Since the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies, sometime around the end of the last ice age (c. 11,000 BC), most of humanity has been involved in the production of food, because relatively low productivity meant that it was impossible to generate a sufficient surplus to support a large number of people in other sectors. A large modern economy such as the United States of America (USA), however, now has less than 0.5 percent of its workforce in agriculture. Mechanization has replaced labour, which has generated enormous agricultural surpluses, allowed almost the entire workforce to migrate from the land into other forms of work, and thereby created a vast amount of additional wealth.

About the Authors

Anthony Clayton

Walter Wehrmeyer

Andrea Clayton