i.There has generally been a much greater availability of food. This means that famines that had been a routine occurrence in the agrarian world, became less frequent in the modem world.

ii.As a result there has been an increase in the population of the world since the 18th century. This increase in the population has largely been the result of a decline in the death rate. The life expectancy in general has also gone up.

iii.There has also been an increase in the formal literacy in most societies. The developed countries have achieved total or near-total literacy. In the poor countries too there has been an increase in literate population. This is in sharp contrast to the: agrarian world in which formal literacy could be accomplished by a very small minority chosen from the privileged strata.

iv.There has also been an increase in the size of the 'middle class', although there are great variations in it. These middle classes indulge in the type of consumption that was simply unimaginable in the agrarian times.

v.The modem indicators of economic performance of different societies (national income, per capita income, gross domestic produce, growth rate) also establish the pattern of increasing affluence. However on the basis of these indicators we cannot make a comparison between the modem and the pre-modern times. Yet the principle of 'growth' can be seen operating in almost all the societies. By backward societies we now mean societies that have witnessed slow growth.