[jrochkind1]

That theory is actually pretty challenged. Makes me want to find time to enhance the wikipedia article, but it would be a lot of work.

Among critiques are that the !Kung San people the study of which is at the basis of this theory _weren't_ actually exclusively (or possibly even primarily) engaging in hunting and gathering as economic activity at the time the anthropologists studied them, but those anthropologists just chose to leave out the wage labor as "atypical". And that the !Kung San at that period of history actually were a regional underclass -- if they didn't work much, that's because they didn't have many options, and is similar to the extremely poor in any society. See Edwin Wilmsen, _Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari_

That's just a start.

But anyway, I agree with you that it's ridiculous to think that people can't be happy unless extorted to work for others at threat of starvation.