Farmers have less leisure time than hunter-gatherers

[Chris]

Wouldn't the Malthusian Trap also apply to hunting and gathering? Has anyone calculated the maximum world wide population that would be supported without agriculture? The world wide population of hunters and gatherers would grow until such time as there would be a shortage of wild animals and edible plants. So the population would, for a time, outpace the food supply and then comes, "war, famine and disease."

Yes, the Malthusian Trap applied to all. I'm no expert but it seems to me hunter-gatherers were operated on, let's say, an economic level of subsistence. Thus the more leisure time. Anthropologist Pierre Clastres tells a story in Society Against the State how primitive tribes in South America were introduced to the ax by Europeans. The Europeans figured the natives would realize they could double their produce and sell off the excess and develop wealth. The native men took the axes and used them to clear new land for crops, not twice as much, but in half the time, and went off to relax, hunt, war. They just had no need for excess. So I'd say hunter-gatherers were less affected. Agriculture allows for excess for feeding an army, bureaucrats, and concentrating a population, limited initially only by how far they could transport crops, and could be devastated by disease, drought, flodding, and so on.

[Trumpster]

If hunter-gatherers have more leisure time that will likely translate into more baby-making time and more mouths to feed. As the population grows, they will have less and less leisure time because food will eventually be less plentiful.

[Chris]

If hunter-gatherers have more leisure time that will likely translate into more baby-making time and more mouths to feed. As the population grows, they will have less and less leisure time because food will eventually be less plentiful.

Could be. The survival rate of babies was much lower back then.