This study supports the idea that labor productivity is higher with more complex technologies (and shorter fallow) than with simpler technologies (and longer fallow). The increase of output per unit of land per unit of time is the core of the evolutionary process and seems best called agricultural development. It is composed of changes in technology. Intensification as a technical term is problematic and, perhaps, should be avoided. A puzzle about the evolution of cities and the state has been resolved. Higher labor productivity in agriculture, due to technological innovation, makes the growth of the necessary agricultural surplus possible.
8 Under conditions of stone-age technology it is likely that the difference between swidden and sawah labor productivities would be even larger. We have only a tiny handful of studies of the productivity of stone tools used for cutting woody vegetation (Salisbury 1962; Carneiro 1976; Toth et al. 1992). They are not very persuasive, being crude estimates at best. It is easy to imagine that iron (and steel), are much more effective than stone when it comes to felling a large tropical hardwood tree, but that may be no more than an iron-age bias.
209Labor Productivity and Agricultural Development: Testing Boserup