Civilization, that is, the congregation of people in large
settlements we call cities, is thought to owe its origins in
part to the invention of agriculture. By growing surpluses of
food crops farmers enabled the creation of an urban non-farming
class who engaged in all manner of cultural, governmental, and
commercial activities. These activities now preoccupy the vast
majority of people in advanced economies. From year to year the
new settlements of ancient civilizations ensured their
continuity through one very important measure: the storage of
surplus food crops, especially grain. This enabled them to
withstand a bad harvest or even two or three without facing
collapse. What a supreme irony then that the sine qua non of
civilization--maintaining a store of essential materials--should
in our time be considered a source of inefficiency and waste to
be avoided at all costs. The long tradition of saving for a
rainy day (or as we will see, in our case, a drought-stricken
decade) has now been rejected in favor o