Occasionally Bryson and I will accuse each other of being Stasists, based on Virginia Postrel's book The Future and Its Enemies. Postrel splits the world into two groups: stasists and dynamists. Stasists resist change, dynamists embrace and make the most of it. This article seemed very stasist.
I'm not saying that the form of capitalism that the foraging people of Western Botswana found themselves is desirable, and I don't want to minimize the problems highlighted in the argument. I'm a huge fan of De Soto's inclusive capitalism, and this is an interesting case of exploitative capitalism.
There was one implicit argument that bothered me. Yes, foragers always lose, and some of the factors that make them lose are terrible. However, aren't there reasons that we'd want foragers to lose? Maybe I'm unfeeling or too much of an economist, but foraging is a really inefficient way to utilize land. The times they are a-changin', and it's going to take a lot of effort to keep that from happening. Why do we want foragers to win?
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I agree with your opinion of foraging. From an economic point of view, foraging is quite an inefficient use of resources. Even if you look at anthropology and history, people quickly moved from foraging to agriculture the moment they could as civilizations developed and wealth increased. Yes, foraging may be part of that culture, but is it desirable? Isn't supporting foraging actually hindering development?
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