Human beings are engaged in various
kinds of economic activities that pertain
to the production, exchange or
distribution and consumption of goods and
services. With the evolution of human society,
the nature of economic activities has changed
and has become more and more complex.
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Humans, ever since their appearance on the
earth, have depended on the physical
environment for their survival and
development. Even today, we depend on the
nature for many of our material and aesthetic
needs. Without sunshine, rocks, minerals, soil,
water, vegetation and animals, our very
existence will be impossible.
The early humans led a simple, though
arduous life. Their needs were limited. They
moved from place to place in search of food
and water. They hunted animals and gathered
fruits, nuts, roots, stems and leaves of edible
plants to satisfy their hunger. The subsistence
of people based on hunting of animals and
gathering of wild plant foods and fishing
without domestication of plants and animals
is known as foraging.
Use of fire for cooking and heating,
domestication of animals, cultivation of crops
and living in the permanent villages triggered
off agricultural revolution. All these
developments did not occur simultaneously,
nor did they occur in isolation. They were
interrelated, each acting as a cause as well as
the effect of the rest.
When did the agricultural revolution take
place? It is difficult to answer this question,
though it may be stated categorically that it
took place at different times in various regions
of the world. According to the available
archaeological evidences, agricultural
revolution was experienced in the river valleys,
where ancient civilisations flourished.
Agricultural revolution changed the lives
of people enormously as they had more time
for other functions. Artisanal activities in
support of agriculture as well as to meet other
basic needs and aesthetic tastes grew. Trade
in agricultural and artisan products led to
the opening of transport routes. Villages
increased in size to form small and then large
towns. Some 5,000 years ago, the Nile Delta
in Egypt, the river valleys of the Euphrates and
the Tigris in Mesopotamia and the Indus in
India witnessed the blossoming of well
developed cities and towns. But the base of all
these cities was agriculture and related
activities.
After the elapse of several millennium, a
revolutionary change in human civilisation
took place in Europe during the eighteenth
century. At that time, Europe was
agriculturally less developed due to
unfavourable climatic conditions. The
industrial revolution, which started with the
invention of steam engine, however, changed
the course of development. While the
agricultural revolution was triggered off by a
better and more organised way of using the
biological products of nature, the industrial
revolution relied on the use of energy stored in
nature in the form of coal, and later petroleum.
It helped people avoid the drudgery of manual
labour and produce non-agricultural
commodities on a mass scale. It also had its
impact on education, health, transport and
trade.
Industrial revolution had its adverse effects
too. The European countries used its power to
improve the life of their people. They had limited
natural resources and hence, limited scope for
development. They ventured out of their own
countries to colonise people in other
continents. The overseas colonies not only gave
them ample natural resources but also vast
market to sell their industrial goods. It is
reflected through the transport routes that
developed in these colonies during that period.
Development of port cities and their linkages
with the hinterland in several colonies explain
this design. Consequently, the situation
reversed. Europe which was underdeveloped
became developed, and other continents
specially Asia which were more developed
became less developed.
By the middle of the twentieth century,
signs of fatigue became clearly visible in the
industrial apparatus of the world. The two
world wars and several localised conflicts
aroused the human conscience against
unbridled industrialisation in producing arms
and ammunitions. Environmental crises forced
the people to think of an alternative sustainable
development model. Growing poverty in the
three continents of Asia, Africa and South
America in the midst of increasing income in
the industrial world, shook the faith of people
in industrialisation as the panacea for all ills.
Before the thinking on a human model of
development could take a concrete shape, the
industrial world faced a challenge from within.
The role of information increased and by 1980s,
the production and transmission of knowledge
became a major preoccupation in the west. A
third major change in human civilisation,
popularly known as information revolution,
became a reality by the turn of the twentieth
century. The Industrial Era still lingers on; but
the signs of its early demise are clear and
obvious.
Information revolution has potentials of
sweeping the whole world � developed as well
as developing � for obvious reasons that
human potentials are not as unevenly
distributed as the natural resources. Moreover,
the use of information technology in various
sectors of our life and living world has opened
up new and greater opportunities for
development and if handled judiciously, without
enlarging the gulf between the rich and the poor.