subsistence

Examples of subsistence in the following topics:

• The Four Social Revolutions

  • The Four Social Revolutions refer to the identification of social change through modes of subsistence.
  • Because of their subsistence system, these societies tend to have very low population densities.
  • In a pastoralist society, the primary means of subsistence are domesticated animals (livestock).
  • In horticulturalist societies, the primary means of subsistence is the cultivation of crops using hand tools.
  • In a post-industrial society, the primary means of subsistence is derived from service-oriented work, as opposed to agriculture or industry.

• Commercial Farmers

  • The majority of farms were geared toward subsistence production for family use.
  • Landowning yeomen were typically subsistence farmers, but some also grew crops for market.
  • Though the country remained regionally specialized, with the North and South divided by sectional ideology, the growth in commercial agriculture pushed farmers in the South and West away from subsistence agriculture and production for local markets toward a nationally integrated market.

• Economic Systems

  • Societies that fail to meet minimum subsistence requirements for its members become relics of the past.
  • Ideally, an economy will produce more than necessary for subsistence and apply the additional output to improving the lives of the members of society through development and/or economic growth.

• Early Lifestyles

  • Paleo-Indians subsisted as small, mobile groups of big game hunters, traveling light and frequently to find new sources of food.
  • During much of the Early and Middle Paleo-Indian periods, inland bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct megafauna. 
  • The Clovis peoples did not rely exclusively on megafauna for subsistence. 
  • As the Quaternary extinction event was happening, the early inhabitants of the Americas began to rely more on other means of subsistence.

• Societal Development

  • This chapter focuses on the subsistence systems of societies rather than their political structures.
  • Hunter-gatherer societies also tend to have very low population densities as a result of their subsistence system.
  • A pastoralist society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is domesticated livestock.
  • Agriculture can refer to subsistence agriculture or industrial agriculture.
  • An industrial society is a society in which the primary means of subsistence is industry.

• Lenski's Synthesis

  • People who farm for subsistence often have no surplus goods—they consume all of the crops they produce.
  • Division of labor was virtually non-existent—people working for subsistence completed all steps of each job.

• A Market Society

  • The large-scale production of cash crops began to replace subsistence farming in the South and West.
  • Summarize the key social and economic transformations that accompanied the nation's movement away from small-scale subsistence farming toward agriculture and manufacturing aimed at the market

• Archaic Hunters and Gatherers

  • The Archaic stage was characterized by subsistence economies supported through the exploitation of nuts, seeds, and shellfish.
  • Simple map of subsistence methods in the Americas at 1000 BCE.Key:[Yellow] Mesolithic; hunter-gatherers [Green] Neolithic; simple farming societies[Orange] Tribal chiefdoms or civilizations; complex farming societies

• Morality, Justice and a Stable Society

  • "It is thus that man, who can subsist only in society, was fitted by nature to that situation for which he was made.
  • Society may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or affection; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation.
  • "Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another" (Smith, TMS, p 166).
  • Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it. . . .

• Middle Class

  • Terms used by scholars for the non-elite class include "common people," "yeomen," and "crackers. " In the colonial and antebellum years, subsistence farmers tended to settle in the backcountry and uplands.
  • Critics suggest the vast difference in economic classes between the elite and subsistence farmers meant they did not have the same values or outlook.