In a nutshell, hunter-gatherers require coercion or persuasion to join the modern world, while peasants typically require coercion to keep them as peasants. It is probable that hunting and gathering is more humanly satisfying that modern life, but since it is not a viable way of supporting the world’s population, the superiority of modern societies over traditional societies seems to be decisive. Given that the realistic choice lies between traditional and modernizing societies, modernization seems clearly the more desirable option.

Bruce Charlton & Peter Andras, The Modernization Imperative, Exeter, 2003, p. 19