ago is where you get the beginning of the third revolution in the history of work- and that is the creation of cities. In agricultural civilizations, when we tend to think of the ancient past, we do tend to think mostly in terms of cities. We think of Ancient Rome or Athens or Sparta, but the truth is, in all these societies, most people still lived and worked the land. So even the most sophisticated agricultural civilizations, still, 80% of people were actually in the countryside, focused all their labor energy on basically producing the energy they needed to survive and live.”
Modern societies enjoy extraordinary abundance but it is very unevenly distributed, creating a fundamental misalignment between economic capacity and existing distribution structures.
“We're now faced with a situation where, as a society, we enjoy this extraordinary abundance but it is very unevenly distributed.”
In Ancient Rome, cities were organized into communities around specific professions (potters, leather workers, butchers), which became far more than simply communities of work—people married into them, lived amongst them, and they became sources of identity and social structure.
“Rome was divided into patchwork of what were called... You had the potters there, the leather workers there, the butchers there and these communities actually became far more than simply communities of work. People married into them, they lived in amongst them. They became a source of identity.”