Professor Christian in This Fleeting World describes a scenario in which grain farmers had plants that ripened at the same time that would need to be harvested and stored. This required people to accumulate and store large amounts of food. As villages grew, the size of surpluses grew as well. Conflicts over control of these increasingly valuable surpluses often triggered the emergence of new forms of inequality and new systems of power. Stored surpluses allowed communities for the first time to support large numbers of nonfarmers: specialists such as priests, potters, builders, soldiers, or artists who did not farm but supported themselves by exchanging their product or service for food.
My high school students are working with our LSCs and counselors in the career pathways programs and they are all excited about the possibilities of certain careers. I used that as a discussion starter to ask students how well modern society would work if everyone had the same job. This seemed to allow students to make a solid connection back to the agrarian revolution and led to a pretty solid discussion. I think many wished for everyone to live in peace intially, but quickly realized that peace is a very fragile term.
