Pre-industrial Societies and Industrial Societies

Pre-Industrial Societies:

Pre-industrial society means specific social attributes and forms of political and cultural organization that were in existence before the starting of the Industrial Revolution. In a pre-industrial society, food production, which is carried out through the use of human and animal labor, is the main economic activity. These societies can be sub-divided according to their level of technology and their method of producing food. The subdivisions are hunting and gathering, pastoral, horticultural, agricultural and feudal.

Hunting and gathering Societies:

Every society did not produce their own food. But instead survived by hunting and gathering. A hunter-gatherer society is a society whose subsistence is based on the hunting of animal and gathering of vegetation. Hunters and gatherers are traditionally identified by their tools, bow, and arrow, atlas, harpoon and projectile points. They move around constantly in search of food. As a result, they did not build the permanent villages or create the wide variety of artifacts, and usually, only form small groups such as bands and tribes. Some hunting and gathering societies with abundant resources lived in a larger group and formed complex hierarchical social structures such as chiefdoms. The size of society is also limited by the need for mobility. They generally consist of fewer than 60 and rarely exceed 100. The status within these societies are nearly equal and the decision reached through general agreement. The ties that bind those societies are more complex than those of the bands. Leadership, the special characteristics is only used for special purposes and is only used in tribal society. There are no such political offices containing real power, and the chief is merely a person of influence, a sort of advisor; so their collective actions are not governmental. Here, the family forms the main social unit, with most societal members being related by birth or marriage.

There are a few hunters gatherer societies in the world today but they have also been affected and influenced by the economy and settle the way of life. This strategy has been diversified depending greatly upon the local environment including hunting and trapping. The hunting or trapping small animals, fishing, gathering shellfish or insects and gathering wide plant food such as fruits and vegetables.

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Pastoral Societies:

Pastoralism is the slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather than searching for food on a daily basis, members of pastoral society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet their food needs. Pastoralists defining feature is mobility. They live the nomadic life, moving their herds from one pasture to another. They occupy large space of marginal lands which is sustainable because it allows land to replenish itself. The animals in their herds are able to live off the marginal lands however humans are not able to utilize it because of insufficient nutrients. They are movable in order to utilize the different sources of water and pasture.

Since their food supply is far more reliable, they can support larger populations. The division of labor (the specialization by individuals or groups in the performance of specific economic activities) becomes complex. E.g. some people become craft workers, producing tools, weapons, and jewelry. The production of the goods encourages the trade. The trade also helps to create inequality, as some families acquire more goods than other do. These families are also able to gain power due to their increased wealth. Thus, the passing of wealth from one generation to other helped to centralize the wealth and power which is concerned with the governance of the society and it moves along on the same family i.e hereditary chieftainships.

Horticultural Societies

The societies that grow fruits and vegetables in garden plots that have been cleared from the jungle or forest providing the main source of food is known as horticultural societies. These societies have also the level of technology and complexity as in pastoral societies. Some horticulture groups use slash-and-burn method to raise the crops. The wild vegetation of the forest are cut and burn and the ashes remained after burning are utilized as fertilizers. The horticulturists use human labor and the simple tool to cultivate the land for the annual or perennial seasons. When the land becomes the barren the horticulturists clear the new plot and leave the old existing plot to revert the natural state of the land. They may return to the original land after many years and begin their process again. The horticulturists can stay on the same plot for a longer period of time by rotating their garden plots. This compels to form permanent or semi-permanent villages but the size of the village population depends on upon the area of land available for farming. Normally, villages can range from a few as 300 to many as 2000.

The surplus food in the horticultural society leads to the most complex division of labor. The specialized roles in this society include craftspeople, shamans (religious leaders), and the traders. This specialization role leads to create the wide variety of artifacts. Similar to Pastoral society surplus food can lead to the inequalities in the wealth and power within which horticultural political systems are developed because of settled nature of the horticultural life of people.

Agrarian Societies

The agrarian societies use agricultural technologies to cultivate crops over the large area of land. The Sociologists use the phrase Agricultural revolution to refer the technological changes that occurred as long as 8500 years ago that led the cultivating crops and raising the farm animals. The increase in food supply at that time led to more population than the earlier communities. It shows the greater surplus, which resulted in towns that became centers of trade supporting to various rulers, educators, craftspeople, merchants and religious leaders who did not have to worry about locating nourishment.

The various degrees of stratification appeared on the agrarian societies as women previously had higher social status because they shared labor more equally with men. In the hunting and gathering societies, women even gathered more food than men. As the food store was improved and women took less role in providing food for the family, they became dependent on men. The increasing number of the villages and towns gradually brought conflict with the neighboring communities. The farmers began to provide warriors with food in exchange for the protection against the hostiles. The system of rulers with high social status also appeared who organized warriors to protect the society from the invasion from enemies.

Industrial Societies

A new economic system began between the 15^th and 16^th centuries that began to replace feudalism (a form of society based on ownership of land). The capitalism is marked by the open competition in a free market where the means of production of goods are privately owned. The Europe’s exploration over the Americans served as one of the milestones for the development of Capitalism. The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and the spices stimulated great commercial activity in European societies.

The industrial societies rely on heavy machines powered by fuels for the production of goods which produced a further dramatic increase in the efficiency. Such industrial revolution began to produce greater surplus than before. This shows that the surplus goods was not just the agricultural commodities but also the manufactured goods. The larger surplus caused more changes than in the industrial revolution before.

The population boomed once again. The increased productivity provided more goods available to everyone. This brought much inequality between the people. The agricultural based feudal societies broke up and caused many people to leave the land and seek employment in the cities.

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References:

Santa, S.C. Environmet\nt Science . India: New Central Book Agency (p) Ltd., 2004.

T., Richard. Towards a Sustainable Future . India: PHI (p)Limited, 2008.