A History of Work and Materialism Across Cultures

Why does our culture value work and materialism so much? Why do the vast majority of people in civilizations today work nearly 40 hours per week when we have the most tools and advanced technology ever in human history? And why are so many peoples’ identities and happiness associated with work and materialism? The purpose of this essay is to explore the modern fetishization of work and materialism in the context of human cultural evolution. I will explore scientific studies from multiple domains—anthropology, history, psychology, neuroscience, and economics—to provide an integrative snapshot. By looking for convergence from different lines of inquiry, we can arrive at a consensus about work, materialism, ambition, competition, inequality, and cross-cultural social structures. Ultimately, I will argue that a holistic study of human cultural norms in the context of biological and cultural evolution is the best way to study human values.

I will first go over why the question is raised, and dispel the assumption that work and materialism in Western or modern culture is in any way universal. I will then provide important context about human cultural evolution and norms from prominent evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich in ​​The Secret of Our Success and The WEIRDEST People in the World. I will then turn to Work by anthropologist James Suzman, and go through multiple sources that illustrate humans’ story as hunter-gatherers, in the agricultural revolution, and in modern times. This story will be supplemented by scientific studies in neuroscience, psychology, and economics to determine exactly how social comparison, materialism, and work is perpetuated in modern culture.

In talking about work, we must first talk about why we work. Almost all economic theory is based around monotonicity of preferences, meaning an increase in consumption is always welcomed. “More is better” is a common economic phrase and is extremely prevalent in Western culture, with increased materialism, ambition, competition, and work. We are taught that we are selfish animals with infinite wants and limited resources, and thus cursed into a life of materialism and hard work to achieve it. It is easy to assume that hardworkingness, ambition, and materialism are ingrained biological human values. However, recent research of hunter-gatherer societies, specifically the Ju/’hoansi “Bushmen” of southern Africa’s Kalahari, reveals evidence that these norms are not ubiquitous at all.

The Ju/’hoansi tribe has been a hunter-gatherer society up until the turn of the millennium, and had a very different way of living compared to modern society today. They worked no more than fifteen hours a week and spent much of their time at rest and leisure. Living in their small kin-based culture, they had little to no concept of ownership and everything was shared. They did not care much about accumulating wealth or status, and only worked to meet their short-term food and survival needs. One may assume that the Ju/’hoansi and other hunter-gatherers constantly lived on the edge of starvation and had food insecurity; however, this is far from the case. They were relatively well-nourished and lived longer than many people in farming societies nearby. They did not have food insecurity because they did not routinely store food, and their lives were organized around the presumption of abundance rather than around the worry of scarcity (Suzman, Work, p. 15). Given that the Ju/’hoansi society closely resembles pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer tribes, there is good reason to believe that their behavior and culture also closely resembles these tribes that existed for 95 percent of Homo sapiens’ 300,000-year-old history. This means that modern human cultures are the “odd ones out,” not those of hunter-gatherers. Recent human behavior and society regarding work, materialism, ownership, and scarcity are relatively very new and derive from recent cultural changes in human history.

Given that cultural evolution plays a big role in work, it is important to understand fundamentals about how cultural norms shape society and individuals. We can do this by first consulting The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. First, humans are genetically evolved to learn from each other, which is why humans are intensely social and why culture is so powerful in human behavior. Humans strategically copy to learn, and in this way acquire preferences and motivations, behaviors and habits, as well as norms and shared values. Prestige is also very important when it comes to cultural norms and copying, and is a second-order nature of success that humans are ingrained to recognize. As for whom to copy, humans usually copy those with the same sex and same dialect, which is an indicator of persons that belong to one’s group (Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, p. 62).

Humans, like all non-human animals, have entrenched biological desires and behaviors that are governed and shaped by evolution over millennia and more. In practice, these biological desires often take shape in the form of culturally evolved mechanisms. For example, one such human biological desire is pair bonding, and in many cultures, this is realized in the form of marriage. Incest aversion is another desire drilled into our biology, and as a result, most cultures around the world practice strong incest taboos (Henrich p. 183). In studying work and materialism, this is important because contrasting cross-cultural human behavior indicates a “non-universal” biological desire.

Furthermore, Homo sapiens are highly cooperative, which has led to their dominance over other human species and eventually over the world (Henrich p. 27). This is because humans have norm psychology, which are unwritten rules in a group of people that dictate what is appropriate, allowed, required, or inappropriate for members in different situations. Humans adhere to perceived norms, which are continuously drawn by encompassing cultural knowledge. Social norms are highly self-reinforcing; they are internalized by people and then enforced on themselves and others. Humans also have built-in alliance detection systems when interacting with other humans, and a free-rider detection mechanism for keeping track of people and interactions. Cooperation is ensured by punishment, which is inflicted on non-cooperators (Henrich p. 240). All of this leads to extremely strong cultural norms within groups, so much so that different cultures of humans can be alien to others, even though they are of the same biological species.

In The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, Henrich examines human behavior and culture in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies, and explains why they are unique in comparison to other cultures around the world, many which are hunter-gatherer societies. He found that in such intensely kin-based societies, there is much less individualism and much more collectivism. Here, humans are more likely to conform, especially given elderly families. In societies that are not kin-based, mainly ones post-Agricultural revolution, humans need more help from strangers, and as a result, need to cultivate and show off achievements. Humans from WEIRD societies actually internalize impartial rules and universal principles, and are more trusting, fair, and cooperative toward strangers. This fetishization with abstract morals is usually valued over relationships and practicality. As a result, WEIRD humans show less favoritism towards kin and friends than other populations do, and think nepotism is wrong. In contrast, those in non-WEIRD societies, especially traditional hunter-gatherer ones, would be appalled if a family member treated them the same as a stranger (Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World, p. 29).

Henrich goes on to show that humans from WEIRD societies are more hardworking and patient than those in non-WEIRD societies. WEIRD humans often describe themself according to their work, and heavily identify in it. These humans routinely defer gratification, such as pleasure or financial rewards, into the future in exchange for hard work and discomfort in the present. WEIRD humans often even take joy in working hard, and often feel guilt when they do not. This happens when they perceive that they fail to live up to self-imposed cultural standards and aspirations. This is highly unique and in contrast to non-WEIRD societies, where shame—not guilt—is far more common in people’s lives. Shame occurs when people fail to live up to cultural standards, and are judged by the community because of it. WEIRD people are instead heavily driven by self-evaluation and guilt, and may feel guilty for resting too long, even though no one will know (Henrich p. 30). Henrich argues that these big differences in culture and behavior can be traced back to the Catholic Church. He argues that the Church reduced kin-based clans and drove the spread of these social norms, resulting in more individualism, belief in abstract rules, and analytical thinking (Henrich p. 52).

In Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots, James Suzman goes through culture and behavior through human history as hunter-gatherers, through the Agricultural Revolution, and in modern times with high-population cities. We can turn back to hunter-gatherer societies like the Ju/’hoansi tribe to further examine the cultural evolution of work and materialism.

We have previously established that the Ju/’hoansi never harvested more than they needed to eat on a given day, and never stored or processed food. They never did these things because they never needed to. This short-term thinking is key to why their society was so egalitarian, and as a result, non-materialistic. People obtained a direct and immediate return from their labor, in contrast to the “delayed return economies” of later farming and industrial societies. Prominent social anthropologist James Woodburn has noted that in delayed-return economies, labor effort is always focused primarily on meeting future rewards, and as a result, have political hierarchies (Suzman p. 149). In contrast, hunter-gatherer societies, which were kin-based and had immediate return economies, did not have chiefs or institutional authority figures, and did not tolerate meaningful material wealth differentials between individuals. In effect, hunter-gatherers’ attitude towards work was not just because of their confidence in the environment, but was further ingrained by social norms which ensured that food and other resources were evenly distributed (Suzman p. 150).

In the Ju/’hoansi tribe, almost everything was shared, and it was normal to straightforwardly ask for things from someone else. Turning down requests for something was considered inconceivably rude, and could lead to accusations of selfishness or violence (Suzman p. 151). Because everyone could essentially tax everybody else, hunter-gatherer societies like the Ju/’hoansi ensured three things. First, material wealth was always spread pretty evenly; second, everyone got something to eat regardless of how productive they were; and third, rare or valuable objects were circulated widely and were freely available for anyone to use. Due to all of this, the culture was not materialistic because there was no practical reason for anyone to waste energy trying to accumulate more material wealth than anyone else (Suzman p. 154).

The Ju/’hoansi were also ingenious at creating cultural norms that discouraged competition and status-seeking, which are likely biological traits. For example, when a hunter killed a big animal, he could think of himself as superior or a “big shot.” Because of this, the Ju/’hoansi would lightly mock the hunter when he returned to the camp, and would speak of his meat as worthless. The hunter was expected to be humble and almost apologetic when he presented the meat. These light-hearted insults were important in ensuring that no one gained too much political or social capital, especially if they often were responsible for food (Lee p. 57). Another cultural norm the Ju/’hoansi used to keep the society egalitarian was by maintaining that the hunter was not the actual owner of the meat and the individual charged with its distribution. Instead, it was the person who owned the arrow that killed the animal. It was not unusual for keen hunters to borrow arrows from less enthusiastic hunters precisely so that they could avoid the burden of having to distribute the meat (Suzman p. 156). In effect, ambition was discouraged and individuals did not seek too much attention.

Examining other hunter-gatherer societies, particularly those in Europe and Asia beginning around 50,000 years ago, we can see how culture was starting to shift as a result of seasonal changes. The people in these tribes still subsisted off of hunting and gathering, but because of the winter season, started to build permanent structures and organize their lives differently (Suzman p. 164). In the winter, gathering was almost impossible and hunting was far more dangerous. But due to cold weather, meat didn’t decay and food would still be good to eat months later, leading to food storage in winter. Because of these reasons, these societies strategically planned for the future and inched closer to “delayed return economies.” The emergence of this trend marked two important phenomena. First, during winter, the pace of life and work fell, which spurred leisure time and entertainment. People would tell stories, sing songs, master skills, and practice art, like those on the walls of Chauvet Cave in France (Suzman p. 166). Furthermore, in occasionally storing food and organizing their working year to accommodate seasonal changes, European and Asian hunter-gatherer tribes started adopting a more future-focused relationship with work and a different relationship with scarcity, leading to increased organization (Trinkaus et al. p. 25).

Going forward in time, the Agricultural Revolution in the Neolithic Period began some 12,000 years ago when some humans started routinely storing food and experimenting with cultivation. This transition from foraging to food production was the most revolutionary change in the millions of years of human history. It rapidly increased the amount of stored energy people could capture, and as a result transformed how people lived and how they worked (Suzman p. 174). The Agricultural Revolution produced an intensely future-focused relationship with work, and so much about how we organize our working lives today is derived from farming. Nearly every task on a farm involves achieving a future goal or managing a future risk based on past experience. Farmers clear land, prepare soils, plow, dig irrigation ditches, sow seeds, weed, prune, and nurture their crop so that they have a sufficient harvest to support them through the next crop cycle (Suzman p. 228). This kickstarted the first “delayed return economy,” and as a result, required careful planning, time-based organization, tedious work, and often political hierarchies. This also led to building of monuments and the creation of more tools.

As farming societies grew more plentiful harvests and stored more energy, these food increases were always soon consumed by an ever-increasing population. Because of this, food appeared to be scarcer and humans had to work harder to meet their basic needs. Any gains in productivity—working harder, adopting new tools, technologies, techniques, or crops—even acquiring new land—was ultimately fleeting. While agricultural societies continued to expand, prosperity was rare, and hundreds of generations of farmers toiled in the fields supporting the population boom. Importantly, scarcity evolved from perhaps a seasonal inconvenience under hunter-gatherer societies to a near perpetual problem for agricultural humans (Suzman p. 198).

The “Urban Revolution” was the crucial second phase of the Agricultural Revolution, which transformed small, kin-based, nonliterate farming communities into large, socially complex, urban societies (Suzman p. 258). This was around 8,000 years ago, when some agricultural societies started to produce large enough food surpluses to sustain sizable urban populations. This was a very important step in the development of human work because it was defined not by the need to capture energy by working in agriculture, but rather by the demands of spending excess energy. Because of farmers producing food in the countryside, most urban humans’ food needs were met, leading them to pursue prestige, wealth, pleasure, leisure, and power. As a result, cities became rife with inequality and competition. This process was further accelerated by the fact that within cities, humans were not bound together by intimate kin-based culture and social ties that defined hunter-gatherer societies or small rural communities (Suzman p. 20). To maintain order on such a large scale, political hierarchy and bureaucracy emerged. Religion, as well as common values, beliefs, and goals (e.g. patriotism) also served as an ever-important cultural norm, and much energy went into building temples and sustaining holy orders (Suzman p. 260).

These first cities also led to a whole new range of skills, jobs, tools, and trades that were unimaginable in subsistence farming or hunter-gatherer societies. This is because the food surplus during this time led to excess human energy being funneled into building infrastructure (Suzman p. 260). Some important tools and technology developed during this time were artificial irrigation, the plow, draft animals, brick-making, and metalworking (Vere Gordon Childe p. 181). This resulted in the emergence of many new specialist trades, like carpentry, stonemasonry, architecture, engineering, hydrology, and sewerage. Due to rising ambition and building projects increasing the standard of living, cities ultimately led to an ever-increasing amount of tools and trades. Interestingly, inscriptions and records from the Roman Empire describe 268 different career paths. For reference, it is estimated that in today’s global society, there are roughly 10,000 distinct job roles (Suzman p. 264).

Humans living in cities increasingly began to tether their social identity to the work they did, and found communities among those in their trade (Suzman p. 19). These tightly-bound communities evolved because of three reasons: First, these humans, who shared skills and experiences unique to their trade, tended to have similar ideas in viewing the world; second, they spent lots of time working together; and third, because their social status was often also defined by their trade. This remains true today, with modern society entailing that many, if not most, humans spend more time in their working lives than they do with their kin. Furthermore, humans today usually gravitate towards friendships with those in their industry, and often make friends in their workplace.

Cities also started the complex market economy we see today. Humans in hunter-gatherer societies tended to share things with kin, and those in agricultural communities tended to exchange things with friends as well as kin. However, with cities, most exchanges occurred between strangers, and traditional social norms dealing with reciprocity and mutual obligation disappeared. In response, urban humans soon discovered that trade was a possible route to wealth and power (Suzman p. 270). Given the increase in competition, loss of traditional norms, and a developing marketplace, materialism became increasingly important to impress others and show status, ultimately a mechanism to convey fitness and find mates.

While the Ju/’hoansi hunter-gatherers created cultural norms that stifled competition and status-seeking, cities and especially modern culture have amplified these biological traits to a level previously unimaginable. Going forward through history to modern cities and society, the past few hundred years of global (especially Western) society has been characterized by increased materialism, social comparison, and work. This was extremely evident in post-war America.

The increase of social comparison, materialism, and work is clear when examining the peculiar story of urban humans’ desire to work more in Kellogg’s cereal factories during the economic boom that followed World War II. Up until the 1950s, Kellogg’s factories had a thirty-hour work week. Then, surprisingly, 75 percent of these humans voted to return to a forty-hour work week, meaning they would be working eight hours per day. They explained that they wanted to work longer hours to take home more money, ultimately to purchase more or better cars, appliances, and other consumer products that were being constantly produced during the affluent post-war era (Suzman p. 312). This speaks to the power of cultural norms amplifying social comparison and materialism that humans wanted less leisure and more work in order to buy more material products.

Interestingly, it’s not abundantly clear that these material products bought are even useful in any way. Often, they are just driven by cultural norms and social copying (e.g. the iconic De Beers’ “A Diamond Is Forever” advertising campaign). In The Affluent Society, economist John Galbraith argued that from the 1950s onward, Americans had a seemingly unlimited appetite for purchasing things they didn’t need. Galbraith thought that most Americans’ material desires were intensely manufactured by advertisers and producers, who sought to dictate the cultural norms. Galbraith argued that since humans’ basic economic needs were now easily met, real scarcity no longer existed (Galbraith p. 29).

For as long as humans have dwelled in cities, their scarcity has been much different than the scarcity for subsistence farmers, which was governed by absolute need. Likewise, urban humans’ ambitions have been much different—molded by scarcity in the form of aspiration, jealousy, and desire. This relative scarcity has spurred urban humans to work long hours, to climb the social ladder, and to “keep up with the Joneses,” which refers to humans trying to emulate or not be outdone by fellow humans around them, a benchmark for social comparison and the accumulation of material goods (Suzman p. 273). This phenomenon is echoed by famous economist John Maynard Keynes in his definition of “relative needs.” He argued that as soon as we achieved any relative needs, they would be replaced by more ambitious ones, making them truly infinite “needs.” All of this has led to a society and culture where humans seek to “keep up with the Joneses”—to drive a nicer car, to buy a bigger house, to get promoted at work, and to achieve greater power and prestige. Humans are motivated to work harder still, due to cultural norms that arise out of urban social comparison and competition (Suzman p. 274).

Examining social comparison from a neuroscientific perspective is essential to understanding why urban humans behave this way. Social comparison in the brain: A coordinate-based meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies on the downward and upward comparisons by Luo et al. seeks to understand the underlying neural architecture of social comparison. The two types of social comparisons are upward comparison (comparing to better-off others) and downward comparison (comparing to worse-off others). The researchers identified consistent involvement of the anterior insula (aINS) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in upward comparison, and consistent involvement of the ventral striatum (VS) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in downward comparison. The researchers found that neural representations of social loss or gain closely resembled brain neural architecture for non-social loss processing or reward. They further found evidence that the brain encoded social loss or gain when prompted by social comparisons to adjust decision-making in social settings (Luo et al. p. 12).

Another study, Brain mechanisms of social comparison and their influence on the reward system by Kedia et al., further explores the ventral striatum (VS) in the human brain. Through neuroimaging, the researchers found that not only does the brain rely on social comparison when processing rewarding information, but the VS actually modulated by social comparison even when the human participant’s outcomes did not depend on the other human. This implies that humans constantly assess themselves and their personal achievements in comparison with other humans, even when this information is irrelevant to the task at hand. These results show that human social comparisons are unconscious and unintentional, yet effortless, spontaneous, and ubiquitous (Kedia et al. p. 7).

These findings are highly relevant to social comparison, materialism, and work. For urban humans, due to the prevailing competitive cultural norms, high-population non-kin society, and more, humans actually feel something comparable to physical pain when they experience social inferiority. Furthermore, this social comparison is constantly happening, regardless of its relevance to the current situation. Given this, it makes sense that modern humans work so hard to “keep up with the Joneses.”

Modern Western culture in the 2020s is a far cry from the Ju/’hoansi hunter-gatherer culture that most likely dominated 95 percent of human history. The recent advent of the Internet and social media has led to omnipresent social comparison to essentially all humans, including the most prestigious humans on Earth. Humans today have more social comparison than ever, and as a result, have increased social copying, materialism, and work to avoid feeling social inferiority and pain. Furthermore, cultural norms continue to perpetuate these values, creating a cyclical effect. As a result, there is vast materialism, fierce ambition, and relentless competition, which leads to humans working hard to keep up with their neighbors in the accumulation of material goods, all to reach the next rung of the social ladder.

In this essay, I have explored the modern infatuation of work and materialism in the context of human cultural evolution. Using scientific research from multiple domains—anthropology, history, economics, psychology, neuroscience—and looking for convergence from different lines of inquiry, we can arrive at a consensus about work, materialism, competition, inequality, and cross-cultural social structures.