Page 333 - Cultures and Organizations

298 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

Societies of hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists were not burdened
by the evils of intensive agriculture to the same extent, which may partly
explain their stronger sense of freedom and happiness. As U.S. experts
in SWB Ed Diener and William Tov indicate, research among Inuit and
Masai populations revealed that these people are about as happy as the
50
richest Americans. Further, intensive agriculture requires a restrained
discipline, planning and saving for the future, indifference to leisure, and
tight social management, conditions that are neither necessary nor possible
to the same degree in a society of hunter-gatherers or horticulturalists.
Highly advanced modern societies with service-based economies seem
to be reverting to the more indulgent culture of the distant past, before the
advent of intensive agriculture.