Faith in progress is deep within our culture. We have been taught to believe that our lives are better than the lives of those who came before us. The ideology of modern economics suggests that material progress has yielded enhanced satisfaction and well-being. But much of our confidence about our own well-being comes from the assumption that our lives are easier than those of earlier generations.
The lives of the so-called primitive peoples are thought to be harsh-their existence dominated by the 'incessant quest for food'. In fact, primitives did very little work. By contemporary standards we'd have to judge them very lazy.
The key to understanding why these 'stone-age people' failed to act like us - increasing their work effort to get more things is that they had limited desires. In the race between wanting and having, they had kept their wanting low-and, in this way ensured their own kind of satisfaction. They were materially poor by contemporary standards, but in at least one dimension-time-we have to count them richer.
What is the key to understanding the primitive people's behaviour according to the passage ?

Options

A. They had no desires.
B. They had everything they needed.
C. They had limited desires.
D. They kept their wants high.

Answer

C

Explanation

They had limited desires