Final answer:
Knowing a society's subsistence base allows predictions about its social and political systems, the complexity of science, mathematics, technology, and its capacity for warfare; subtending this are the four main modes of subsistence: gathering-hunting, pastoralism, plant cultivation, and industrialism/post-industrialism.
Step-by-step explanation:
If you know what the subsistence base is for a society, it is usually possible to predict d) all of the above: a) the kinds of social and political systems that it can create, b) the complexity of its science, mathematics, and technology, c) the scale of warfare that it can sustain. This is because the mode of subsistence greatly influences how communities organize themselves, the division of labor within a society, the roles and institutions developed to manage resources, and the values and social interactions that become prevalent.
The general elements of all modes of subsistence include strategies for producing essential needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and health, using materials from the environment and developing labor and technology. The four main modes of subsistence used by humans throughout history are gathering-hunting, pastoralism, plant cultivation, and industrialism/post-industrialism.
Each subsistence mode can correlate with certain sociocultural features. For instance, gathering and hunting commonly associate with band societies, horticulture with tribal societies, agricultural surplus with chiefdoms, and state societies typically involve multiple subsistence methods plus trade and often conquest.
Understanding a society's mode of subsistence also sheds light on economic institutions, patterns of trading, and the organization of labor, giving a complex, interconnected view of a society's potential development in various aspects of life.