Page 215 - Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors, Vol. 1

Nicolai Levashov. Russian History Viewed through Distorted Mirrors. Vol. 1

Green – the positive and creative niches of the economic system;

Yellow – the ballast niches of the economic system;

Red – the negative or destructive niches of the economic system.

The reason for such a “warp” is simple and obvious. The improvement of tools
and technologies liberated a lot of people from hard but ineffective labour. At the
same time those who remained working in the sphere of food production — farmers,
cattle breeders, hunters and fishermen — produced a plenitude of food which was
enough not only for them and their families but also for the others with whom they
created the structure of a communal social organism.
When a person must continuously fight for survival, he pays little attention to
beauty and grace. The severe living conditions and life “at the breaking point” do not
especially dispose one to all this. Everyone lived according to the principle: “beggars
can't be choosers”. But, when the surplus of food appeared and this required consid-
erably less physical effort, the possibility and need to think of both soul and beauty
awoke. When extended reproduction and trade appeared, newer and newer economic
niches began to originate exactly in the categories of passive and social niches. The
demand creates the supply; and new commodities began to appear; art and culture al-
so began to thrive. Liberated from hard and routine labour, people received the possi-
bility of finding applications for their talents and abilities which immediately influ-
enced the level of development of the social organism in general and individuals in
particular.

The improvement of the instruments of labour, and the invention, (or more pre-
cisely, re-invention) of certain technologies, created conditions which allowed people
to be less dependent on the whims of nature: In principle, Homo sapiens was able to
“quit the game” for survival imposed by wild nature only at this stage of social de-
velopment and this created conditions for his evolutional development as a reasoning
creature. Art and culture again began to flourish; people began to create beauty and
esteem it highly, etc. And it is time to recall social parasites…

Unfortunately, killers, rapists and spongers did not disappear when the surplus
of food and commodities appeared, on the contrary, their number increased, precisely
because of the abundance of food and goods. When there was enough food for every-
one and even its excess appeared, when there were “unnecessary” working hands be-
cause there was no necessity to work on fields, vegetable gardens, etc. from dawn to
dusk: some people being “liberated” from this fate were tempted not to do anything at
all. In principle, laziness is partly in man’s nature. Many people do something not be-
cause their soul needs this, but because life forces them. This is especially strongly
expressed in individuals at the stage of reasoning animal. When the extreme living
conditions disappeared, the main “stimulus” — the powerful instinct for survival —
disappeared too.

Thus, the surplus of food and commodities resulted in a “surplus” of social par-
asites. How did a family, community or a tribe solve this new and, at the same time,
old problem? The method was the same — they banished these kind of people from
their midst. Some of derelicts still died in the wild, as before, but already very many

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