It may be shocking to you, to hear that this tragedy reflects the principle of economics. Indeed, it does. In this case the experiences of humanity reflects the physical limitation of the natural world without any kind of economic system. It should be noted that this tragedy has actually happened for hundreds of thousands of years. The result has been, that on such a starvation limited basis of existence the population density of the early civilizations had remained at the same level for several hundred-thousand years, without any appreciable increase. It should also be recognized that the near complete constancy in population levels was not the result of deficiencies in human procreation, nor was it the result of any magical voluntary restraint in procreation. Rather, it reflected the limits imposed upon humanity by the natural environment that it had to rely on in the absence of any kind of economic system.

Now, suppose someone discovered that the various grains or fruit, which they all ate, can be gathered up throughout the valley and put into the ground as seeds closer to home so that more food can be created for them by this process, and this at a much shorter distance from where they lived. This innovation meant that the people didn't need to forage quite so far anymore. This, in turn, meant that other tribes could now settle in the valley, in areas that were no longer needed to sustain the original group of thirty people. In other words, the potential population density of the valley was increased by the improvements of the economic process. This does not necessarily mean that more people moved into the valley to take possession of it. It merely means that the potential was there for this to happen, which probably did happen over a span of time.




The beginning of an economic system.

This economic success story also tells us something else. It tells us that the greater efficiency of the food creating process now left the people in the valley more time for other pursuits. It gave them more time to think. Guess what happened because of this. I would say that the people came up with further innovations, which, once again increased the potential population density in the valley.

It might have been, that by having more time to think, the people of the valley concluded some day that they wouldn't loose quite as many seeds to the birds if they poked holes into the ground with a stick, planted the seeds into these holes, and covered them up again. They may have reasoned also, that even more efficient farming can be achieved if they would first loosen the soil up by tilling it, before sowing the seeds.

The end result of this kind of thinking was, that every time the economic process was improved by a more intelligent perception, the potential population density of the valley increased some more. Eventually, the people's farming efficiency became increased still further when more refined tools were created, such as advanced tools for tilling, or tools for harvesting, or transporting the products, and so forth, which altogether made it is possible for thousands of people to live in the same valley which previously supported no more than thirty individuals.


The single (or only) principle of economics

The interesting aspect is that there exists a direct interrelationship between the quality of the economic process and the increase in the potential population density of an area. It is furthermore interesting to note that this interrelationship can be observed universally. The principle involved is the same whether we deal with a stone age society, or our modern society. One can also observe that there has been a continuing increase in the potential population density on this planet over the last few thousand years, which reflects a continuing increase in humanity's scientific understanding (for better farming methods) and technological development (for more efficient tools.) Thus we have come to a point at which 5000 times as many people now exist on our planet than existed during the stone age era, while the potential population density is still greater than what we presently utilize.

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Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche