For 95 percent of our 300,000-year history, human beings have lived as hunter-gatherers on diets consisting of fruits, vegetables, nuts, insects, fish, and game. Ever since Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, it has largely been taken for granted that staying alive was an all-consuming activity for our ancestors, as well as for the ... See more

For the longest part of our history, humans lived as hunter-gatherers who neither experienced economic growth nor worried about its absence. Instead of working many hours each day in order to acquire as much as possible, our nature—insofar as we have one—has been to do the minimum amount of work necessary to underwrite a good life.

Mastering fire thus made for a radical increase in humanity’s free time. Suzman contends that it was this free time that subsequently shaped our species’s cultural evolution. Leisure afforded long periods of hanging around with others, which led to the development of language, storytelling, and the arts.

Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being,