Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sapiens, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Foraging, Industry, and Human Happiness
Fiction, Cooperation, and Culture
Science, Wealth, and Empire
Human-Caused Ecological Devastation
Summary
Analysis
Modern industrialization creates a wealth of new raw materials for capitalists to invest in, like titanium and plastic, which didn’t exist before the world shifted from farming to industry. Farming-based societies also relied on manual labor to move things around—to carry sacks, water crops, and so on. Then people discovered that heat creates steam, and steam can move things. It literally pushes lids off pots of boiling water, for example. People started inventing machines that burn fuel to boil water and generate steam, which pushes pistons and creates motion, like the steam engine. Eventually, humans realized that using steam to rotate copper coils surrounded by magnets creates electricity. When steam-powered motion took replaced manual labor, the Industrial Revolution happened.
Harari begins addressing another turning point in human history—the Industrial Revolution. He suggests that industrial societies are very similar to farming-based societies: they effectively just do more of the same thing, but much faster. He also thinks that many of his claims about human and animal suffering in farming-based societies also apply to industrial societies. He’ll spend this chapter arguing that, like farming-based societies, industrial societies don’t make life happier for humans or animals, meaning they’re not better than ancient foraging societies, but worse.
Themes
Harari thinks the Industrial Revolution was revolutionary in discovering new energy sources. Humans can now use fossil fuels, solar, water, gravitational, and nuclear energy. During the Industrial Revolution, people realized that there are near-infinite energy resources in the world. In searching for new energy sources, chemists discovered new materials like plastic and aluminum. In World War I, the Germans even discovered a way to create explosives using ammonia generated out of thin air.
Harari explains that the Industrial Revolution oriented humans towards seeking energy from the natural environment. Similarly, the Agricultural Revolution (the advent of farming) oriented humans towards seeking food (crops) from the natural environment. Both approaches center on taking things from the habitat to increase resources for humans. Overall, Harari thinks this attitude makes humans exploit the ecosystem and other creatures in it, which he’ll explain next.
Themes
The Industrial Revolution, Harari explains, shifted humanity into a world brimming with “cheap and abundant” energy and raw materials, leading to a colossal expansion in “human productivity.” Many of the first machines invented were used to automate farming processes, so Harari likes to think of the Industrial Revolution as the Second Agricultural Revolution. Today, humans even mass produce animals as if they are objects on a production line, and their quality of life is entirely determined by profit and loss tables, not their psychological needs.
Harari thinks that humans began automating the way they derive resources from the ecosystem after the Industrial Revolution—but that even animals were considered resources. He finds it deplorable that humans treat animals like mass-produced objects, particularly because this attitude ignores animals’ well-being and makes them suffer tremendously. He thus argues that the Industrial Revolution (like the Agricultural Revolution) made life much worse for many animals on Earth.
Themes
Harari thinks about egg-laying hens, who have instinctive urges to forage and peck, yet egg companies lock them in cages so small that they can’t even flap their wings, let alone forage. Farmed pigs too, which are almost as intelligent as great apes, often spend their lives in cages so small that they can’t turn around. Harari thinks cows are treated like machines with mouths that take in food and udders that produce milk. He thinks it’s a shame that creatures with inner mental lives have to experience so much physical and psychological discomfort.
Harari uses examples of hens, pigs, and cows in factory farming to show how cruelly humans treat them—it bothers him that humans don’t ever think about such animals’ happiness or emotional well-being. He suggests here that modern humans are extremely cruel and abusive to such animals, and he finds this unacceptable because animals are intelligent, and suffer psychological trauma when they’re treated so poorly.
Themes
Get the entire Sapiens LitChart as a printable PDF.
Harari notes that calves have instinctive urges (driven by evolution) to bond with their mothers. In the wild, such instincts are necessary because they help keep animals alive. In the modern agricultural industry, the calves won’t die without such bonding, but Harari thinks they must suffer immeasurably. American psychologist Harry Harlow devised an experiment in which monkeys were raised by metal imitation-monkeys that dispensed milk. Despite having their food needs met, the monkeys grew up to be disturbed and couldn’t reintegrate into monkey societies. Harari thinks about the millions of animals that are separated from their mothers in the farming industry, and he notes that 50 billion animals are slaughtered in the farming industry every year.
Harari cites scientific studies to prove that animals suffer deep emotional trauma when they’re kept in captivity in factories. As before, he thinks humans are cruel and abusive in depriving farmed animals of their basic social and emotional needs, and he suggests that life is far worse for such animals than it was when humans were foragers. He thus stresses that the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions were not steps forward for the world’s living ecosystem, but steps backwards, because they cause tremendous suffering—not only for humans, but for animals too.
Themes
Harari notes that modern capitalism keeps pushing to produce more—but somebody also has to buy the things that companies produce. Historically, he thinks, living frugally was highly valued. Today, consumerism is far more highly valued. Consumerism teaches people that being indulgent is “good for you.” Harari says that in the past, the rich lived extravagantly and the poor lived frugally. Today, he thinks the rich take care to manage their assets while those who are less wealthy go into debt to buy things they don’t need. Harari thinks the capitalist-consumerist ethic is a complete break with the past—historical religions told people they would reach paradise if they were modest and unselfish. Consumerism tells people they’ll be happy if they indulge themselves.
Harari explains that capitalist societies tell humans that indulging themselves, purchasing, and consuming, products is “good for [them]” because it will make them happy. This is a relatively new idea that gained popularity with the rise of capitalism as an imagined order. People effectively cooperate with countless other strangers by working hard to earn money to buy things, which keeps the society flourishing. Harari actually thinks this way of life makes people suffer. He underscores that imagined orders tend to stick when they make people cooperate, but they’re don’t necessarily make people happier.
Themes
