Struggle and progress

Is struggle a necessary ingredient in maintaining a society's dynamism and progress? I ask myself this as I read a chapter from Eric Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes:

"The sheer poverty of China is hard for Western readers to imagine. Thus at the time of the communist take-over (1952 data) the average Chinese lived essentially on half a kilogram of rice or grains a day, and consumed rather less thn 0.08 kilos of tea a year. He or she acquired a new pair of footwear once every five years or so (China Statistics, 1989, Tables 3.1, 15.2, 15.5)."

(page 463, 2001 edition)