“To return to the difficulty which has been stated with respect both to definitions and to numbers, what is the cause of their unity? In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts, there is a cause [of unity]; for even in bodies[,] contact is the cause of unity in some cases, and in others viscosity or some other such quality. And a definition [as an explanation of a thing] is a set of words which is one [thing] not by being connected together, like the Iliad, but by dealing with one object.—What then, is it that makes man one [thing]; why is he one and not many [different things], e.g. animal + biped, especially if there are, as some say, an animal-itself and a biped-itself? Why are not those Forms themselves the man, so that men would exist by participation not in man, nor in-one Form, but in two, animal and biped, and in general man would be not one but more than one thing, animal and biped?

Clearly, then, if people proceed thus in their usual manner of definition and speech, they cannot explain and solve the difficulty. But if, as we say, one element is matter and another is form, and one is potentially and the other actually, the question will no longer be thought a difficulty.”

The Works of Aristotle, Volume VIII: Metaphysica, Book VIII, Part VI, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by W. D. Ross, Oxford University Press, Second Edition, 1928.

Today, Smith may be the most famous to broach such ideas, but he wasn’t the first, although today he’s recognized as the first to set them in the context of an economic theory. Also, Mandeville was not Smith’s only precursor. Others, particularly those involved in the Scottish Enlightenment, added various insights before, or around the same time as Smith, notably: David Hume, Adam Ferguson, Josiah Tucker, Dugald Stewart, Joseph Butler (Bishop of Durham), Anthony Ashley-Cooper (third Earl of Shaftesbury), and Francis Hutcheson.

For example, in 1767 Ferguson wrote that, “Mankind, in following the present sense of their minds, in striving to remove inconveniencies, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate; and pass on, like other animals, in the track of their nature, without perceiving its end. He who first said, ‘I will appropriate this field: I will leave it to my heirs;’ did not perceive, that he was laying the foundation of civil laws and political establishments. He who first ranged himself under a leader, did not perceive, that he was setting the example of a permanent subordination, under the pretence of which, the rapacious were to seize his possessions, and the arrogant to lay claim to his service.

Men, in general, are sufficiently disposed to occupy themselves in forming projects and schemes: but he who would scheme and project for others, will find an opponent in every person who is disposed to scheme for himself. Like the winds, that come we know not whence, and blow whithersoever they list, the forms of society are derived from an obscure and distant origin; they arise, long before the date of philosophy, from the instincts, not from the speculations, of men. The croud of mankind, are directed in their establishments and measures, by the circumstances in which they are placed; and seldom are turned from their way, to follow the plan of any single projector.

Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”

An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Adam Ferguson, 1767, Duncan Forbes (editor), Edinburgh University Press, 1966, page 122.

Ferguson’s last line is a secular reformulation of an age-old religious thought (that is, ‘divine providence,’ which goes back at least as far as Thomas Aquinas, five centuries before). His later paragraphs expand on that. In essence, he argued that to explain the human equation, we need not introduce the divine. Then, if that was accepted, he argued that we also didn’t need the next level down proxies of the divine: Great Heroes who can foresee all possible outcomes and force a design that will lead to the ‘best’ outcome far into the future. In essence, he argued that nobody can foretell the future—the contingency of events is too complex—however, after the fact we inevitably look back and assume that at the beginning of things someone must have done so, because how else could things have worked out the way they did?

Thus in some serious sense, the name ‘spontaneous order’ is wrong, because there’s nothing ‘spontaneous’ about it. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. The core idea is this: Every human practice, whether it be in language, law, politics, economics, or whatever, grew over very long periods, in very small steps, as each of us gradually changed what we did, and others copied us, discarding anything that didn’t seem to work. But we didn’t, or couldn’t, copy exactly, nor could we forsee what would happen after enough of us copied some new thing.

The resulting structure resists change not because we planned it to do so but because many of its parts supported each other. Anything that didn’t would get whittled away over time. We call the structure ‘spontaneous order’ only when we’re look at whatever resulted long after all that has happened and, surprised by the result because we can’t name any particular originator, we’re trying to figure out where that order came from. Thus, ‘spontaneous order’ really means ‘unplanned order.’ It is in no wise ‘spontaneous.’

The idea of spontaneous order amounts to saying that just because something is intricate needn’t mean that it must have been designed. A century before Darwin, that was a disquieting idea—it was disquieting even in Darwin’s time—and, apparently, even today. Broadly speaking: Ferguson applied the idea of spontaneous order to language, Smith to economics, Hume to law, but they all applied it to politics and government. Nor can it be said that any of those writers were thinking of today’s notions of spontaneous network order. Mandeville, for example, wasn’t seriously arguing that we are like bees, but more that our usual explanations of why we do what we do are highly questionable. For instance, see: “The Role of Mandeville’s Bee Analogy in ‘The Grumbling Hive’,” W. J. Farrell, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 25(3):511-527, 1985.

Their focus (and the focus, even today, of nearly all economists) is that of ‘betterment.’ Mandeville was more satiric and pessimistic than Smith or other Enlightenment philosophers, who were more usually sanguine and theistic. Mandeville was attacked strongly, primarily because he argued that ‘betterment’ happened largely because of selfish reasons. Many writers, particularly clergy, didn’t like that—for example, William Law, Richard Fiddes, John Dennis, George Bluet, George Berkeley, Alexander Pope, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding. However, the Englightenment idea of ‘betterment’ still persists today. (It’s related to, and descended from, Aristotle’s ‘Great Chain of Being.’) These days it’s primarily used as justification for the ‘free market.’

For example, here’s a Nobel prize-winning proponent of the idea of spontaneous order in economics: “To understand our civilisation, one must appreciate that the extended order resulted not from human design or intention but spontaneously: it arose from unintentionally conforming to certain traditional and largely moral practices.” The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, F. A Hayek, University of Chicago Press, 1988, page 6.

The text, however, states no assumption that all spontaneous order is necessarily ‘good,’ ‘beneficial,’ ‘progressive,’ ‘civilizing,’ or any of the other adjectives that we often use to say that we approve of something. The text’s main purpose is to show that spontaneous order exists in our species, and that it appears to be becoming more dominant, and then to explain some of the network mechanisms by which it comes to exist and by which it seems to be becoming more dominant. Whether those group arrangements are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ aren’t part of this book.

The following paper extract states this book’s position rather well: “[This paper asks] why the implications of new goods have not more extensively been explored, especially given that the basic economic issues were identified 150 years ago. The mathematical difficulty of modeling new goods has no doubt been part of the problem. An equally, if not more important stumbling block has been the deep philosophical resistance that humans feel toward the unavoidable logical consequence of assuming that genuinely new things can happen and could have happened at every date in the past. We are forced to admit that the world as we know it is the result of a long string of chance outcomes....

Once we admit that there is room for newness—that there are vastly more conceivable possibilites than realized outcomes—we must confront the fact that there is no special logic behind the world we inhabit, no particular justification for why things are the way they are. Any number of arbitrarily small peturbations along the way could have made the world as we know it turn out very differently.”

“New goods, old theory, and the welfare costs of trade restrictions,” P. Romer, Journal of Development Economics, 43(1):5-38, 1994. Paul Romer is the author of seminal work on new growth theory in economics. For example: “Endogenous Technological Change,” P. M. Romer, Journal of Political Economy, 98(5-2):S71-S102, 1990.

That can happen when many things, each following their own rules, interact over time. It might then make sense to talk about a single large thing as opposed to the several smaller things that compose it, even if the large thing is unintended, perhaps even unnoticed. But what happens if those smaller things are us?

The study of complex networks is both very old and very new. It’s very old in that many early thinkers have pointed out that gestalts don’t always work the way we expect. It’s very new in that the field studying it formally, complex systems theory, is less than two generations old. Today it goes by many names (for example: complex adaptive systems, complexity theory, complex network science, self-organizing systems, non-linear dynamical systems theory). It studies how relationships between parts of a system give rise to the system’s self-organizing behaviors. It’s interdisciplinary, with influences from economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, computer science, and mathematics, as well as more specialized fields like entomology, climatology, geology, ecology, neuroscience, molecular biology, immunology, game theory, control theory, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and artificial life.

It’s growing now because our computers have grown strong enough for us to use them to see macroscale patterns that were too big for us to see before. It’s also growing now because we now know enough to realize that understanding how the parts of a complex network interact can be just as important as understanding the parts themselves. And it’s growing now that we realize that an entomologist studying termites may have something to say to a molecular biologist studying mitochondria, who may have something to say to a climatologist studying tornadoes, who may have something to say to a sociologist studying city planning.

It’s still a magpie of a science. It steals ideas from condensed matter physics, biochemistry, molecular biology, embryology, entomology, ecology, immunology, evolutionary theory, neuroscience, mathematics, and economics. It feathers its nest with that hodge-podge of ideas, trying to figure out what’s common among them. It’s hoping to answer just one central question: how does order arise out of chaos? It assumes that there’s similarity of origin regardless of whether that order is in cities or crayfish or economies or railway companies. It’s still flailing around in the dark, but the vague outlines of a coherent theory may not be far off. And that theory, if proven true, may one day imply testable things about our future. However, today even the very definition of the word ‘complex’ is unresolved. We don’t yet have a widely accepted way to measure the ‘complexity’ of a system. So we still don’t have a uniform definition of a ‘complex system.’ So it’s still far from a real science.

Our knowledge base is now growing so fast that in recent decades every new scientific field goes through the same cycle. First a few explorers find something of interest. Then there’s a feeding frenzy as many prospectors join the gold rush. After a while, interest wanes as the same prospectors see that the pot of gold is still distant. That speed-up is a side-effect of our growing knowledge base, but the cycle itself is very old. It doesn’t much matter whether it’s in mining or science, finance or the stock market. We behave exactly the same way, everywhere and everywhen. In the last century that cycle has played out in systems theory, cybernetics, information theory, game theory, catastrophe theory, fractal geometry, and chaos theory. It’s now playing out in complex systems. Each wave washes up some new and pretty shell on the shoreline of our knowledge, but it’s hard to build those shells into a coherent picture. Too much is still missing.

For a good summary (before the field existed), here’s Warren Weaver, from 1948. He’s here describing the world where physical sciences (physics, particularly) largely studied problems where everything but for two variables could be kept constant. Then it jumped to problems where there were two billion variables and statistics could be used to average out behavior. That left a vast middle ground, which the life sciences (and all other sciences) are still struggling with:

“One is tempted to oversimplify and say that scientific methodology went from one extreme to the other... and left untouched a great middle region. The importance of this middle region, moreover, does not depend primarily on the fact that the number of variables involved is moderate large compared to two, but small compared to the number of atoms in a pinch of salt.... Much more important than the mere number of variables is the fact that these variables are all interrelated.... These problems, as contrasted with the disorganized situations with which statistics can cope, show the essential feature of organization. We will therefore refer to this group of problems as those of organized complexity.” From: “Science and Complexity,” W. Weaver, American Scientist, 36(4):536-44, 1948, page 538.

For some background, see: “Quantifying Self-Organization with Optimal Predictors,” C. R. Shalizi, K. L. Shalizi, R. Haslinger, Physical Review Letters, 93(11):118701, 2004. Emergence: From Chaos to Order, John Holland, Perseus Books Group, 1999. Hierarchical Structures and Scaling in Physics, Remo Badii and Antonio Politi, Cambridge University Press, 1997. Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity, John Holland, Addison-Wesley, 1996. Emergent Evolution: Qualitative Novelty and the Levels of Reality, David Blitz, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

“Thus we consistently regard a society as an entity, because, though formed of discrete units, a certain concreteness in the aggregate of them is implied by the general persistence of the arrangements among them throughout the area occupied. And it is this trait which yields our idea of a society. For, withholding the name from an ever-changing cluster such as primitive men form, we apply it only where some constancy in the distribution of parts has resulted from settled life.

But now, regarding a society as a thing, what kind of thing must we call it? It seems totally unlike every object with which our senses acquaint us. Any likeness it may possibly have to other objects, cannot be manifest to perception, but can be discerned only by reason. If the constant relations among its parts make it an entity; the question arises whether these constant relations among its parts are akin to the constant relations among the parts of other entities. Between a society and anything else, the only conceivable resemblance must be one due to parallelism of principle in the arrangement of components.”

The Principles of Sociology, Volume I: Herbert Spencer, 1885, D. Appleton and Company, Third Edition, 1916, page 448.

Then followed an entire chapter examining the question (Volume I, Part II, Chapter 2). Spencer primarily saw his ‘super-organism’ as an analogy. He intended to point out that a ‘society’ is different from a set of random individuals, but also different from a single organic entity.

Also, there’s a far older proverb dating to Roman times: Venter non habet aures [The belly has no ears]. Plutarch tells us that Cato the Elder used a version of it in an oration to mean that the hungry don’t listen when it comes to corn. (Arduum esse ad ventrem verba facere, qui careat auribus. [It’s hard to argue with the belly, which has no ears].) And Erasmus later used Venter auribus caret. [The belly has no ears.] Heinrich Bebel’s Proverbia Germanica, W. H. D. Suringar, E. J. Brill, 1879, page 385.

By 2019, employment in agriculture was (as a percentage of all employment globally) 26.857. International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT database Data retrieved in March 1, 2020.

In 2006, the figure was 45 percent (1.3 billon people). The Employment Imperative: Report on the World Social Situation 2007, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2007, page 15.

In 1997, the figure was 46 percent. “A World of Farmers, But Not a Farmer’s World,” L. A. Ferleger, Journal of The Historical Society, 2(1):43-53, 2002.

For some of the collapses known to be linked to climate change, see: “What Drives Societal Collapse?,” H. Weiss, R. S. Bradley, Science, 291(5504):609-610, 2001. See also: “Climate and the collapse of Mayan civilization,” G. H. Haug, D. Günther, L. C. Peterson, D. M. Sigman, K. A. Hughen, B. Aeschlimann, Science, 299(5613):1731-1735, 2003.

The Younger Dryas is important both because it shows that earth’s climate can sometimes change suddenly (in geologic terms) and because we started farming sometime within it, at least as far as the domestication of emmer wheat in southwest Asia is concerned. Such so-called ‘D-O events’ (named by Wallace Broecker after the Danish climatologist Willi Dansgaard and the Swiss geophysicist Hans Oeschger, who pioneered the research into the phenomenon in the early 1980s) are now garnering increased attention in climatology. A Brain for all Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change, William H. Calvin University of Chicago Press, 2002, page 228. “Sudden climate transitions during the Quaternary,” J. Adams, M. Maslin, E. Thomas, Progress in Physical Geography, 23(1):1-36, 1999. “Evidence for General Instability of Past Climate From a 250-kyr Ice Core,” W. Dansgaard, S. J. Johnsen, H. B. Clausen, D. Dahl-Jensen, N. S. Gundestrup, C. U. Hammer, C. S. Hvidberg, J. P. Steffensen, A. E. Sveinbjörnsdottir, J. Jouzel, G. Bond, Nature, 364(6434):218-220, 1993. “One thousand centuries of climatic record from Camp Century on the Greenland ice sheet,” W. Dansgaard, S. J. Johnsen, J. Moller, C. C. Langway, Jr., Science, 166(3903):377-381, 1969.

It’s not impossible that some goats were domesticated much earlier. Mitochrondrial evidence suggests that domestication events for goats were complex and geographically spread out. It seems likely that goats traveled great distances, perhaps by being herded, yet still intermixed with local populations. “Multiple Maternal Origins and Weak Phylogeographic Structure in Domestic Goats,” G. Luikart, L. Gielly, L. Excoffier, J.-D. Vigne, J. Bouvet, P. Taberlet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 98(10):5927-5932, 2001. “Livestock genetic origins: Goats buck the trend,” D. E. MacHugh, D. G. Bradley, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 98(10):5382-5384, 2001.

“We report genome-wide ancient DNA from 44 ancient Near Easterners ranging in time between ~12,000 and 1,400 bc, from Natufian hunter-gatherers to Bronze Age farmers. We show that the earliest populations of the Near East derived around half their ancestry from a ‘Basal Eurasian’ lineage that had little if any Neanderthal admixture and that separated from other non-African lineages before their separation from each other. The first farmers of the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan) and Zagros Mountains (Iran) were strongly genetically differentiated, and each descended from local hunter-gatherers. By the time of the Bronze Age, these two populations and Anatolian-related farmers had mixed with each other and with the hunter-gatherers of Europe to greatly reduce genetic differentiation. The impact of the Near Eastern farmers extended beyond the Near East: farmers related to those of Anatolia spread westward into Europe; farmers related to those of the Levant spread southward into East Africa; farmers related to those of Iran spread northward into the Eurasian steppe; and people related to both the early farmers of Iran and to the pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe spread eastward into South Asia.”

“Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East,” I. Lazaridis, D. Nadel, G. Rollefson, D. Merrett, N. Rohland, S. Mallick, D. M. Fernandes, M. Novak, B. Gamarra, K. Sirak S. Connell, K. Stewardson, E. Harney, Q. Fu, G. Gonzalez-Fortes, E. R. Jones, S. A. Roodenberg, G. Lengyel, F. Bocquentin, B. Gasparian, J. M. Monge, M. Gregg, V. Eshed, A.-S. Mizrahi, C. Meiklejohn, F. Gerritsen, L. Bejenaru, M. Blüher, A. Campbell, G. Cavalleri, D. Comas, P. Froguel, E. Gilbert, S. M. Kerr, P. Kovacs, J. Krause, D. McGettigan, M. Merrigan, D. A. Merriwether, S. O’Reilly, M. B. Richards, O. Semino, M. Shamoon-Pour, G. Stefanescu, M. Stumvoll, A. Tönjes, A. Torroni, J. F. Wilson, L. Yengo, N. A. Hovhannisyan, N. Patterson, R. Pinhasi, D. Reich, Nature, 536(7617):419-424, 2016.

But in general, too much is unknown. Perhaps as the ice retreated the drying climate forced us to stay near rivers. Or perhaps the reverse happened since the melting ice raised sea level by 90 meters (about 300 feet), which would have drowned our lowlying camps and forced our tribes into the hills. Or maybe there was especially good wood or stone or game, and an excellent cave, thereabouts. Or perhaps the geography was especially good in relation to the roaming ranges of other nomad tribes. Or maybe a plague forced some of us to stop roaming. Or perhaps a severe drought drove most game away. It’s even possible that our slowly rising population led to overhunting until things got so bad that we started eating grass all the time. It’s tantalizing, for example, that by 11Kya we’d already colonized most of the world that we could reach. So maybe our population had by then maximized, given our technology of the time, and food competition was thus growing. We don’t know. We’re also, likely, still missing a lot of data. For instance, our first cultivations may have happened millennia before the ones we’ve found so far, but they may have been in low-lying regions. If so, they would today be lost to us as the oceans rose with the melting ice. Perhaps, though, it was because the mutant grass seeds were so easy to harvest, and (at least in the Levant) so densely concentrated.

“Unconscious selection drove seed enlargement in vegetable crops,” T. A. Kluyver, G. Jones, B. Pujol, C. Bennett, E. J. Mockford, M. Charles, M. Rees, C. P. Osborne, Evolution Letters, 1(2):64-72, 2017. “Yield stability: an agronomic perspective on the origin of Near Eastern agriculture,” S. Abbo, S. Lev-Yadun, A. Gopher, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 19(2):143-150, 2010. “From Foraging To Farming: Explaining The Neolithic Revolution,” J. L. Weisdorf, Journal of Economic Surveys, 19(4):561-586, 2005. First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies, Peter Bellwood, Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond, W. W. Norton, 1997. The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, David R. Harris (editor), Smithsonian Books, 1996. Last Hunters, First Farmers: New Perspectives on the Prehistoric Transition to Agriculture, T. Douglas Price and Anne Birgitte Gebauer (editors), School of American Research, 1995.

Also, recent excavations have found large sites that may have been settlements, but may also possibly have been some form of communal gathering places, which weren’t near large food supplies. One very important one is Göbekli Tepe, in south-eastern Turkey. Another one is ’Wadi Faynan 16 in southern Jordan. At least one site, Jerf el Ahmar in norther Syria, is extra-special, in that it both started in the last ice age and continued into the Holocene, and it gave rise to monumental structures (although they were mainly settlements).

“Monumental — compared to what? A perspective from Göbekli Tepe,” M. Kinzel, L. Clare, in: Monumentalising Life in the Neolithic: Narratives of Change and Continuity, Anne Birgitte Gebauer, Lasse Sørensen, Anne Teather, and António Carlos Valera (editors) Oxbow, 2020, chapter 3, pages 29-48. “Cereal processing at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey,” L. Dietrich, J. Meister, O. Dietrich, J. Notroff, J. Kiep, J. Heeb, A. Beuger, B. Schütt, PLoS ONE, 14(5):e0215214, 2019. “Origins of house mice in ecological niches created by settled hunter-gatherers in the Levant 15,000 y ago,” L. Weissbrod, F. B. Marshall, F. R. Valla, H. Khalaily, G. Bar-Oz, J.-C. Auffray, J.-D. Vigne, T. Cucchi, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(16):4099-4104, 2017. “The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey,” O. Dietrich, M. Heun, J. Notroff, K. Schmidt, M. Zarnkow, Antiquity, 86(333):674-695, 2012. “An 11 600 year-old communal structure from the Neolithic of southern Jordan,” S. J. Mithen, W. Finlayson, S. Smith, E. Jenkins, M. Najjar, D. Maričević, Antiquity, 85(328):350-364, 2011. “New light on Neolithic revolution in south-west Asia,” T. Watkins, Antiquity, 84(325):621-634, 2010. The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory: Why Did Foragers Become Farmers? Graeme Barker, Oxford University Press, 2009. First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies, Peter S. Bellwood, Wiley-Blackwell, 2005. After the Ice: a Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC, Steven Mithen, Harvard University Press, 2003. Neanderthals, Bandits & Farmers: How Agriculture Really Began, Colin Tudge, Yale University Press, 1998. “Jerf el-Ahmar, un nouveau site de l’horizon PPNA sur le moyen Eurprate Syriean,” D. Stordeur, D. Helmer, G. Wilcox, Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française, 94(2):282-285, 1997.

Another question is about the purpose of cereals themselves. Instead of cultivating (or at least simply harvesting) them for bread, some argue that we may have been doing so for beer. One reason being that barley, left to itself, ferments. Another possible reason might be that consuming alcohol might be part of ritual, which might be an aid to tribal bonding.

It’s clear, though, that certainly by 10.4Kya we had settled down in at least a few mountain villages in today’s Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Turkey, and Cyprus, and had begun actively cultivating cereals.

“... ‘Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of [beer]!’ (R.L. Stevenson) no beer but rather cereal-Food. Commentary: Liu et al. 2018,” D. Eitam, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 28, 101913, 2019. “Fermented beverage and food storage in 13,000 y-old stone mortars at Raqefet Cave, Israel: Investigating Natufian ritual feasting,” L. Liu, J. Wang, D. Rosenberg, H. Zhao, G. Lengyel, D. Nadel, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 21:783-793, 2018. “Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan,” A. Arranz-Otaeguia, L. Gonzalez Carretero, M. N. Ramsey, D. Q. Fuller, T. Richter, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 115(31):7925-7930, 2018. “The Roots of Cultivation in Southwestern Asia,” G. Willcox, Science, 341(6141):39-40, 2013. “Emergence of Agriculture in the Foothills of the Zagros Mountains of Iran,” S. Riehl, M. Zeidi, N. J. Conard, Science, 341(6141):65-67, 2013. “Searching for the origins of arable weeds in the Near East,” G. Willcox, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 21(2):163-167, 2012. “Large-scale cereal processing before domestication during the tenth millennium BC cal. in northern Syria,” G. Willcox, D. Stordeur, Antiquity, 86(331):99-114, 2012. Origins and Spread of Agriculture in SW Asia and Europe: Archaeobotanical Investigations of Neolithic Plant Economies, W. S. Colledge, J. Conolly, and S. J. Shennnan (editors), University College London Press, 2005.

“The role of cult and feasting in the emergence of Neolithic communities. New evidence from Göbekli Tepe, south-eastern Turkey,” O. Dietrich, M. Heun, J. Notroff, K. Schmidt, M. Zarnkow, Antiquity, 86(333):674-695, 2012. “Genetic characterization and relationships of traditional grape cultivars from Transcaucasia and Anatolia,” J. F. Vouillamoz, P. E. McGovern, A. Ergul, G. Söylemezoglu, G. Tevzadze, M. S. Grando, Plant Genetic Resources: Characterization & Utilization, 4(2):144-158, 2006. “Fermented Beverages of Pre- and Proto-Historic China,” P. E. McGovern, J. Zhang, J. Tang, Z. Zhang, G. R. Hall, R. A. Moreau, A. Nuñez, E. D. Butrym, M. P. Richards, C.-S. Wang, G. Cheng, Z. Zhao, C. Wang, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(51):17593-17598, 2004.

“Although agriculture provided the economic basis for the rise of states and development of civilizations, the change in diet and acquisition of food resulted in a decline in quality of life for most human populations in the last 10,000 years.” From: “The agricultural revolution as environmental catastrophe: Implications for health and lifestyles in the Holocene,” C. S. Larsen, Quaternary International, 150(1):12-20, 2006.

“The shift from foraging to farming led to a reduction in health status and well-being, an increase in physiological stress, a decline in nutrition, an increase in birthrate and population growth, and an alteration of activity types and work loads. Taken as a whole, then, the popular and scholarly perception that quality of life improved with the acquisition of agriculture is incorrect.” From: “Biological Changes in Human Populations with Agriculture,” C. S. Larsen, Annual Review of Anthropology, 24:185-213, 1995.

See also: The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the Western Hemisphere, Richard H. Steckel and Jerome C. Rose (editors), Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Its population estimates are given here: “Demography and Storage Systems During the Southern Levantine Neolithic Demographic Transition,” I. Kuijta, in: The Neolithic Demographic Transition and Its Consequences, Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel and Ofer Bar-Yosef (editors), Springer, 2008, pages 287-313.

An interesting recent model suggests that the particular period was unusual in that it was 1/ warm, and 2/ stable, and 3/ stayed that way for more than 2 millennia. That hadn’t happened at any time in the preceding 44Kya (in which period, presumably, humans were capable of exploiting the conditions—or falling into the trap, as the book has it) “Climate stability and the development of agricultural societies,” J. Feynman, A. Ruzmaikin, Climatic Change, 84(3):295-311, 2007.

There’s so much we today don’t know about those particular 2,600 or so years and what must have mattered to us across that particular stretch of time. But there’s one thing that may have mattered a great deal—genetic changes in wheat.

Step back once again to 11.6Kya. Unlike in the dramatized sketch in the text, we’re intimately familiar with everything that we see in our foraging cycle, for we eat nearly anything that can’t eat us first. The wheat variant we come across is rare around the planet, but in this time and place, it would be no surprise to us. What’s new is that for some reason we start storing its seeds. Why we choose to store anything at all at this particular time is unknown. But of all the seeds that we could have chosen, we probably choose these particular ones because their seeds happen to be a little bigger than other grass seeds. It would make sense for us to gather them rather than other seeds. Also, although most of their stalks shatter as they ripen—so that their seeds fall to the ground, ready to sprout—the stalks of a few mutant wheat plants fail to shatter. Normally that strain would be rare. It can’t make new plants, so from the plant’s point of view, it’s a dead end. But from our point of view, as the last ice age ended, those few mutants might have saved some of our lives.

We would probably ignore wheat stalks that had done the right thing and shattered. Picking up their scattered seeds would take more energy than eating them would give—something we only do when we’re truly starving. But the few mutant plants would still have their ripe seeds on the stalk. That would leave them in the perfect position for us to harvest cheaply.

Then, over time, we built more permanent seasonal shelters where they grew. Then, over time, we spent more and more time there. After a while, we started planting some of the mutant seeds that we didn’t eat. That gave those mutants an edge over their normal cousins, so they spread. As we kept selecting among them, they grew taller, too, which made them easier to harvest, and their seeds grew bigger, which made them more worthwhile to harvest, and easier to store. With that, we hadn’t merely settled, we had also begun to farm. What kept driving us all that time?

Our earliest known settlements were in the Fertile Crescent, a zone of grassland and woodland beginning at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean (the bottom of the Levant) and arching north and east to the Zagros Mountains in today’s Iran. Sites primarily cluster in the Zagros, Taurus, and Pontic Mountains of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, and the Levant, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean (primarily Israel and Jordan). (So roughly: today’s Iraq, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.)

From DNA analysis, einkorn wheat probably originated near the Karacadâg mountains in today’s Turkey. The seven primary domesticates of the Fertile Crescent were: barley, emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs. Of the 56 known species of large-seeded grasses, 32 grow wild in the Mediterranean region.

“AFLP Analysis of a Collection of Tetraploid Wheats Indicates the Origin of Emmer and Hard Wheat Domestication in Southeast Turkey,” H. Özkan, A. Brandolini, R. Schâfer-Pregl, F. Salamini, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 19(10):1797-1801, 2002. “Site of Einkorn Wheat Domestication Identified by DNA Fingerprinting,” M. Heun, R. Schäfer-Pregl, D. Klawan, R. Castagna, M. Accerbi, B. Borghi, F. Salamini, Science, 278(5341):1312-1314, 1997. The Emergence of Agriculture, Bruce D. Smith, Scientific American Library, 1995. Seed To Civilization: The Story of Food, Charles B. Heiser, Harvard University Press, New Edition, 1990. Forces of Change: An Unorthodox View of History, Henry Hobhouse, Arcade, 1989.

Domestication probably took at least a millennium or so given that early farmers had no idea what they were really up to. A mathematical model of how long it might take for genetic change to spread in wild-type versus artificial selection grasses estimates that it might take 3,000 years for our selection to really change a plant. “The genetic expectations of a protracted model for the origins of domesticated crops,” R. G. Allaby, D. Q. Fuller, T. A. Brown, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 105(37):13982-13986, 2008. “How fast was wild wheat domesticated?” K. Tanno, G. Willcox, Science, 311(5769):1886, 2006.

Finally, cereals needn’t necessarily be one of the first plants we tamed. “Early domesticated fig in the Jordan Valley,” M. E. Kislev, A. Hartmann, O. Bar-Yosef, Science, 312(5778):1372-1374, 2006.

For Europeans in North America, maize came to be called ‘Indian corn,’ then simply ‘corn.’ In 1539, Garcilaso de la Vega, part of Hernan de Soto’s expedition in northern Florida and the Carolinas, wrote that, “[We] marched on through some great fields of corn, beans, and squash and other vegetables which had been sown on both sides of the road and were spread out as far as the eye could see across two leagues of plain.” The Florida of the Inca, John and Jeannette Varner (editors and translators), University of Texas Press, 1988.

“Comparative analysis of the domestic cat genome reveals genetic signatures underlying feline biology and domestication,” M. J. Montague, G. Li, B. Gandolfi, R. Khan, B. L. Aken, S. M. J. Searle, P. Minx, L. W. Hillier, D. C. Koboldt, B. W. Davis, C. A. Driscoll, C. S. Barr, K. Blackistone, J. Quilez, B. Lorente-Galdos, T. Marques-Bonet, C. Alkan, G. W. C. Thomas, M. W. Hahn, M. Menotti-Raymond, S. J. O’Brien, R. K. Wilson, L. A. Lyons, W. J. Murphy, W. C. Warren, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 111(48):17230-17235, 2014. “First wave of cultivators spread to Cyprus at least 10,600 y ago,” J. D. Vigne, F. Briois, A. Zazzo, G. Willcox, T. Cucchi, S. Thiébault, I. Carrère, Y. Franel, R. Touquet, C. Martin, C. Moreau, C. Comby, J. Guilaine, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 109(22):8445-8449, 2012. “The taming of the cat,” C. A. Driscoll, J. Clutton-Brock, A. C. Kitchener, S. J. O’Brien, Scientific American, 300(6):68-75, 2009. “From wild animals to domestic pets, an evolutionary view of domestication,” C. A. Driscoll, D. W. Macdonald, S. J. O’Brien, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(1):9971-9978, 2009. Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, Melinda A. Zeder, Daniel G. Bradley, Eve Emswiller, and Bruce D. Smith (editors), University of California Press, 2006.

Pigs and cattle were each domesticated about 10Kya. Horse domestication seems to date to about 6Kya, and donkeys to about 5Kya. “Reconstructing the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppe,” V. Warmuth, A. Eriksson, M. A. Bower, G. Barker, E. Barrett, B. K. Hanks, S. Li, D. Lomitashvili, M. Ochir-Goryaeva, G. V. Sizonov, V. Soyonov, A. Manica, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(21):8202-8206, 2012. “Patterns of East Asian pig domestication, migration, and turnover revealed by modern and ancient DNA,” G. Larson, R. Liu, X. Zhao, J. Yuan, D. Fuller, L. Barton, K. Dobney, Q. Fan, Z. Gu, X.-H. Liu, Y. Luo, P. Lv, L. Andersson, N. Li, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(17):7686-7691, 2010. “A Complete Mitochondrial Genome Sequence from a Mesolithic Wild Aurochs (Bos primigenius,),” C. J. Edwards, D. A. Magee, S. D. Park, P. A. McGettigan, A. J. Lohan, A. Murphy, E. K. Finlay, B. Shapiro, A. T. Chamberlain, M. B. Richards, D. G. Bradley, B. J. Loftus, D. E. Machugh, PLoS ONE, 5(2):e9255, 2010. “The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking,” A. K. Outram, N. A. Stear, R. Bendrey, S. Olsen, A. Kasparov, V. Zaibert, N. Thorpe, R. P. Evershed, Science, 323(5919):1332-1335, 2009. “Domestication of the donkey: Timing, processes, and indicators,” S. Rossel, F. Marshall, J. Peters, T. Pilgram, M. D. Adams, D. O’Connor, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(10):3715-3720, 2008.

Today all those species can still reproduce on their own, but none of them would exist in the numbers they do without our intervention. Our planet now supports ten thousand million chickens, 1,500 million cows, over a thousand million sheep, 700 million goats, and over 500 million pigs. All those populations are perhaps a thousand times as large as they would be without us. (Of course, they exist in such numbers at the expense of other species.) Today we control their reproduction with selective breeding, hormones, and spaying, and one day, to make them even more suitable as food or pets, we may genetically remove their reproductive ability entirely, just as we in some sense have already done with maize and wheat and seedless grapes. The Archaeology of Animals, Simon J. M. Davis, Yale University Press, 1987.

Slavery can arise even among foragers: if they’re sedentary and have access to a rich food source that rewards intensive labor. One such example is the coastal tribes in the northwest of North America. Their subsistence was based on hunting, gathering, and fishing. They all had a tradition of potlatch. Slavery among them was economically valuable not for primary activities (like fishing) but secondary activities—like drying the fish for storage. Aboriginal slavery on the Northwest Coast of North America, Leland Donald, University of California Press, 1997.

These days it’s popular to believe that when we were foragers we likely didn’t take slaves because we were ‘nice’ or just meek and thus didn’t have large wars. Not so. Rovers weren’t meek—skeletons from that time show that they could maim and kill just as well then as now—but they likely didn’t enslave each other. There would be no point. “Anthropology, Archaeology, and the Origin of Warfare,” I. J. N. Thorpe, World Archaeology, 35(1):145-165, 2003. Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, Debra L. Martin and David W. Freyer (editors), Routledge, 1998. Killing or exploiting each other is ancient. It’s simply that it didn’t pay as well when we were foragers.

Herders: “An ancient tripartite symbiosis of plants, ants and scale insects,” T. Itino, K. Murase, Y. Sato, K. Inamori, T. Itioka, S.-P. Quek, S. Ueda, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275(1649):2319-2326, 2008. The Ants, Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University Press, 1990, page 553.

Slavers and thieves: (Some steal brood members for consumption. Theft of brood for labor, not consumption, is sometimes known not as ‘slavery’ but as ‘dulosis’ or a kind of cleptobiosis.) “Rossomyrmex, the Slave-Maker Ants from the Arid Steppe Environments,” F. Ruano, O. Sanllorente, A. Lenoir, A. Tinaut, Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, 2013:541804:1-7, 2013.

“In this review of cleptobiosis, we not only focus on social insects, but also consider broader issues and concepts relating to the theft of food among animals. Cleptobiosis occurs when members of a species steal food, or sometimes nesting materials or other items of value, either from members of the same or a different species. This simple definition is not universally used, and there is some terminological confusion among cleptobiosis, cleptoparasitism, brood parasitism, and inquilinism. We first discuss the definitions of these terms and the confusion that arises from varying usage of the words. We consider that cleptobiosis usually is derived evolutionarily from established foraging behaviors. Cleptobionts can succeed by deception or by force, and we review the literature on cleptobiosis by deception or force in social insects. We focus on the best known examples of cleptobiosis, the ectatommine ant Ectatomma ruidum, the harvester ant Messor capitatus, and the stingless bee Lestrimellita limão. Cleptobiosis is facilitated either by deception or physical force, and we discuss both mechanisms. Part of this discussion is an analysis of the ecological implications (competition by interference) and the evolutionary effects of cleptobiosis. We conclude with a comment on how cleptobiosis can increase the risk of disease or parasite spread among colonies of social insects.” From: “Cleptobiosis in Social Insects,” M. D. Breed, C. Cook, M. O. Krasnec, Psyche: A Journal of Entomology, 2012:484765:1-7, 2012.

Interestingly, the allele did not arrive in Europe with the first farmers. It became common only in the Bronze Age, many millenia after the domestication of cattle and the start of dairying. “FADS1 and the Timing of Human Adaptation to Agriculture,” S. Mathieson, I. Mathieson, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 35(12):2957-2970, 2018.

From then, lactase persistence apparently spread quickly in Europe, based on a study of one battle gravesite from around 5Kya, where it was very low in comparison to today. “Low Prevalence of Lactase Persistence in Bronze Age Europe Indicates Ongoing Strong Selection over the Last 3,000 Years,” J. Burger, V. Link, J. Blöcher, A. Schulz, C. Sell, Z. Pochon, Y. Diekmann, A. Žegarac, Z. Hofmanová, L. Winkelbach, C. S. Reyna-Blanco, V. Bieker, J. Orschiedt, U. Brinker, A. Scheu, C. Leuenberger, T. S. Bertino, R. Bollongino, G. Lidke, S. Stefanović, D. Jantzen, E. Kaiser, T. Terberger, Current Biology, 30(21):4307-4315.e13, 2020.

For humans, the median age at menarche is about 12, but these days a common age for first reproduction is 20-25, so it’s common to take ‘a generation’ as somewhere in that range of years. The text assumes it to be no more than 25 years.

While most human genetic change is very slow, some recent human genetic change—where ‘recent’ means the last 80,000 years or so—that is, the recent past—aren’t. “Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution,” J. Hawks, E. T. Wang, G. M. Cochran, H. C. Harpending, R. K. Moyzis, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(52):20753-20758, 2007. “Genome-wide detection and characterization of positive selection in human populations,” P. C. Sabeti, P. Varilly, B. Fry, J. Lohmueller, E. Hostetter, C. Cotsapas, X. Xie, E. H. Byrne, S. A. McCarroll, R. Gaudet, S. F. Schaffner, E. S. Lander, The International HapMap Consortium, Nature, 449(7164):913-918, 2007.

For an example of very recent (last few millennia) change, see low-oxygen adaptation in Tibet: “Sequencing of 50 Human Exomes Reveals Adaptation to High Altitude,” X. Yi, Y. Liang, E. Huerta-Sanchez, X. Jin, Z. X. Cuo, J. E. Pool, X. Xu, H. Jiang, N. Vinckenbosch, T. S. Korneliussen, H. Zheng, T. Liu, W. He, K. Li, R. Luo, X. Nie, H. Wu, M. Zhao, H. Cao, J. Zou, Y. Shan, S. Li, Q. Yang, Asan, P. Ni, G. Tian, J. Xu, X. Liu, T. Jiang, R. Wu, G. Zhou, M. Tang, J. Qin, T. Wang, S. Feng, G. Li, Huasang, J. Luosang, W. Wang, F. Chen, Y. Wang, X. Zheng, Z. Li, Z. Bianba, G. Yang, X. Wang, S. Tang, G. Gao, Y. Chen, X. Luo, L. Gusang, Z. Cao, Q. Zhang, W. Ouyang, X. Ren, H. Liang, H. Zheng, Y. Huang, J. Li, L. Bolund, K. Kristiansen, Y. Li, Y. Zhang, X. Zhang, R. Li, S. Li, H. Yang, R. Nielsen, J. Wang, J. Wang, Science, 329(5987):75-78, 2010.

Further, at least two genes that appear to be involved in determining our brain size have undergone strong positive selection recently, and (here’s the politically volatile bit) only among some of our populations. One haplotype of Microcephalin was strongly selected for starting about 37Kya (confidence limit from 14Kya to 60Kya), and a haplotype of ASPM about 5.8Kya (confidence limit between 500 and 14,100 years). These are extremely recent haplotypes. Neither have spread very far in our African population yet. “Microcephalin, a Gene Regulating Brain Size, Continues to Evolve Adaptively in Humans,” P. D. Evans, S. L. Gilbert, N. Mekel-Bobrov, E. J. Vallender, J. R. Anderson, L. M. Vaez-Azizi, S. A. Tishkoff, R. R. Hudson, B. T. Lahn, Science, 309(5741):1717-1720, 2005. “Ongoing Adaptive Evolution of ASPM, a Brain Size Determinant in Homo sapiens,” N. Mekel-Bobrov, S. L. Gilbert, P. D. Evans, E. J. Vallender, J. R. Anderson, R. R. Hudson, S. A. Tishkoff, B. T. Lahn, Science, 309(5741):1720-1722, 2005. “Reconstructing the evolutionary history of microcephalin, a gene controlling human brain size,” P. D. Evans, J. R. Anderson, E. J. Vallender, S. S. Choi, B. T. Lahn, Human Molecular Genetics, 13(11):1139-1145, 2004.

On a related note, see also: Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization, Spencer Wells, Random House, 2010. Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity, Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Prince, Harper Perennial, 2008.

The text tries to give the considered view of many geneticists. For a contrary view from the popular science world, however, see: The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, Basic Books, 2009.

The backhanded reference to naked apes is to: The Naked Ape: A Zoologist’s Study of the Human Animal, Desmond Morris, Jonathan Cape, 1967.

Woven clothing in the paleolithic is a guess. However, that we had woven clothing (as opposed to the typical image we carry of paleolithic hunters dressed only in hides) is not unlikely since their remote ancestors had cordage and nets, and thus some kind of weaving. The Pavlovian variant of the Gravettian people—who lived scattered over a region stretching from Spain to southern Russia about 29Kya to 22Kya—apparently at least had nets. “Ice Age Communities May Be Earliest Known Net Hunters,” H. Pringle, Science, 277(5330):1203-1204, 1997.

Actual twisted fibers dating to about 18Kya have been found in caves in France. The earliest known evidence of woven fabrics might be Venus figurines carved about 26Kya. Some of them have incised representations of what may be skimpy string skirts, presumably for some symbolic purpose. So twining and plaiting may go back 26 millennia. Of course, there’s argument about this particular extrapolation. Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing, Mary C. Beaudry, Yale University Press, 2006, pages 45-46 and 90. “Archaeological Textiles: A Review of Current Research,” I. Good, Annual Review of Anthropology, 30:209-226, 2001. “Perishable Technologies and Invisible People: Nets, Baskets, and ‘Venus’ Wear ca. 26,000 B.P.,” O. Soffer, J. M. Adovasio, D. C. Hyland, Enduring Records: The Environmental and Cultural Heritage of Wetlands, Barbara Purdy (editor), Oxbow Books, 2001, pages 233-245. “Upper Palaeolithic fibre technology: interlaced woven finds from Pavlov I, Czech Republic, c. 26,000 years ago,” J. M. Adovasio, O. Soffer, B. Klíma, Antiquity, 70(269):526-34, 1996. Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with special reference to the Aegean, E. J. W. Barber, Princeton University Press, 1991.

Tattoos in the neolithic are a total guess. However, a tattooed man existed in the Ötztal Alps 5.3Kya. There seems to be no reason we couldn’t have tattooed, or scarred, ourselves 11Kya, or even 50Kya, or more. “Origin and Migration of the Alpine Iceman,” W. Müller, H. Fricke, A. N. Halliday, M. T. McCulloch, J.-A. Wartho, Science, 302(5646):862-866, 2003. The Man in the Ice: The Discovery of a 5,000-year-old Body Reveals the Secrets of the Stone Age, Konrad Spindler, translated by Ewald Osers, Harmony Books, 1994. Incidentally, that particular find has ramified into a murder mystery with new, and so far unpublished, DNA and forensic analysis of the body and its artifacts by Thomas Loy of the University of Queensland. For the same sort of forensics, see: “Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchí, the first ancient body of a man from a North American glacier: reconstructing his last days by intestinal and biomolecular analyses,” J. H. Dickson, M. P. Richards, R. J. Hebda, P. J. Mudie, O. Beattie, S. Ramsay, N. J. Turner, B. J. Leighton, J. M. Webster, N. R. Hobischak, G. S. Anderson, P. M. Troffe, R. J. Wigen, The Holocene, 14(4):481-486, 2004.

Paleolithic ornaments, shoes, and tools: Our earliest probable ornaments may go back at least 82Kya (and perhaps 110Kya in the latest unpublished research). “82,000-year-old shell beads from North Africa and implications for the origins of modern human behavior,” A. Bouzouggar, N. Barton, M. Vanhaeren, F. d’Errico, S. Collcutt, T. Higham, E. Hodge, S. Parfitt, E. Rhodes, J.-L. Schwenninger, C. Stringer, E. Turner, S. Ward, A. Moutmir, A. Stambouli, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(24):9964-9969, 2007. “Middle Stone Age Shell Beads from South Africa,” C. Henshilwood, F. d’Errico, M. Vanhaeren, K. van Niekerk, Z. Jacobs, Science, 304(5669):404-404, 2004.

Our oldest known ornaments are perforated teeth or eggshell beads from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Turkey, and Lebanon, dated between 41,000 and 43,000-years-old, and 40,000-year-old ostrich-shell beads from Kenya. Beads found in Tanzania also appear to be very old, but are so far undated. “Ornaments of the earliest Upper Paleolithic: New insights from the Levant,” S. L. Kuhn, M. C. Stiner, D. S. Reese, E. Güleç, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(13):7641-7646, 2001. “Chronology of the Later Stone Age and Food Production in East Africa,” S. H. Ambrose, Journal of Archaeological Science, 25(4):377-392, 1998. Bead-making may go back at least 100Kya: “Middle Paleolithic Shell Beads in Israel and Algeria,” M. Vanhaereny, F. d’Errico, C. Stringer, S. L. James, J. A. Todd, H. K. Mienis, Science, 312(5781):1785-1788, 2006.

Our oldest known figurine is an ivory Venus dated to 35Kya. “A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany,” N. J. Conard, Nature, 459(7244):248-252, 2009. The oldest known musical instruments, bone and ivory flutes, are also 35,000 years old. “New flutes document the earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany,” N. J. Conard, M. Malina, S. C. Münzel, Nature, 460(7256):737-740, 2009.

Our oldest known shoe is 5,500 years old. The oldest known sandal is 10,500-9,300 years old. “First Direct Evidence of Chalcolithic Footwear from the Near Eastern Highlands,” R. Pinhasi, B. Gasparian, G. Areshian, D. Zardaryan, A. Smith, G. Bar-Oz, T. Higham, PLoS ONE, 5(6):e10984, 2010. In Search of Ancient Oregon: A Geological and Natural History, Ellen Morris Bishop, Timber Press, 2003, page 232. “Comments on ‘America’s Oldest Basketry,’ ” T. J. Connolly, W. J. Cannon, Radiocarbon, 41(3):309-313, 1999.

Chewing gum, too, is prehistoric. “Bulk stable light isotopic ratios in archaeological birch bark tars,” B. Stern, S. J. Clelland, C. C. Nordby, D. Urem-Kotsou, Applied Geochemistry, 21(10):1668-1673, 2006. “Chewing tar in the early Holocene: an archaeological and ethnographic evaluation,” E. M. Aveling, C. Heron, Antiquity, 73(281):579-584, 1999. “Chewing gum bezoars of the gastrointestinal tract,” D. E. Milov, J. M. Andres, N. A. Erhart, D. J. Bailey, Pediatrics, 102(2):e22, 1998.

“The Yamnaya expansions from the western steppe into Europe and Asia during the Early Bronze Age (~3000 BCE) are believed to have brought with them Indo-European languages and possibly horse husbandry. We analyzed 74 ancient whole-genome sequences from across Inner Asia and Anatolia and show that the Botai people associated with the earliest horse husbandry derived from a hunter-gatherer population deeply diverged from the Yamnaya. Our results also suggest distinct migrations bringing West Eurasian ancestry into South Asia before and after, but not at the time of, Yamnaya culture. We find no evidence of steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia from when Indo-European languages are attested there. Thus, in contrast to Europe, Early Bronze Age Yamnaya-related migrations had limited direct genetic impact in Asia.” From: “The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia,” P. de Barros Damgaard, R. Martiniano, J. Kamm, J. V. Moreno-Mayar, G. Kroonen, M. Peyrot, G. Barjamovic, S. Rasmussen, C. Zacho, N. Baimukhanov, V. Zaibert, V. Merz, A. Biddanda, I. Merz, V. Loman, V. Evdokimov, E. Usmanova, B. Hemphill, A. Seguin-Orlando, F. E. Yediay, I. Ullah, K.-G. Sjögren, K. H. Iversen, J. Choin, C. de la Fuente, M. Ilardo, H. Schroeder, V. Moiseyev, A. Gromov, A. Polyakov, S. Omura, S. Y. Senyurt, H. Ahmad, C. McKenzie, A. Margaryan, A. Hameed, A. Samad, N. Gul, M. H. Khokhar, O. I. Goriunova, V. I. Bazaliiskii, J. Novembre, A. W. Weber, L. Orlando, M. E. Allentoft, R. Nielsen, K. Kristiansen, M. Sikora, A. K. Outram, R. Durbin, E. Willerslev, Science, 360(6396):eaar7711, 2018.

See also: “Coat Color Variation at the Beginning of Horse Domestication,” A. Ludwig, M. Pruvost, M. Reissmann, N. Benecke, G. A. Brockmann, P. Castaños, M. Cieslak, S. Lippold, L. Llorente, A.-S. Malaspinas, M. Slatkin, M. Hofreiter, Science, 324(5926):485, 2009. “The Earliest Horse Harnessing and Milking,” A. K. Outram, N. A. Stear, R. Bendrey, S. Olsen, A. Kasparov, V. Zaibert, N. Thorpe, R. P. Evershed, Science, 323(5919):1332-1335, 2009. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W. Anthony, Princeton University Press, 2007. Prehistoric Steppe Adaptation and the Horse, Marsha Levine, Colin Renfrew, and Katie Boyle (editors), McDonald Institute, 2003, pages 69-82.

At a conference in 1966, one eminent anthropologist called hunter-gatherers ‘the original affluent society’ because they (probably) had so much free time. “Notes on the Original Affluent Society,” M. Sahlins, Man the Hunter: The First Intensive Survey of a Single, Crucial Stage of Human Development—Man’s Once Universal Hunting Way of Life, Richard B. Lee and Irven Devore, Aldine Publishing Company, 1968, pages 85-89. See also: Stone Age Economics, Marshall Sahlins, Aldine Transaction, 1972. The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society, Richard Borshay Lee, Cambridge University Press, 1979. But for more recent analyses, see: “After the ‘Affluent Society’: Cost of Living in the Papua New Guinea Highlands According to Time and Energy Expenditure-Income,” P. Sillitoe, Journal of Biosocial Science, 34(4):433-461, 2002. “The darker side of the ‘original affluent society,’ ” D. Kaplan, Journal of Anthropological Research, 56(33):301-324, 2000.

See also: Towards a bioarchaeology of care: a contextualised approach for identifying and interpreting health-related care provision in prehistory, Lorna Ann Tilley, Australian National University, 2013. Sampling Biases and New Ways of Addressing the Significance of Trauma in Neandertals, Virginia Hutton Estabrook, doctoral thesis, University of Michigan, 2009. “Neanderthals: a history of interpretation,” J. R. Drell, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 19(1):1-24, 2000. “Vertebral osteoarthritis of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 Neanderthal,” J. E. Dawson, E. Trinkaus, Journal of Archaeological Science, 24(11):1015-1021, 1997. “Pathology and the posture of the La Chapelle‐aux‐Saints Neandertal,” E. Trinkaus, American journal of physical anthropology, 67(1):19-41, 1985. “Shanidar IV, a Neanderthal flower burial in northern Iraq,” R. S. Solecki, Science, 190(4217):880-881, 1975.

Emmer wheat domestication at Abu Hureyra began around 10,400 years (calibrated) before the present, but the village was already inhabited by around 11,500 years (calibrated) ago. So they spent about a millennium simply gathering, not planting.

“The plant food economy of Abu Hureyra 1 and 2: Abu Hureyra 1: the Epipaleolithic,” G. C. Hillman, in: Village on the Euphrates: from foraging to farming at Abu Hureyra, A. M. T. Moore, G. C. Hillman, and A. J. Legge (editors), Oxford University Press, 2000, pages 327-398.

The Bible, The King James Version, Genesis 3:19.

“Ancient genome-wide DNA from France highlights the complexity of interactions between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers,” M. Rivollat, C. Jeong, S. Schiffels, I. Küçükkalıpçı, M.-H. Pemonge, A. B. Rohrlach, K. W. Alt, D. Binder, S. Friederich, E. Ghesquière, D. Gronenborn, L. Laporte, P. Lefranc, H. Meller, H. Réveillas, E. Rosenstock, S. Rottier, C. Scarre, L. Soler, J. Wahl, J. Krause, M.-F. Deguilloux, W. Haak, Science Advances, 6(22):eaaz5344, 2020. “Ancient genomes from present-day France unveil 7,000 years of its demographic history,” S. Brunel, E. A. Bennett, L. Cardin, D. Garraud, H. Barrand Emam, A. Beylier, B. Boulestin, F. Chenal, E. Ciesielski, F. Convertini, B. Dedet, S. Desbrosse-Degobertiere, S. Desenne, J. Dubouloz, H. Duday, G. Escalon, V. Fabre, E. Gailledrat, M. Gandelin, Y. Gleize, S. Goepfert, J. Guilaine, L. Hachem, M. Ilett, F. Lambach, F. Maziere, B. Perrin, S. Plouin, E. Pinard, I. Praud, I. Richard, V. Riquier, R. Roure, B. Sendra, C. Thevenet, S. Thiol, E. Vauquelin, L. Vergnaud, T. Grange, E.-M. Geigl, M. Pruvost, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(23):12791-12798, 2020.

“For thousands of years the Eurasian steppes have been a centre of human migrations and cultural change. Here we sequence the genomes of 137 ancient humans (about 1× average coverage), covering a period of 4,000 years, to understand the population history of the Eurasian steppes after the Bronze Age migrations. We find that the genetics of the Scythian groups that dominated the Eurasian steppes throughout the Iron Age were highly structured, with diverse origins comprising Late Bronze Age herders, European farmers and southern Siberian hunter-gatherers. Later, Scythians admixed with the eastern steppe nomads who formed the Xiongnu confederations, and moved westward in about the second or third century bc, forming the Hun traditions in the fourth-fifth century ad, and carrying with them plague that was basal to the Justinian plague. These nomads were further admixed with East Asian groups during several short-term khanates in the Medieval period. These historical events transformed the Eurasian steppes from being inhabited by Indo-European speakers of largely West Eurasian ancestry to the mostly Turkic-speaking groups of the present day, who are primarily of East Asian ancestry.” From: “137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes,” P. de Barros Damgaard, N. Marchi, S. Rasmussen, M. Peyrot, G. Renaud, T. Korneliussen, J. V. Moreno-Mayar, M. W. Pedersen, A. Goldberg, E. Usmanova, N. Baimukhanov, V. Loman, L. Hedeager, A. G. Pedersen, K. Nielsen, G. Afanasiev, K. Akmatov, A. Aldashev, A. Alpaslan, G. Baimbetov, V. I. Bazaliiskii, A. Beisenov, B. Boldbaatar, B. Boldgiv, C. Dorzhu, S. Ellingvag, D. Erdenebaatar, R. Dajani, E. Dmitriev, V. Evdokimov, K. M. Frei, A. Gromov, A. Goryachev, H. Hakonarson, T. Hegay, Z. Khachatryan, R. Khaskhanov, E. Kitov, A. Kolbina, T. Kubatbek, A. Kukushkin, I. Kukushkin, N. Lau, A. Margaryan, I. Merkyte, I. V. Mertz, V. K. Mertz, E. Mijiddorj, V. Moiyesev, G. Mukhtarova, B. Nurmukhanbetov, Z. Orozbekova, I. Panyushkina, K. Pieta, V. Smrčka, I. Shevnina, A. Logvin, K.-G. Sjögren, T. Štolcová, A. M. Taravella, K. Tashbaeva, A. Tkachev, T. Tulegenov, D. Voyakin, L. Yepiskoposyan, S. Undrakhbold, V. Varfolomeev, A. Weber, M. A. Wilson Sayres, N. Kradin, M. E. Allentoft, L. Orlando, R. Nielsen, M. Sikora, E. Heyer, K. Kristiansen, E. Willerslev, Nature, 557(7705):369-374, 2018.

“Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East,” I. Lazaridis, D. Nadel, G. Rollefson, D. Merrett, N. Rohland, S. Mallick, D. M. Fernandes, M. Novak, B. Gamarra, K. Sirak S. Connell, K. Stewardson, E. Harney, Q. Fu, G. Gonzalez-Fortes, E. R. Jones, S. A. Roodenberg, G. Lengyel, F. Bocquentin, B. Gasparian, J. M. Monge, M. Gregg, V. Eshed, A.-S. Mizrahi, C. Meiklejohn, F. Gerritsen, L. Bejenaru, M. Blüher, A. Campbell, G. Cavalleri, D. Comas, P. Froguel, E. Gilbert, S. M. Kerr, P. Kovacs, J. Krause, D. McGettigan, M. Merrigan, D. A. Merriwether, S. O’Reilly, M. B. Richards, O. Semino, M. Shamoon-Pour, G. Stefanescu, M. Stumvoll, A. Tönjes, A. Torroni, J. F. Wilson, L. Yengo, N. A. Hovhannisyan, N. Patterson, R. Pinhasi, D. Reich, Nature, 536(7617):419-424, 2016.

Incidentally, the Bible refers to the (by then settled) Amorites living in Canaan as being tall. “Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.” Of course, that may merely be a poetic way to say that they were hard to kill. The Bible, The King James Version, Amos 2:9. See also: Deuteronomy 3:11.

For similar prices in near-contemporary Lancashire, Wiltshire, and Manchester, see: Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester, Volume LVI, The Chetham Society, 1861, pages 399-400, footnote. The Parochial History of Bremhill, in the County of Wilts: Containing a Particular Account, from Authentic and Unpublished Documents, of the Cistercian Abbey of Stanley in that Parish; with Observations and Reflections on the Origin and Establishment of Parochial Clergy, and other Circumstances of General Parochial Interest, Including Illustrations of the Origin and Designation of the Stupendous Monuments of Antiquity in the Neighbourhood, Avebury, Silbury, and Wansdike, W. L. Bowles, John Murray, 1828, page 17. History, Directory, and Gazetteer, of the County Palatine of Lancaster: With a Variety of Commercial & Statistical Information in Two Volumes, Illustrated by Maps and Plans, Edward Baines and W. Parson, Wm. Wales & Co., 1824, page 24.

It’s often said, especially by European or North American writers, that Europeans sometimes tried to stop all slavery (or even succeeded). Really, though, all Europe tried to stop, and that ineffectively, was the lucrative sale of its Christian slaves to non-Christian foreigners. Slavery in medieval Europe was so common that the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly prohibited it—or at least the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands was prohibited at, for example, the Council of Koblenz in 922, the Council of London in 1102, and the Council of Armagh in 1171. Sales continued. For example, in 1475 Pope Martin V threatened all Christian slave traders with excommunication. He also ordered all Jewish slave traders to wear a special badge of infamy. But then, in various European nations, Christian export slavery, had been occasionally prohibited since at least 655, by the Church or by various rulers. Not that it mattered. For example, the same year, 655, that Bathild, regent of France, who had herself been a slave (some say, kidnapped from England), tried to ban Christian enslavement in France, the Church, which wanted to maintain full control of ecclesiastical appointments, decreed enslavement for any children produced by clerics. No longer would the bastard child of a priest succeed him to his post.

William the Bastard (the Conqueror), too, is often alleged to have banned slavery in Britain after the conquest in 1066, but what he actually did was the same that any other European ruler did—he banned export slavery of English slaves (maybe because he didn’t get a cut on those sales?). It’s also often reported that various religious leaders, Saint Wulfstan or Anslem of Canterbury or Archbishop Lanfranc or Saint Patrick, for example, ended slavery in England—or even Europe as a whole. Not so. There were occasional admonitions, for example, after the (first) invasion of Ireland by English barons in the 1160s, but at most they lead to a reduction in Christian export slavery. In short: in Europe, it was ok to have slaves, it was ok for them to be Christian, it was ok to export slaves, too. The European abolition effort in medieval times was primarily about the export of Christian slaves to non-Christian lands.

Finally, it’s often stated that even if Christianity itself accepted slavery that after the Protestant Reformation it died out in Europe because of the new Protestant zeal. It’s true that it mostly did die out after the Reformation, and it’s true that Puritans, in particular, who were themselves badly treated, were more against slavery than normal, but it’s also true that many still kept slaves. William Penn, for example, a Quaker, who also owned Pennsylvania, was both a slave holder and a slave trader. England didn’t make slavery on English soil illegal until 1796 (not 1772 as is often reported; the James Somerset case in 1772 prevented slave recapture in England, but the idea of slaves as property wasn’t overturned until 1796). Nor was English slavery particularly special within Europe. For example, thanks to their longships, the Vikings earlier took Norse, Saxon, Irish, Gallic, Italian, and Slav slaves from all over Europe and sold them to other Europeans, to the Muslims, and to each other. Also, from the eighth century on, North Africans—from Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli, known at the time as the Barbary coast—took slaves in England and Ireland for centuries, as well as slaves all over the North Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, from Iceland to Palestine—including Miguel de Cervantes, who was enslaved off the Catalan coast on September 26th, 1575, 30 years before he wrote Don Quixote.

“Biocultural analysis of Sex Differences in Mortality Profiles and Stress Levels in the Late Medieval Population from Nova Raca, Croatia,” M. Slaus, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 111(2):193-209, 2000. “A Biomechanical Study of Activity Patterns in a Medieval Human Skeletal Assemblage,” S. Mays, International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 9(1):68-73, 1999. “Dry Bones: a Paleopathological Study of Skeletal Remains from a Medieval Graveyard in Dundee,” R. N. Spalding, D. J. Sinclair, A. Cox, K. D. Morley, Scottish Medical Journal, 41(2):56-59, 1996. The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century, William Chester Jordan, Princeton University Press, 1996, pages 13-14.

However, paleopathology and paleodemography are still very young fields, with many of their research agendas, tools, and methods still in flux. In particular, any studies that claim anything about disease prevalence, or overall mortality statistics for any non-provably stationary populations, needs to be approached with caution. “The Osteological Paradox: Problems of Inferring Prehistoric Health from Skeletal Samples,” J. W. Wood, G. R. Milner, H. C. Harpending, K. M Weiss, Current Anthropology, 33(4):343-370, 1992.

A single brass pot might cost over a pound (20 shillings)—anything that we needed fuel or special tools to make was expensive. “Manorial court roll inventories as evidence for English peasant consumption and living standards, c.1270-c.1420,” Chris Briggs, in: Pautes de Consum i Nivells de Vida al Món Rural Medieval, Antoni Furio, and Ferran Garcia-Oliver (editors), Publicacions de la Universitat de Valéncia, 2010. An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the later Middle Ages, Christopher Dyer, Oxford University Press, 2005, page 26. Plantagenet England, 1225-1360, Michael Prestwich, Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 457-458.

Dyer estimates that, at least in England between 1280 and 1480, given the technology available at the time, a family needed 12-15 acres. In 1280, in the East Midlands, at least 42 percent of households didn’t have that much. In 1480, about a third still didn’t. An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the later Middle Ages, Christopher Dyer, Oxford University Press, 2005, page 175. Prestwich details land holdings in Norfolk between 1220 and 1292. At Hinderclay in 1300 the average holding was seven acres. But some were as large as 30 acres while others were as small as two acres or less. Plantagenet England, 1225-1360, Michael Prestwich, Oxford University Press, 2005, pages 455-456.

Note that the practice of selling tenants along with land, or of selling families separate from land, wasn’t restricted to Europe in 1300. For example, the same thing was common in China at about the same time. The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Mark Elvin, Stanford University Press, 1973, pages 71-73.

Also, a very few of us were royal, and we always lived well. Although, in 1300, with our knowledge of disease being what it was, even princes of a royal family only lived on average around 30 years at birth. For example, here are life expectancies of princes in England in 1300: “The exact figures are: up to 1275, 35.28 years; 1276-1300, 31.30; 1301-1325, 29.84; 1326-1348, 30.22; 1348-1375, 17.33; 1376-1400, 20.53; 1401-1425, 23.78; 1426-1450, 32.76.” From: “The Generation in Medieval History,” D. Herlihy, Viator, 5:346-364, 1974, footnote 10.

His account points us in an important direction. Famine involves not only a net loss in the intake of food but also, granting the victims’ attempts to make up the difference, the intake of ‘strange diets.’ Evidence from current famines attests to the presence in these diets of disagreeable plants, bark, leather, cloth, dirt, diseased animals and others—like grubs and vermin—not ordinarily considered palatable, and, in extreme cases, human cadavers.[...]

The ‘proof’ offered in the chronicle sources that social life and its under-girding morality were in jeopardy from the pain and suffering engendered by the urban crisis is the arresting allegation of cannibalism: Livonia, 1315; England, 1316; Poland, 1317; Silesia, 1317. We have seen that there were a few of these allegations in rural areas, particularly those affected by the cataclysm of war, such as Ireland. However, most of the accusations come from towns. ‘Many indeed consumed the flesh of gallows corpses,’ says one report about the Oderraum, where bands of criminal beggars were probably threatening the new towns. One account tells us that in jails half-starved miscreants feasted on the flesh of other unfortunates. The chronicler who reports these events confessed that he found the narration of them an unhappy task. Exponents of rationalistic explanations would say that such accounts originated from the sight of men, desperate for food, fighting among themselves for the small portions given them by jailkeepers. It was no hard thing after watching a spectacle like this to imagine the worst.

Urban observers regularly couple murder with cannibalism. ‘It is said [the reference is to Baltic towns] that certain people... because of the excessive hunger devoured their very own children.’ ‘Mothers fed upon their sons’ in this region. ‘In many places [in the towns of the Oderraum] parents after slaying their children, and children their parents, devoured’ their remains. Writing long after, the Bermondsey annalist—who, as we shall see, recorded pauperes in England eating pets and pigeon droppings—shared the information that the destitute ate their children too. Such chilling descriptions were to be repeated endlessly.”

The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century, William Chester Jordan, Princeton University Press, 1996, pages 115, 148-149. Jordan estimates 30 million for the affected European population, with three million dead in the first three years.

Livi-Bacci, though, estimates that Europe as a whole contained that many as far back as the year 1000. However, although Livi-Bacci estimates 74 million for all Europe, it is for 1340 not 1314, and may include parts of Europe not visited by the 1314 famine. A Concise History of World Population, Massimo Livi-Bacci, translated by Carl Ipsen, Third Revision, Blackwell, 1997.

If we take grain prices as a proxy for poor harvests, then regular famine appears to have been common all over the world and for all recorded time. However, such price evidence may be good only for Western Europe in the recent past, with waves of inflation occurring in the 1200s, 1500s, 1700s, and 1900s. The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History, David Hackett Fischer, Oxford University Press, 1999.

This isn’t a bad idea. About 2,400 years ago, those of us in Athens sent an armada to the island of Melos to slaughter all men of military age, enslave all women and children, and steal their island. Similarly, in the late 1800s, a few of us in Belgium caused the deaths of at least eight million of us in the Congo, and stole tons of ivory and rubber (literally). The only thing that changed in all that time is the scale.

Athens and Melos: History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides, translated by Rex Warner, Penguin Books, 1954, Book II, Chapter 34, 2.34-2.46 Thucydides made this affair famous, not for its scale or novelty or brutality, for it was none of those, but for its frankness. Ancient Siege Warfare, Paul Bentley Kern, Indiana University Press, 1999, pages 148-149.

Belgium and the Congo: King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, Adam Hochschild, Mariner Books, 1999.

“Many believe that willow is the natural source of aspirin. However, willow species contain only a low quantity of the prodrug salicin which is metabolized during absorption into various salicylate derivatives. If calculated as salicylic acid, the daily salicin dose is insufficient to produce analgesia. Salicylic acid concentrations following an analgesic dose of aspirin are an order of magnitude higher. Flavonoids and polyphenols contribute to the potent willow bark analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect. The multi-component active principle of willow bark provides a broader mechanism of action than aspirin and is devoid of serious adverse events. In contrast to synthetic aspirin, willow bark does not damage the gastrointestinal mucosa. An extract dose with 240 mg salicin had no major impact on blood clotting. In patients with known aspirin allergy willow bark products are contraindicated.” From: “Willow species and aspirin: different mechanism of actions,” J. Vlachojannis, F. Magora, S. Chrubasik, Phytotherapy Research, 25(7):1102-1104, 2011.

Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug, Diarmuid Jeffreys, Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2008.

Not only that, our path is something we discover only in hindsight. Machado said it best: “Caminante, no hay camino, / se hace camino al andar.” [“Wanderer, there is no road, / The road is made by walking.”] “Proverbios y cantares XXIX,” Campos de Castilla, Selected Poems of Antonio Machado, translated by Betty Jean Craige, Louisiana State University Press, 1978.

By 2019, employment in agriculture was (as a percentage of all employment globally) 26.857. International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT database Data retrieved in March 1, 2020.

The Bible, The King James Version, Isaiah 40:6.

Even those of us who eat a lot of meat are still grass-eaters. In total, over half of all our nutrition comes directly from plants, and the rest is indirectly dependent on them. Plus, of the roughly 400,000 plant species on this planet, we mostly eat only about 30. They give us around 95 percent of all our plant nutrition. Of those 30, 20 grow on about three-quarters of all cultivated land worldwide. They give us roughly 90 percent of all our plant nutrition. Of those 20, eight are cereals. All of them belong to the same genetic family of grasses. Just one of those, rice, feeds almost half of all of us alive today. All flesh is indeed grass.

Note though that the figure of 400,000 is a guess. We still don’t know how many plant species there are. “Documenting plant diversity: unfinished business,” P. R. Crane, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B, 359(1444):735-737, 2004. For more recent work just on seed plants, see: “Mega-phylogeny approach for comparative biology: an alternative to supertree and supermatrix approaches,” S. A. Smith, J. Beaulieu, M. J. Donoghue, BMC Evolutionary Biology, 9:37, 2009. They quote a figure of 13,533 for seed plants.

Wheat, barley, rye, and oats belong to the subfamily Pooideae. Maize, sorghum, sugar cane, and most millets belong to the subfamily Panicoideae. Rice belongs to the subfamily Bambusoideae. All are members of the family Poaceae (that is, the true grasses).

We understand a great deal about photosynthesis from a reductionist point of view: that is, think of a plant like a machine, like a car. Now imagine it completely dismantled with all its parts lying on the floor. We’ve analyzed many of those parts separately, and many in great detail. But how exactly they go together we don’t exactly know. Plants aren’t only about photosynthesis—they’re about survival and reproduction. Their photosynthetic energy conversion efficiency is determined by the interaction between all the parts of the entire system, not by any particular part of the system. So simply giving the car more gas (more carbon dioxide, say), or replacing a spark plug (a gene for RuBisCO, say), won’t necessarily help. So when it comes to figuring out how to ladder up their overall photosythetic rate we’re still at the stage of just watching what they do in bulk. And that data is now very old (1926, 1942, 1954, and 1971 by Transeau, Lindeman, Odum and others). It took a long while for us to figure out the differences between C3, C4, and CAM vascular plants, and it took a long time to work out the detailed structure of RuBisCO and the separation of the Calvin cycle from the light reactions inside the thylakoids of the plant’s chloroplasts inside their plastids. Considering just how many millennia we’ve depended so abjectly on plants (not just for food, but also for oxygen), this ignorance for so long is amazing.

“Plant membrane transport, like transport across all eukaryotic membranes, is highly non-linear and leads to interactions with characteristics so complex that they defy intuitive understanding. The physiological behaviour of stomatal guard cells is a case in point in which, for example, mutations expected to influence stomatal closing have profound effects on stomatal opening and manipulating transport across the vacuolar membrane affects the plasma membrane. Quantitative mathematical modelling is an essential tool in these circumstances, both to integrate the knowledge of each transport process and to understand the consequences of their manipulation in vivo. Here, we outline the OnGuard modelling environment and its use as a guide to predicting the emergent properties arising from the interactions between non-linear transport processes. We summarise some of the recent insights arising from OnGuard, demonstrate its utility in interpreting stomatal behaviour, and suggest ways in which the OnGuard environment may facilitate ‘reverse-engineering’ of stomata to improve water use efficiency and carbon assimilation.” From: “Predicting the unexpected in stomatal gas exchange: not just an open-and-shut case,” M. Klejchová, A. Hills, M. R. Blatt, Biochemical Society Transactions, 48(3):881-889, 2020.

See also: “Control of transpiration by radiation,” R. Pieruschka, G. Huber, J. A. Berry, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(30):13372-13377, 2010. Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology, F. Stuart Chapin III, Pamela A. Matson, and Peter Vitousek, Springer, Second Edition, 2011, Chapter 5, especially pages 134-147. Biology, Kenneth A. Mason, Jonathan B. Losos, Susan R. Singer, based on the work of Peter H. Raven and George B. Johnson, McGraw-Hill, Ninth Edition, 2011, chapters 38 and 39. Ecology: Principles and Applications, J. L. Chapman and M. J. Reiss, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 1999, pages 136-138. Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare, Paul Colinvaux, Princeton University Press, 1978, Chapter 4.

However, an expert on agronomy, Richard C. Fluck, believes that it’s probably not far wrong. (Personal communication.) His argument is that although technology has improved since the 1970s, largely thanks to precision farming, pressure for improvement has also been nearly flat since then as oil prices had remained relatively low for all that time. “Energy Use in the U.S. Food System: a summary of existing research and analysis,” J. Hendricksen, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1995. Energy in Farm Production, R. C. Fluck (editor), Elsevier, 1992.

“Members of the plant family Leguminosae (Fabaceae) are unique in that they have evolved a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia (a group of soil bacteria that can fix atmospheric nitrogen). Rhizobia infect and form root nodules on their specific host plants before differentiating into bacteroids, the symbiotic form of rhizobia. This complex relationship involves the supply of C₄-dicarboxylate and phosphate by the host plants to the microsymbionts that utilize them in the energy-intensive process of fixing atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium, which is in turn made available to the host plants as a source of nitrogen, a macronutrient for growth. Although nitrogen-fixing bacteroids are no longer growing, they are metabolically active. The symbiotic process is complex and tightly regulated by both the host plants and the bacteroids. The metabolic pathways of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate are heavily regulated in the host plants, as they need to strike a fine balance between satisfying their own needs as well as those of the microsymbionts. A network of transporters for the various metabolites are responsible for the trafficking of these essential molecules between the two partners through the symbiosome membrane (plant-derived membrane surrounding the bacteroid), and these are in turn regulated by various transcription factors that control their expressions under different environmental conditions. Understanding this complex process of symbiotic nitrogen fixation is vital in promoting sustainable agriculture and enhancing soil fertility. [...]

The host plant provides the microsymbiont with dicarboxylates together with other nutrients, in exchange for fixed nitrogen in the form of ammonium and amino acids. Nitrogen-fixing legumes contribute to nitrogen enrichment of the soil and therefore are valuable in improving soil fertility. The legume-rhizobium association has an important impact on sustainable agriculture since it provides more than 65% of the biologically fixed nitrogen in agricultural systems.” From: “Interaction and Regulation of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus Metabolisms in Root Nodules of Legumes,” A. Liu, C. A. Contador, K. Fan, H.-M. Lam, Frontiers in Plant Science, 9:1860, 2018.

“Reconstructing the evolutionary history of nitrogenases: Evidence for ancestral molybdenum-cofactor utilization,” A. K. Garcia, H. McShea, B. Kolaczkowski, B. Kaçar, Geobiology, 18(3):394-411, 2020. “Geobiological feedbacks, oxygen, and the evolution of nitrogenase,” F. Mus, D. R. Colman, J. W. Peters, E. S. Boyd, Free Radical Biology & Medicine, 140:250-259, 2019. “Holy alliances?” B. Osborne, New Phytologist, 175(4):602-605, 2007. “Host sanctions and the legume-rhizobium mutualism,” E. T. Kiers, R. A. Rousseau, S. A. West, R. F. Denison, Nature, 425(6953):78-81, 2003.

Rhizobia symbiosis may have arisen during a period where there was a lot of CO₂ in the atmosphere (about 60 million years ago). But why it didn’t take over is unknown. “Evolving ideas of legume evolution and diversity: a taxonomic perspective on the occurrence of nodulation,” New Phytologist, J. I. Sprent, 174(1):11-25, 2007.

We now know that legumes have a gene that triggers the formation of nodules, which then encourage nitrogen-fixing bacteria to come live there. That gene can be transplanted to another legume and it too will become nitrogen-fixing. “Nodulation independent of rhizobia induced by a calcium-activated kinase lacking autoinhibition,” C. Gleason, S. Chaudhuri, T. Yang, A. Muñoz, B. W. Poovaiah, G. E. D. Oldroyd, Nature, 441(7097):1149-1152, 2006.

This was done by redesigning the genes themselves, and building their interactions directly using a programming language (called Cello), not merely by cutting&pasting genes from one organism to another by hand, as is customary in genetic engineering: “Genetic circuits have many applications, from guiding living therapeutics to ordering process in a bioreactor, but to be useful they have to be genetically stable and not hinder the host. Encoding circuits in the genome reduces burden, but this decreases performance and can interfere with native transcription. We have designed genomic landing pads in Escherichia coli at high-expression sites, flanked by ultrastrong double terminators. DNA payloads >8 kb are targeted to the landing pads using phage integrases. One landing pad is dedicated to carrying a sensor array, and two are used to carry genetic circuits. NOT/NOR gates based on repressors are optimized for the genome and characterized in the landing pads. These data are used, in conjunction with design automation software (Cello 2.0), to design circuits that perform quantitatively as predicted. These circuits require fourfold less RNA polymerase than when carried on a plasmid and are stable for weeks in a recA+ strain without selection. This approach enables the design of synthetic regulatory networks to guide cells in environments or for applications where plasmid use is infeasible.” From: “Precision design of stable genetic circuits carried in highly-insulated E. coli genomic landing pads,” Y. Park, Y. E. Borujeni, T. E. Gorochowski, J. Shin, C. A. Voigt, Molecular Systems Biology, 16(8):e9584, 2020.

We don’t drop dead (usually) when we drink coffee and eat some potato chips because all plant-eaters have evolved ways to detect harmful plants and avoid them, or have evolved ways to detoxify a few plant poisons. In our case, we’ve selectively amplified only those few plant cultivars and those ways of preparing food from them that haven’t immediately killed us in the past. For example, cassava (a starchy tuber like the potato and the chief thing in tapioca) feeds over 400 million of us in the tropics, but it also contains cyanide. We’ve learned, presumably by long trial and error, how to boil it to reduce the poison to trace amounts. Rhubarb leaves, apple seeds, almonds, lima beans, potato skins, avocado skins, cherry pits—even too much nutmeg in your eggnog—all can kill. Handbook of Pesticide Toxicology: Principles, Robert Krieger, Academic Press, Second Edition, 2001, page 811. “What Do Animal Cancer Tests Tell Us About Human Cancer Risk? Overview of Analyses of the Carcinogenic Potency Database,” L. Swirsky Gold, T. H. Slone, B. N. Ames, Drug Metabolism Reviews, 30(2):359-404, 1998. “Rodent Carcinogens: Setting Priorities,” L. Swirsky Gold, T. H. Slone, B. R. Stern, N. B. Manley, B. N. Ames, Science, 258(5080):261-265, 1992. “α-Chaconine and α-solanine content of potato products and their stability during several modes of cooking,” R. J. Bushway, R. Ponnampalam, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 29(4):814-817, 1981.

In 2005, of that land area, about 87 percent was in the United States. Argentina, Canada, and China made up most of the rest.

By 2010, about 10 percent of the world’s croplands were under cultivation. By 2011, smart seeds covered 160 million hectares, with 69 million hectares (170.503 million acres) in the United States alone. Brazil (30.3 million hectares) and Argentina (23.7 million hectares) followed. With over 170 million acres under cultivation in the United States alone, the world acreage covered by smart seeds grew to one acre in every ten. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011, Clive James, ISAAA Brief No. 43, ISAAA (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications), 2011. “Transgenic Crops,” J. Schahczenski, K. Adam, in: Biotechnology: Perspectives & Prospects, C. P. Malik, Chitra Wadhwani, and Bhavneet Kaur (editors), MD Publications, 2008.

See also: ATTRA Publication Number IP189, National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, 2006. National Agricultural Statistics Service, Agricultural Statistics Board, United States Department of Agriculture, 2005.

“Agriculture is the principal user of all water resources taken together, i.e. rainfall (so-called green water) and water in rivers, lakes and aquifers (so-called blue water). It accounts for about 70 percent of all withdrawals worldwide, with domestic use amounting to about 10 percent and industry using some 21 percent.” Unlocking the Water Potential of Agriculture, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2003, page 7.

In its separate ‘Key Facts’ summary factsheet, it states the following: “To produce 1 kg of wheat, 1 m³ of water is needed. It takes at least 1.2 m³ of water to produce 1 kg of rice.” The text’s figures uses the usual conversion factors: 1 kilogram is 2.2 pounds and 1 cubic meter is 264 gallons. So 1 pound needs 120 gallons.

However, the global range is very wide. For more recent figures on global evapotranspiration, see: “Review of measured crop water productivity values for irrigated wheat, rice, cotton and maize,” S. J. Zwart, W. G. M. Bastiaanssen, Agricultural Water Management, 69(2):115-133, 2004.

For the figures on evaporation loss for farm irrigation, see: Challenges to International Waters; Regional Assessments in a Global Perspective, United Nations Environment Programme, 2006.

For some estimates of other food animals, see: “World population, food, natural resources, and survival,” D. Pimentel, M. Pimentel, World Futures, 59(3&4):145-167, 2003.

Here’s the story on cod off the Canadian Atlantic coast: “Overfishing of large-bodied benthic fishes and their subsequent population collapses on the Scotian Shelf of Canada’s east coast and elsewhere resulted in restructuring of entire food webs now dominated by planktivorous, forage fish species and macroinvertebrates. Despite the imposition of strict management measures in force since the early 1990s, the Scotian Shelf ecosystem has not reverted back to its former structure. Here we provide evidence of the transient nature of this ecosystem and its current return path towards benthic fish species domination. The prolonged duration of the altered food web, and its current recovery, was and is being governed by the oscillatory, runaway consumption dynamics of the forage fish complex. These erupting forage species, which reached biomass levels 900% greater than those prevalent during the pre-collapse years of large benthic predators, are now in decline, having outstripped their zooplankton food supply. This dampening, and the associated reduction in the intensity of predation, was accompanied by lagged increases in species abundances at both lower and higher trophic levels, first witnessed in zooplankton and then in large-bodied predators, all consistent with a return towards the earlier ecosystem structure. We conclude that the reversibility of perturbed ecosystems can occur and that this bodes well for other collapsed fisheries.” From: “Transient dynamics of an altered large marine ecosystem,” K. T. Frank, B. Petrie, J. A. Fisher, W. C. Leggett, Nature, 477(7362):86-89, 2011.

Estimates are that industrial fisheries typically reduce community biomass by 80 percent within 15 years. “Rebuilding Global Fisheries,” B. Worm, R. Hilborn, J. K. Baum, T. A. Branch, J. S. Collie, C. Costello, M. J. Fogarty, E. A. Fulton, J. A. Hutchings, S. Jennings, O. P. Jensen, H. K. Lotze, P. M. Mace, T. R. McClanahan, C. Minto, S. R. Palumbi, A. M. Parma, D. Ricard, A. A. Rosenberg, R. Watson, D. Zeller, Science, 325(5940):578-585, 2009.

“Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities,” R. A. Myers, B. Worm, Nature, 423(6937):280-283, 2003.

The core problem is that we don’t even know how many species are on earth now, far less how many are being lost per day. At a talk given in Cape Town in 2001, Leakey upped his estimate to “between 50,000 and 100,000 plant, insect, and animal species a year” but gave no evidence to support his claim. By some environmentalist guesstimates, about 24 percent of mammal species, 11 percent of bird species, and 3 percent of fish species are thought to be threatened. World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life, World Resources Institute, 2000, pages 246-248. E. O. Wilson estimates that there are between 10 million and 100 million species on the planet. The Diversity of Life, Edward O. Wilson, W. W. Norton, Reissue Edition, 1999.

The most recent comprehensive work estimates that we’re losing an unknown but perhaps large number of species. “Quantifying Uncertainty in Estimation of Tropical Arthropod Species Richness,” A. J. Hamilton, Y. Basset, K. K. Benke, P. S. Grimbacher, S. E. Miller, V. Novotný, A. Samuelson, N. E. Stork, G. D. Weiblen, J. D. L. Yen, The American Naturalist, 176(1):90-95, 2010. “Global Biodiversity: Indicators of Recent Declines,” S. H. Butchart, M. Walpole, B. Collen, A. van Strien, J. P. Scharlemann, R. E. Almond, J. E. Baillie, B. Bomhard, C. Brown, J. Bruno, K. E. Carpenter, G. M. Carr, J. Chanson, A. M. Chenery, J. Csirke, N. C. Davidson, F. Dentener, M. Foster, A. Galli, J. N. Galloway, P. Genovesi, R. D. Gregory, M. Hockings, V. Kapos, J. F. Lamarque, F. Leverington, J. Loh, M. A. McGeoch, L. McRae, A. Minasyan, M. H. Morcillo, T. E. Oldfield, D. Pauly, S. Quader, C. Revenga, J. R. Sauer, B. Skolnik, D. Spear, D. Stanwell-Smith, S. N. Stuart, A. Symes, M. Tierney, T. D. Tyrrell, J. C. Vié, R. Watson, Science, 328(5982):1164-1168, 2010.

But groups collapse from many reasons, not just loss of soil fertility; there’s also soil erosion from over-reliance on annual plants, increased soil salinity, water mismanagement, and prolonged droughts. Megadrought and Collapse: From Early Agriculture to Angkor, Harvey Weiss (editor), Oxford University Press, 2017.

“To many historians, scientists, and agricultural experts, the term ‘Green Revolution’ refers to the controversial array of programs and policies that introduced high-yield seeds, intensive irrigation techniques, herbicides, pesticides, mechanization, and petrochemical fertilizers to parts of the developing world during the 1960s and 1970s. Among the most profound consequences of this recent agricultural transformation was a vast increase in the amount of nitrogen available to farmers in Asia and Latin America. Through the application of imported synthetic fertilizers, these cultivators achieved increased yields of staple crops such as corn, rice, and wheat.

Numerous scholars have portrayed this twentieth-century intervention in world food production as the first human alteration of the global nitrogen cycle during the modern era. Such a depiction is misleading. It obscures an earlier Green Revolution, beginning in the nineteenth century, during which companies and labor contractors transported millions of metric tons of nitrogen fertilizer and more than 100,000 workers across the globe, producing significant shifts in environments and labor conditions throughout the world. A comprehensive understanding of this First Green Revolution fuses two emerging research areas—global environmental history and transnational labor history. An investigation of the relationship between new forms of servitude that emerged in the Age of Abolition and the concurrent development of a worldwide fertilizer trade reveals that the changing nature of work is inextricably intertwined with the work of changing nature.

Between the 1840s and the 1930s, Peru and Chile exported hundreds of millions of tons of nitrogen-rich guano (dried bird excrement) and sodium nitrate (NaNO₃) to places as far-flung as California, Virginia, Prussia, Great Britain, and France. For farmers in North America and Europe, guano and sodium nitrate dramatically increased agricultural productivity during the final phase of the Industrial Revolution, which lasted from roughly the mid-1800s through World War I. The widespread availability of imported fertilizers also facilitated a departure from organic ‘closed systems’ of farming, in which nitrogen is cycled among soil, plants, animals, and people at the local scale, toward ‘open,’ energy-intensive approaches to agriculture that included additions of nitrogen from distant places.”

“The First Green Revolution: Debt Peonage and the Making of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Trade, 1840-1930,” E. D. Melillo, American Historical Review, 114(4):1028-60, 2012.

Interestingly, in 2010 it seemed that in one rare bacterial strain (GFAJ-1), one of the top six elements (phosphorous) could be replaced by arsenic, but this turned out not to be true. Instead, what was happening was that the cell’s own ribosomes were breaking down in the presence of arsenic and the phosphates from that were being recycled. “Growth of a bacterium that apparently uses arsenic instead of phosphorus is a consequence of massive ribosome breakdown,” G. N. Basturea, T. K. Harris, M. P. Deutscher, The Journal of biological chemistry, 287(34):28816-28819, 2012. Bacteria discriminate between nearly identical molecules of phosphate (PO₄^3-) and arsenate (AsO₄^3-).

“After decades of steady decline, the trend in world hunger — as measured by the prevalence of undernourishment — reverted in 2015, remaining virtually unchanged in the past three years at a level slightly below 11 percent. Meanwhile, the number of people who suffer from hunger has slowly increased. As a result, more than 820 million people in the world are still hungry today [...]. [...] even in high-income countries, sizeable portions of the population lack regular access to nutritious and sufficient food; 8 percent of the population in Northern America and Europe is estimated to be food insecure, mainly at moderate levels.” The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2019, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2019, page 3, see also Figure 1 (page 6). In 2012-2014, about 805 million were malnourished; that’s about 11.3 percent of the global population (or about one in nine of us). The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2014, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2014, page 8. In 2010-2012, almost 870 million were malnourished. The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2012, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2012, page 8. In 2006, about 923 million were malnourished (around 14 percent, or about one in seven of us). The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2008, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2008, page 2. The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI 2004, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2004, page 4.

Even without the new sources of power great improvements are probable here. Microbes, which at present convert the nitrogen of the air into the proteins by which animals live, will be fostered and made to work under controlled conditions, just as yeast is now. New strains of microbes will be developed and made to do a great deal of our chemistry for us. With a greater knowledge of what are called hormones, i.e. the chemical messengers in our blood, it will be possible to control growth. We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium. Synthetic food will, of course, also be used in the future. Nor need the pleasures of the table be banished. That gloomy Utopia of tabloid meals need never be invaded. The new foods will from the outset be practically indistinguishable from the natural products, and any changes will be so gradual as to escape observation.”

“Fifty Years Hence,” in Amid These Storms: Thoughts and Adventures, Winston S. Churchill, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932, pages 269-280.

Were food machines to come to exist, many of us needn’t even notice them. We might continue to buy our food in grocery stores and markets, except that they might get some of their food from factories rather than farms. That’s already happened with Quorn, a fake meat made from vats of fungus that’s been selling since 1985. Today a few of us are planning to do the same with vat-grown pork from pig stem cells. But we don’t yet know how to do it cheaply, so were such meat-sheets to go on sale today they would cost over $1,000 U.S. a pound. One day, though, that price might drop to $1 U.S. a pound. If so, such meat-makers might then hop from factories to stores. Limited use in rich homes might then be just a question of time. The word ‘homemade’ might then gain a whole new meaning. However, a meat product that might one day cost $1 a pound, but that today costs $1,000 a pound, has little chance to come to exist any time soon given that in our rich countries today beef can cost less than $3 a pound.

Quorn has been on sale since 1985, primarily to the (very small) vegetarian market. It’s made from the fungus Fusarium venenatum. As of 2006, it was only sold in Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, and Switzerland. In 2007, the average price of beef in the United States, averaged over all cuts, was $2.75 a pound. FreshLook Marketing data, for the 52 weeks ending in December, 2007. “Long-term culture of muscle explants from Sparus aurata,” B. Funkenstein, V. Balas, T. Skopal, G. Radaelli, A. Rowlerson, Tissue and Cell, 38(6):399-415, 2006. “In Vitro-Cultured Meat Production,” P. D. Edelman, D. C. McFarland, V. A. Mironov, J. G. Matheny, Tissue Engineering, 11(5/6):659-662, 2005. “In vitro Edible Muscle Protein Production System (MPPS): Stage 1, Fish,” M. A. Benjaminson, J. A. Gilchriest, M. Lorenz, Acta Astronautica, 51(12):879-889, 2002. “Industrial Scale Production of Meat from in vitro Cell Cultures,” W. F. Van Eelen, W. J. Van Kooten, W. Westerhof, Patent Number WO9931222, European Patent Office, 1999.

Andrew Natsios, the head of the US agency for international development (USAid), rejected the accusations and said that it was bound by Congress to offer food and not money.

“There is no way that any responsible country can deal with this drought with cash for work,” he said. “The food deficit in southern Africa is so big that there’s no way people can buy it on the local market. It has to come from outside.

“We offered non-GM foods but they all declined to accept it. We would have preferred to send non-GM wheat, or rice but they only wanted maize. We tried to source non-GM maize but the industry said they could not guarantee that it was GM-free.”

Mr Natsios denied that the US was profiting from the crisis. “They [the critics] may know about the environment, but they don’t know about famine relief,” he said. “Starving people do not plant seeds. They eat them. These groups are putting millions of lives at risk in a despicable way.”

But he was not supported by the latest UN figures on food availability in the region, which showed that 1,160,000 tonnes of cereals are available in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa. More than double that amount is available on the world market, according to the UN’s global information and early warning system.

“This shows that the alternative to rejecting GM food aid is not starvation,” Alice Wynne Wilson, of Actionaid, said. “Good practice in emergency aid is to provide cash support to the UN’s World Food Programme, so that it can buy grain from the most cost-effective sources.

“Bringing large volumes of food into a region that has areas of surplus can lead to a situation where there are food shortages in one part of a country, and locally produced food rotting in other parts.”

“US ‘dumping unsold GM food on Africa’ ”, The Guardian, October 7th, 2002.

[...] America’s cotton farmers receive:

•more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso — a country in which more than two million people depend on cotton production. Over half of these farmers live below the poverty line. Poverty levels among recipients of cotton subsidies in the US are zero.

•three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.”

Cultivating Poverty: The Impact of US Cotton Subsidies on Africa, Oxfam Briefing Paper #30, Oxfam, 2002, page 2.

As usual, the situation is more complicated than the simple version given in the text. Several poor nations, particularly in Africa, also gain economically because several rich nations, particularly in the European Union, in effect suppress food prices on the world market by subsidizing their own domestic production. “Liberalizing Agriculture,” A. Panagariya, Foreign Affairs, 84(7):56-66, 2005. (Much more on this in Chapter 5....)

Previously, in 1805, Oliver Evans in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had designed the first known refrigerator, but never built it. Then, in 1834, Jacob Perkins in England had applied for a patent for a similar device. In 1846, after Gorrie, Ferdinand P. E. Carre in France produced another cooling device. In 1850, James Harrison in Scotland built one, then moved to England and built successive models in 1856 and 1857, which were used to make parrafin wax and ice. In 1856, Alexander C. Twinning in America tried another design. In 1874, Raoul Pictet in Geneva, Switzerland, produced one and it was used to make ice for a skating rink, but was otherwise not commercially successful. Finally, in 1876, Carl von Linde produced the first reliable and efficient refrigerator. It was used to let German brewers brew beer all year round. None of those inventors were first thinking of food preservation. Further, all that development ignores all the earlier chemists, physicists, amateur scientists, and inventors, like Joseph Priestly, William Cullen, Michael Faraday, Louis Paul Cailletet, Jean Charles Athanase Peltier, Sadi Carnot, and Lord Kelvin, who first separated various gases, and made the earliest observations about evaporation and thermodynamics. It also ignores the century-long story of ice harvesting, which would require a book by itself. (And one has already been written, The Frozen Water Trade: How Ice from New England Lakes Kept the World Cool, Gavin Weightman, HarperCollins, 2001.)

Few of our present-day artifacts came about simply. Most of their problems were solved piecemeal and over long periods by many hands, mostly working independently.

Various chemists, faced with mountains of now nearly worthless calcium carbine in both Europe and the United States, then tried various things. In 1903, two German chemists in Hamburg, Nikodem Caro and Adolph Frank having tried from 1895 on, ran nitrogen over hot calcium carbide, accidentally producing calcium cyanamide, the world’s first artificial fertilizer. They did that not to produce fertilizer but to produce cyanides to help extract gold from its ores (which is sodium cyanide’s chief use today). They formed a company to do precisely that: the Deutsche Gold- und Silber-Scheideanstalt (German Gold and Silver Refinery, formerly Roessler), now called Degussa, AG. Another chemist, Fritz Rothe, soon joined them (he had developed much the same process at about the same time at Beringer Söhne in Charlottenburg, but his patent wasn’t completed by his employer, so he resigned and joined Caro and Frank’s firm instead). Together, the three determined that what they had created wasn’t the calcium cyanide they had thought, on the way to making the sodium cyanide they sought, but calcium cyanamide, which process they patented in 1898. A factory was then built in Frankfurt and its sodium cyanide output was used for gold extraction. But later, after the price of cyanide fell sharply (following a drop in mining after the Boer war), they switched to producing calcium cyanamide in bulk for farmers. Other factories followed, including a large one in Piano d’Orta, Abruzzo, east of Rome, in 1904. It was sited in Italy for hydroelectric power because the high heat in the electric furnace took a lot of energy. Two more plants followed, one in 1907 in Knapsack near Cologne, and another in 1908 near Trostberg in Bavaria.

Nitrogen Capture: The Growth of an International Industry (1900-1940), Anthony S. Travis, Springer, 2018, chapter 5, especially pages 69-75. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production, Vaclav Smil, The MIT Press, 2001, pages 51-52. Connections, James Burke, Macmillan, 1978, pages 209-210. The Chemical Industry: 1900-1930, International Growth and Technological Change, Ludwig F. Haber, Clarendon Press, 1971. The Chemical Industry During the Nineteenth Century. A Study of the Economic Aspect of Applied Chemistry in Europe and North America, Ludwig F. Haber, Clarendon Press, 1958.

The Haber-Bosch process has its own involved backstory because fixing nitrogen and hydrogen to make ammonia also wasn’t easy, nor did it happen simply. By 1898, future food supplies were huge fears in Britain, Germany, the United States, and every other rapidly industrializing nation. Haber and Bosch’s 1909 process, started with a letter Haber sent BASF (Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik, originally a dye manufacturing company since Germany had grown powerful that way) and yielded an abundant supply of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer (but at the cost of a lot of energy). And in 1918 Haber got the Nobel prize for it. Then, because it was so important, in 1931, Bosch got the Nobel for it, too (technically, he got it for commercializing the process since a lot of technology had to be invented to deal with such high pressures and temperatures). (And in 2007, Gerhard Ertl got the prize for discovering why the Haber-Bosch surface catalytic process worked.)

The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler, Thomas Hager, Three Rivers Press, 2008, pages 3-11, and chapter 6 pages 65-76. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production, Vaclav Smil, The MIT Press, 2001. Catalytic Ammonia Synthesis: Fundamentals and Practice, J. R. Jennings (editor), Springer, 1991.

Degussa, AG, went on to be an integral part of Germany’s chemical industry during the first world war, and on into the second world war. Fritz Haber is implicated in both the production and deployment of the first poison gas (chlorine) used at Ypres in 1915 during the first war (not the only such gas used by either side, just the first), after which his wife, Clara, also a chemist, committed suicide. He’s also implicated, indirectly, via his company, under Bruno Tesch, and his aide, Karl Weinbacher, as well as Gerhard Peters, in the production of Zyklon-B, the pesticide used by the Nazis to gas over a million people. Degussa was not the only such firm. How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, Daniel Immerwahr, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019, chapter 3. The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler, Thomas Hager, Three Rivers Press, 2008. From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich, Peter Hayes, Cambridge University Press, 2004, pages 273-274, 284-285, 297.

He said that: “It is the chemist who must come to the rescue of the threatened communities. It is through the laboratory that starvation may ultimately be turned into plenty.” By 1909, chemists started doing just that. They found a way to make ‘chemical manure’ out of thin air. However, it was the war that brought that process online. But not for food—for weapons; because if we can make manure, we can also make explosives, and we care far more about that. War has a way of focusing our attention.

In his speech, William Crookes stated that: “My chief subject is of interest to the whole world—to every race—to every human being. It is of urgent importance to-day, and it is a life and death question for generations to come. I mean the question of food supply. Many of my statements you may think are of the alarmist order; certainly they are depressing, but they are founded on stubborn facts. They show that England and all civilised nations stand in deadly peril of not having enough to eat. As mouths multiply, food resources dwindle. Land is a limited quantity, and the land that will grow wheat is absolutely dependent on difficult and capricious natural phenomena. I am constrained to show that our wheat-producing soil is totally unequal to the strain put upon it. After wearying you with a survey of the universal dearth to be expected, I hope to point a way out of the colossal dilemma. It is the chemist who must come to the rescue of the threatened communities. It is through the laboratory that starvation may ultimately be turned into plenty.” The Wheat Problem: Based on Remarks Made in the Presidential Address to the British Association at Bristol in 1898, Revised, With an Answer to Various Critics, With Chapters on the Future Wheat Supply of the United States, By Mr. C. Wood Davis, or Peotone, Kansas, and the Hon. John Hyde, Chief Statistician in the Department of Agriculture, Washington, William Crookes, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900, pages 6-7.

But the edition that really caused a stir was the one that came out during World War I, when food blockade of Britain was a serious worry, and it was to be used the next year as a weapon (against Germany). The Wheat Problem: Based on Remarks Made in the Presidential Address to the British Association at Bristol in 1898, Revised, With an Answer to Various Critics, With Preface and Additional Chapter Bringing the Statistical Information up to date, and a Chapter on Future Wheat Supplies by Sir R. Henry Rew With an Introduction by Lord Rhondda, William Crookes, Longmans, Green, and Co., Third Edition, 1917. See also: William Crookes (1832-1919) and the Commercialization of Science, William H. Brock, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008, Chapter 20. “The Social and Political Consequences of the Allied Food Blockade of Germany, 1918-19,” N. P. Howard, German History, 11(2):161-88, 1993. The Wheat Problem, by William Crookes, Review by C. F. Emerick, Political Science Quarterly, 15(2):343-344, 1900. “America and the Wheat Problem,” J. Hyde, The North American Review, 168(507):191-205, 1899.

It all started with this statement:

“Now we are working on the descriptive phase of molecular biology, but the real challenge will start when we enter the synthetic phase.

We will then devise new control elements. And add these new modules to the existing genome, or build up wholly new genomes.”

From: “In-vivo and In-vitro Initiation of Transcription,” W. Szybalski, in Control of Gene Expression, Alexander Kohn and Adam Shatkay (editors), Proceedings of the 18th ‘Oholo’ Biological Conference on Strategies for the Control of Gene Expression, Zikhron Ya’aqov, Israel, 1973, Plenum Press, 1974, pages 23-24,

“By the middle of 2009, the number of people living in urban areas (3.42 billion) had surpassed the number living in rural areas (3.41 billion) and since then the world has become more urban than rural. However, major disparities in the level of urbanization remain among development groups. Thus, whereas the proportion urban in the more developed regions was already nearly 53 per cent in 1950, it will still take another decade for half of the population of the less developed regions to live in urban areas.

The world urban population is expected to increase by 84 per cent by 2050, from 3.4 billion in 2009 to 6.3 billion in 2050. By mid-century the world urban population will likely be the same size as the world’s total population was in 2004. Virtually all of the expected growth in the world population will be concentrated in the urban areas of the less developed regions, whose population is projected to increase from 2.5 billion in 2009 to 5.2 billion in 2050. Over the same period, the rural population of the less developed regions is expected to decline from 3.4 billion to 2.9 billion. In the more developed regions, the urban population is projected to increase modestly, from 0.9 billion in 2009 to 1.1 billion in 2050.”

World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2010, pages 2-4.

The text’s description of the French diet circa 1705 is actually from 1777, but it had remained mostly constant for centuries. “Our Frenchmen eat soup with a little butter and vegetables. They scarcely ever eat meat. They sometimes drink a little cider but more commonly water. Your Englishmen eat meat, and a great deal of it, and they drink beer continually in such a fashion that an Englishman spends three times more than a Frenchman [on comestibles].” Delaunay Deslandes, 1777. See: “Continental influences on the industrial revolution in Great Britain,” A. E. Musson, in: Great Britain and Her World, 1750-1914: Essays in Honour of W. O. Henderson, Barrie M. Ratcliffe (editor), Manchester University Press, 1977, page 67, footnote 42.

[In May, 1774] Watt had now been occupied for about nine years in working out the details of his invention. Five of these had passed since he had taken out his patent, and he was still struggling with difficulty. Several thousand pounds had been expended on the engine, besides much study, labour, and ingenuity; yet it was still, as Boulton expressed it, ‘a shadow, as regarded its practical utility and value.’ So long as Watt’s connexion with Roebuck continued, there was indeed very little chance of getting it introduced to public notice. What it was yet to become as a working power, depended in no small degree upon the business ability, the strength of purpose, and the length of purse, of his new partner.”

Lives of Boulton and Watt: Principally from the Original Soho Mss., Comprising also: A History of the Invention and Introduction of the Steam-Engine, Samuel Smiles, John Murray, 1865, pages 196-199.

Watt’s patent for “[A] new Method of Lessening the Consumption of Steam and Fuel in Fire Engines,” was granted on January 5th, 1769, but Watt only enrolled its description at the High Court of Chancery on April 29th, 1769. It was patent number 913.

Watt first worked with John Roebuck in Scotland, then Matthew Boulton in England.

At the time, Adam Smith was working on what would become his Wealth of Nations. On June 27th, 1772, David Hume wrote to Smith: “We are here in a very melancholy Situation: Continual Bankruptcies, universal Loss of Credit, and endless Suspicions. There are but two standing Houses in this Place, Mansfield’s & the Couttses: For I comprehend not Cummin, whose dealins are always very narrow. Mansfield has pay’d away 40,000 pounds in a few days; but it is apprehended, that neither he nor any of them can hold out till the End of next Week, if no Alteration happen. The Case is little better in London. It is thought, that Sir George Colebroke must soon stop; and even the Bank of England is not entirely free from Suspicion. Those of Newcastle, Norwich, and Bristol are said to be stopp’d: The Thistle Bank has been reported to be in the same Condition: The Carron Company is reeling, which is one of the greatest Calamities of the whole; as they gave Employment to near 10,000 people. Do these Events any-wise affect your Theory? Or will it occasion the Revisal of any Chapters?” The Letters of David Hume, Volume II, 1766-1776, J. Y. T. Greig (editor), Oxford University Press, 1932, page 263.

See also: “Upon Daedalian wings of paper money: Adam Smith and the crisis of 1772,” H. Rockoff, Working Paper 15594, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), 2009. Bank of Scotland: A History, 1695-1995, Richard Saville, Edinburgh University Press, 1996, page 162. “Crises of 1763 and 1772-1773,” E. S. Schubert, in: Business Cycles and Depressions, an Encyclopedia, David Glaser (editor), Garland Publishing, Inc., 1997. Scottish Banking: A History, 1695-1973, S. G. Checkland, Collins, 1975, page 237. “Scotland’s Balance of Payments Problem in 1762,” H. Hamilton, The Economic History Review, New Series, 5(3):344-357, 1953.

A book from 1840 sums it up this way: “That the history of invention of mechanism, and the description of its structure, operation, and uses, should be capable of being rendered the subject matter of a volume, destined not alone for the instruction of engineers or machinists, but for the information and amusement of the public in general, is a statement which at no very remote period would have been deemed extravagant and incredible.

Advanced as we are in the art of rendering knowledge popular, and cultivated as the public taste is in the appreciation of the expedients by which science ministers to the uses of life, there is still perhaps but one machine which such a proposition can be truly appreciated: it is needless to say that that machine is the STEAM ENGINE.” The Steam Engine Explained and Illustrated: With an Account of Its Invention and Progressive Improvement, and Its Application to Navigation and Railways; Including Also a Memoir of Watt, Dionysius Lardner, Taylor and Walton, 1840, pages 3-4.

The author goes on to expound at length, and start into what would become the hagiography of Watt, who was by then dead, but mainly though, in hindsight it seems clear that the reason for all the excitment was not how the steam engine worked, or what physical principles it depended on to work, but what the steam engine did—namely, by that point, mass audiences cared about it because it affected masses of people in factories and on railways and elsewhere. The same was true (and is still true) of computers from the 1980s and beyond. Interest in them will wane for the same reason that interest waned in steam engines.

Сыны Алтая и Отечества. Ч.2: Механикус Иван Ползунов: Жизнь и творчество выдающегося теплоэнергетика XVIII в., Н. Я. Савельев. Алтайское книжное издательство, 1988. [transliterated: Syny Altaya i Otechestva. Part 2: Mekhanikus Ivan Polzunov: Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo vydayushchegosya teploenergetika XVIII veka, N. YA. Savel’yev. Altayskoye knizhnoye izdatel’stvo, 1988.] [The Sons of the Altai and Motherland: Part II: Mechanicus Ivan Polzunov: The Life and Creative Work of an Outstanding Thermal Power Engineering Specialist of the 18th Century, N. Ya. Savelyev, The Altai Publishing House, Reprint Edition, 1988.]

For English references, see: The History of the Machine, Sigvard Strandh, translated by Ann Henning, Dorset Press, 1989, pages 118-120. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, A. M. Prokhorov (editor), Macmillan, 1973-1983. The Origins of Feedback Control, Otto Mayr, The MIT Press, 1970, pages 77-78. “The History of Technology in Soviet Russia and Marxist Doctrine,” D. Joravsky, Technology and Culture, 2(1):5-10, 1961.

Also, in the 1740s, a generation before Watt and Polzunov, something similar happened to Joseph Karl Hell (Jozef Karol Hell, or Höll, 1713-1789) compared to John Smeaton. Hell, in Slovakia, was mostly alone and industrial infrastructure was lacking there, while Smeaton, in England, laid foundations that Watt was to later build on. The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology, Arnold Pacey, The MIT Press, Second Edition, 1992, pages 152-156.

Not that miners in Scotland were all that better off. For example, the first colliery in Scotland that the Newcomen steam engine was sold to in 1720 was in Elphinstone (in Stirlingshire). A ‘colliery’ is a coal mine where mining is done by ‘colliers’ (coal miners) who, from 1606 until 1800, were serfs bound not to land but to coal mines. While a laird couldn’t be as brutal to a collier as a lord could be to a serf in Russia, a bound collier was a piece of property. He or she couldn’t be sold individually, but in valuing the mine, he and his family were ranked with any other article attached to the mine. Colliers could move, but once bound to a pit, they couldn’t move, and if they tried, they could be brought back and punished. Colliers were expressly excluded from the Habeas Corpus Act of 1701. Collier status was so low that other workers would refuse to marry a collier’s daughter, and a criminal might sometimes be condemned to life as a collier. These bonds were loosened only in 1775, and removed entirely only in 1800, and only because that was the only way that mine owners could entice others to come work the mines to meet rising demand for coal. And women and young children were barred from being colliers, whether in Scotland or Wales or England, only after 1842. The Coal Industry of the Eighteenth Century, T. S. Ashton and J. Sykes, Manchester University Press, 1929, Chapter 5.

The Bible, The King James Version, Matthew 13:3-8.

Watt and Black were connected in several ways. Watt was an employee at Glasgow university while Black was a professor there. Black funded Watt’s first venture (and was later bought out by Roebuck). Black helped Watt with experiments. And Black explained latent heat to Watt when Watt stumbled upon one of its aspects in his own experiments while trying to improve a model of Newcomen’s machine as part of his job for the university.

In 1769, when Watt was 33, before he built a functioning machine and two years before he even got his first patent, and when Black was still alive, he had this to say, in some notes titled ‘A Plain Story’:

“A boiler was constructed which showed, by inspection, the quantity of water evaporated in any given time, and thereby ascertained the quantity of steam used in every stroke by the engine, which I found to be several times the full of the cylinder. Astonished at the quantity of water required for the injection, and the great heat it had acquired from the small quantity of water in the form of steam which had been used in filling the cylinder, and thinking I had made some mistake, the following experiment was tried :— A glass tube was bent at right angles; one end was inserted horizontally into the spout of a tea-kettle, and the other part was immersed perpendicularly in well-water contained in a cylindric glass vessel, and steam was made to pass through it until it ceased to be condensed, and the water in the glass vessel was become nearly boiling hot. The water in the glass vessel was then found to have gained an addition of about one-sixth part from the condensed steam. Consequently, water converted into steam can heat about six times its own weight of well-water to 212°, or till it can condense no more steam. Being struck with this remarkable fact, and not understanding the reason of it, I mentioned it to my friend Dr. Black, who then explained to me his doctrine of latent heat, which he had taught for some time before this period (summer 1764); but having myself been occupied with the pursuits of business, if I had heard of it I had not attended to it, when I thus stumbled upon one of the material facts by which that beautiful theory is supported.” The Life of James Watt: With Selections from His Correspondence, James Patrick Muirhead, John Murray, 1858, pages 78-79.

However, in 1814, when he was 78, highly successful and very well established, and when Black was dead, he had this to say in a letter:

“Here it was my intention to have closed this letter, but the representations of friends whose opinions I highly value, induce me to avail myself of this opportunity of noticing an error into which not only Dr. Robison, but apparently also Dr. Black, has fallen, in relation to the origin of my improvements upon the steam-engine; and which, not having been publicly controverted by me, has, I am informed, been adopted by almost every subsequent writer upon the subject of Latent Heat.

Dr. Robison, in the article ‘Steam-engine,’ after passing an encomium upon me, dictated by the partiality of friendship, qualifies me as the ‘pupil and intimate friend of Dr. Black;’ a description which not being there accompanied with any inference, did not particularly strike me at the time of its first perusal. He afterwards, in the dedication to me of his edition of Dr. Black’s ‘Lectures upon Chemistry,’ goes the length of supposing me to have professed to owe my improvements upon the steam-engine to the instructions and information I had received from that gentleman, which certainly was a misapprehension; as, although I have always felt and acknowledged my obligations to him for the information I had received from his conversation, and particularly for the knowledge of the doctrine of latent heat, I never did nor could consider my improvements as originating in those communications.”

Watt’s hagiographers were pleased to trot out that particular paragraph by the 1840s, when he was long dead, the steam engine was hugely important, and his hagiography began in earnest, but somehow loath to print the coda to it in the very same letter:

“Although Dr. Black’s theory of latent heat did not suggest my improvements on the steam-engine, yet the knowledge, upon various subjects, which he was pleased to communicate to me, and the correct modes of reasoning and of making experiments, of which he set me the example, certainly conduced very much to facilitate the progress of my inventions; and I still remember, with respect and gratitude, the notice he was pleased to take of me when I very little merited it, and which continued throughout his life.” The Life of James Watt: With Selections from His Correspondence, James Patrick Muirhead, John Murray, 1858, pages 496-497 and 500.

Watt’s machine was intricate; many of its parts depended on other parts, which depended on yet other parts. He built it on an engine common in England, but rare in Russia. It was common because of work done by Thomas Newcomen, John Calley, John Smeaton, Thomas Savery, and others. To make it more useful he had to increase its power, and for that he needed to understand the physics of heat; he got some of that insight from Joseph Black. To build it at all, he needed cylinders that could withstand high pressure (which he got from Abraham Darby and John Thomas). To make it cheaply enough, he needed cheap iron for his cylinders instead of costly brass (Abraham Darby II and Thomas Goldney III). To machine those cylinders precisely enough, he needed high-grade iron (John Wilkinson). To cut those precision-ground cylinders and pistons, he needed crucible steel (Benjamin Huntsman). To run it cheaply enough, he needed cheap fuel, which he got from coke—that is, coal cooked to remove impurities—instead of wood or charcoal (Abraham Darby). To do anything at all, he needed money (Joseph Black, John Roebuck, Matthew Bolton). And so on.

Britain also needed ever-improving steam engines (Richard Trevithick, William Murdock, Joseph Bramah, Jonathan Hornblower, Arthur Woolf). Then it needed ever-improving machine tools (Jesse Ramsden, Edward Nairn, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Joseph Whitworth, James Nasmyth). Plus it needed ever-growing canal transport (Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, William Small, Samuel Galton, Thomas Telford, John Rennies). It needed ever-expanding markets (Richard Trevithick, John Smeaton, Isambard Brunel). And it needed ever-expanding rail networks (Richard Trevithick, George Stephenson, John Wilkinson, Henry Cort).

Also, all the changes catalyzed yet another network of tools made by another network of early industrialists in Britain (Thomas Highs, John Kay, James Hargreaves, Richard Arkwright, Samuel Crompton, Edmund Cartwright). They built the early machines of Britain’s textile industry. That then became one of the next killer apps, outside of mining, of the new steam tech. Also, all those people needed yet another network of people (Jethro Tull, Robert Bakewell, Joseph Foljambe, Robert and Charles Colling, and others). Their farm innovations helped Britain raise its food supply until it could almost feed itself.

Further, none of that might have happened had he not been a Presbyterian. In the eyes of the state, which had won the previous civil war, that made him a heretic—a Dissenter who refused to join the Church of England. Several of Britain’s early industrialists were Dissenters. For example, Wilkinson was a Presbyterian, Newcomen (Baptist), Roebuck (Independent), Wedgwood (Unitarian), and Huntsman, Darby, Goldney, Lloyd, and Barclay were Quakers. As Dissenters, they couldn’t stand for Parliament, hold public office, join the army, or attend Oxford or Cambridge. Barred from high-status posts—along with other riffraff, like Catholics, Jews, Greek Orthodox, and Gypsies—they went into lowly ones: trade and industry. There they stewed. With nowhere else to go, they did deals with one another. That’s partly what welded together Britain’s early industrial reaction network in the first place. So when Watt fled Scotland for England, it was tiny Britain, not huge Russia, that happened to have large pools of both skilled machinists and skilled financiers. Nobody arranged that. In some sense, our swarm did.

In Britain, non-Protestants, like Catholics, Jews, and Greek Orthodox, were a different matter. For example, England had kicked out its Jews entirely from 1290 to 1650. By the 1760s they were a tiny portion of the population (about 0.3 percent).

Further, Britain wasn’t unique in its religious repression. Russia was equally good at it. Russia, though, was much more of a peasant economy. It forced its religious minorities, primarily Jews, into finance, peddling, and shopkeeping instead of trade and industry—that is, when not running active pogroms against them. (A peasant uprising in 1768, during the partitioning of Poland, lead to massacres of both Jews and Catholics. Perhaps 20,000 were herded into their places of worship and killed. A century before, a Cossack idea of fun was to ride into a village and kill every male and take every female there.)

Similarly, France had slaughtered or exiled most of its Protestants, the Huguenots. (Two important steam pioneers in Britain, Denis Papin and John Desaguliers, for example, had fled France for Britain. They were Huguenots). Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria—all have poor tolerance records as well. For long periods of recent European history, only the Netherlands was tolerant of variant religious belief systems. Britain in the 1770s was then merely one of the less-intolerant nations. (Incidentally, England’s history of its treatment of Jews is also quite varied. For example, while it accepted them in the 1100s, it persecuted and ejected them in the 1200s.)

So Russia in the 1700s was still running pogroms against its Jews—and would continue to do so for another 170 years. But while that pressure forced Russia’s Jews together, they had even fewer outlets than Britain’s Dissenters did. Europe’s repression also forced much of its financial and trade expertise—largely in the form of Jews—out of Spain, Portugal, and France and into the Netherlands, and later to Britain.

Evangelista Torricelli made the first vacuum in 1643 while creating the first barometer (following the prompting of Galileo). The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas, Charles Coulston Gillispie, Princeton University Press, 1960, page 100.

Denis Papin published his 1676-1679 work with Robert Boyle on his ‘steam digester’ in 1680. “Papin, Denis (1647-1712?),” Anita McConnell, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

James Watt was born on January 19th, 1736. James Henry Watt, James Watt’s father, was born January 28th, 1699, in Greenock, Scotland. (He married Agnes Muireheid, and died August 1782.) National Records of Scotland, OPR (Old Parish Register) 564-3/1, page 108. Thomas Watt, James Henry Watt’s father, was born in 1642 and christened April 16th, 1643, in Aberdeen, Scotland. (He married Margaret Shearer, and died February 27th, 1734.)

Mechanicians had succeeded in making steam-boilers capable of sustaining any desired or any useful pressure, and Papin had shown how to make them comparatively safe by the attachment of the safety‑valve. They had made steam‑cylinders fitted with pistons, and had used such a combination in the development of power.

It now only remained for the engineer to combine known forms of mechanism in a practical machine which should be capable of economically and conveniently utilizing the power of steam through the application of now well‑understood principles, and by the intelligent combination of physical phenomena already familiar to scientific investigators.

Every essential fact and every vital principle had been learned, and every one of the needed mechanical combinations had been successfully effected. It was only requisite that an inventor should appear, capable of perceiving that these known facts and combinations of mechanism, properly illustrated in a working machine would present to the world its greatest physical blessing.

The defects of the simple engines constructed up to this time have been noted as each has been described. None of them could be depended upon for safe, economical, and continuous work. Savery’s was the most successful of all. But the engine of Savery, even with the improvements of Desaguliers, was unsafe where most needed, because of the high pressures necessarily carried in its boilers when pumping from considerable depths; it was uneconomical, in consequence of the great loss of heat in its forcing‑cylinders when the hot steam was surrounded at its entrance by colder bodies; it was slow in operation, of great first cost, and expensive in first cost and in repairs, as well as in its operation. It could not be relied upon to do its work interruptedly, and was this in many respects a very unsatisfactory machine.

The man who finally effected a combination of the elements of the modern steam‑engine, and produced a machine which is unmistakeably a true engine—i.e., a train of mechanism consisting of several elementary pieces combined in a train capable of transmitting a force applied at one end and of communicating it to the resistance to be overcome at the other end was THOMAS NEWCOMEN, an ‘iron‑monger’ and blacksmith of Dartmouth, England. The engine invented by him, and known as the ‘Atmospheric Steam Engine,’ is the first of an entirely new type. [...]

In a very few years after the invention of Newcomen’s engine it had been introduced into nearly all large mines in Great Britain; and many new mines, which could not have been worked at all previously, were opened, when it was found that the new machine could be relied upon to raise the large quantities of water to be handled. The first engine in Scotland was erected in 1720 at Elphinstone, in Stirlingshire. One was put up in Hungary in 1723.” A History of the Growth of the Steam-Engine, Robert H. Thurston, D. Appleton and Company, 1878, pages 55-57, and 68.

However, for the practical engineering concerns and all the difficulties that Newcomen had to have faced and overcome, see: Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine, Richard L. Hills, Cambridge University Press, 1989, Chapter 2, especially pages 22-30. His last, and most crucial, and most copied, insight—that of cold water injection—is described on page 25.

On Darby I (there were three ‘Abraham Darby’s, father, son, and grandson): Dynasty of Iron Founders: The Darbys and Coalbrookdale, Arthur Raistrick, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1953, pages 23-25. Note: Allen cites King (unread reference) as developing an argument that Darby I was predated by Shadrach Fox, the ironmaster who preceded him at Coalbrookdale, who apparently may be the real inventor of coke smelting. That’s certainly possible, but even so, coke wasn’t viable by itself. Darby also added sand casting, which he got from Netherlands practice. Even then, charcoal competed with coke for half a century. It was only when combined with the steam engine to pump water back up for the bellows pump that the cost really began to fall. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, Robert C. Allen, Cambridge University Press, 2009. The Iron Trade in England Wales, 1500-1850: the charcoal iron industry and its transition to coke, Peter Wickham King, doctoral thesis, University of Wolverhampton, 2003.

Perhaps he came by such ideas via pure logic (he presented his reasoning in his Physics, see citation). That’s how Plato’s pupils were supposed to discover truth, since to Plato, the senses can lie (consider the allegory of Plato’s cave), so only the mind can plumb the depths of reality. But perhaps it was also because he thought (to put it in today’s terms) that a body fell in a medium at a speed proportional to its weight, and inversely proportional to the amount that the medium resists its fall. So for him, if we dropped a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias from space, the whale would hit first. (His reasoning was more complex than that, but that’s the basic idea.) Perhaps he guessed that after seeing a pebble falling slowly through olive oil, faster through water, and fastest through air. Maybe then in a void it would fall infinitely fast. And that, he declared, was impossible. So a void couldn’t exist. (Actually, in his thought experiment argument, he concluded that its speed would be indeterminate, and that was impossible.)

Today we know that while his arguments were accepted for two millennia, they don’t stand up because the assumptions they were based on were false. To see why, drop three marbles of equal weight. They hit at the same time. Now glue two together, then drop all three again. They still hit at the same time. Yet, were Aristotle right, the two that were glued together, being heavier, would hit first. But none of us back then did any such test. Otherwise, we would have laughed at him. So his guess became dogma for us—for over two millennia.

Aristotle’s physics is still intuitive for most of us today, including first-year university physics students. Newtonian physics is still counter-intuitive to most of us today. For example, most of us believe that a constant force applied to a body will produce constant velocity. That’s wrong. (It will accelerate). And Einsteinian relativity is still completely unknown, not to say counter-intuitive, to most of us today.

“Intuitive Physics,” D. R. Proffitt, M. K. Kaiser, in: Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, Lynn Nadel (editor), Nature Publishing Group, 2003, pages 632-637. The Unnatural Nature of Science, Lewis Wolpert, Harvard University Press, 1993. Uncommon sense: The Heretical Nature of Science, Alan Cromer, Oxford University Press, 1993. Matter, Space and Motion, Richard Sorabji, Cornell University Press, 1988, chapter 9, pages 142-159. “Common Sense Concepts about Motion,” I. Halloun, D. Hestenes, American Journal of Physics, 53(11):1056-1065, 1985. Much Ado about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution, Edward Grant, Cambridge University Press, 1981. The Works of Aristotle, Volume II: Physica, Book IV, Parts VI-IX, J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross (editors), translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, Oxford University Press, 1952, pages .

What we take to be ’Aristotelian physics’ today is a sort of reinterpretation in mathematical terms of what Aristotle might have believed had he any mathematical talent. For example, around 1328 Thomas of Bradwardine, an English philosopher and theologian, wrote a book on motion based on what he understood to be Aristotle’s beliefs about motion. Bradwardine showed that Aristotle’s theory of motion was inconsistent. First, Aristotle claimed that a body could be in motion only when the force acting on it exceeded the resistance to its motion through the medium. Second, Aristotle claimed that a body’s velocity was proportional to the force acting on it divided by the resistance of the medium it moved through. Bradwardine showed inconsistency between these two Aristotelian tenets by assuming an initial force and resistance, then asked what would happen if the resistance were continually increased while keeping the force constant. At some point the resistance would exceed the force so the body cannot move. But its velocity, which supposedly was its acting force divided by the resistance, could not then also be zero. Thomas of Bradwardine, his Tractus de Proportionibus: Its Significance for the Development of Mathematical Physics, H. Lamar Crosby, Jr. (editor and translator), University of Wisconsin Press, 1955.

Before we could make a vacuum, and thus one day a steam engine, Beeckman in the Netherlands, Baliani, Galileo, Berti, Magiotti, Benedetti, Viviani, and Torricelli in Italy; Stevin in Belgium; Pascal in France; and others, first had to refute Aristotle’s argument that a vacuum couldn’t exist. Some of them built on William Gilbert in England—who, in 1600, simply guessed that outer space was a vacuum. But knowing that a vacuum could exist didn’t then mean that we could build a machine that harnessed one. Before there could be a Watt in Scotland there was a Guericke in Germany; a Papin and de Caus in France; a della Porta and Branca in Italy; a Boyle and a Hooke in England. Dressing for Altitude: U.S. Aviation Pressure Suits, Wiley Post to Space Shuttle, Dennis R. Jenkins, United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2012, pages 15-17. Measuring the Natural Environment, Ian Strangeways, Cambridge University Press, Second Edition, 2003, pages 91-94. “Air Weight and Atmospheric Pressure from Galileo to Torricelli,” R. Zouckermann, Fundamenta Scientiae, 2(2):185-204, 1981. De Magnete magneticisique corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure; Physiologia nova, plurimis et argumentis et experimentis demonstrata, William Gilbert of Colchester, London, 1600.

Further, after all of those names came a whole slew of more names to make practical machines to do something that someone was willing to pay for—like pump water out of mines. Only long after that did it occur to anyone that maybe such machines might be useful for something other than their first use, and for that they had to be changed, which required even more gestation and thus even more names.

It’s not uncommon to say that ‘steam engines’ existed in Rome (or Roman Egypt) two millennia ago then cite the aeolipile. But the aeolipile (perhaps invented by Vitruvius, then definitely a century later, by Hero of Alexandria, and also known as Hero’s engine) isn’t a steam engine. It’s a steam turbine. It doesn’t create, nor does it use, a vacuum. The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, from the original Greek, translated and edited by Bennet Woodcroft, Taylor Walton and Maberly, 1851, page 72. One possible source of confusion may be that the translation from the Greek was ‘steam-engine’, but that it was not.

One commonly accepted general argument about slaves and steam in popular science books goes as follows: “[T]he slave economy of the ancient world... discouraged any association of science and technology.... With cheap slave labor in plentiful supply, there wasn’t any incentive to develop labor-saving technology.” Gravity’s Arc: The Story of Gravity, from Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond, David Darling, John Wiley and Sons, 2006, pages 29-30.

The same goes for some research papers: “in [societies] based on slavery, there was no demand for steam power.” From: “The Long-Term Evolution of Social Organization,” S. van der Leeuw, D. Lane, D. Read, in: Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change, David Lane, Sander Ernst Van Der Leeuw, Denise Pumain, and Geoffrey West (editors), Springer, 2009, pages 85-116.

Even in careful and detailed history books, it’s not unusual to see the following: “The precondition for progress was probably a reasonable balance between human labour and other sources of power. The advantage was illusory when man competed with machines inordinately, as in the ancient world and China, where mechanization was ultimately blocked by cheap labour. There were slaves in Greece and Rome, and too many highly efficient coolies in China. In fact, there is never any progress unless a higher value is placed on human labour. When man has a certain cost price as a source of energy, then it is necessary to think about aiding him or, better still, replacing him.” Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Volume I, The Structures of Everyday Life, Fernand Braudel, translated by Siân Reynolds, Harper & Row, 1981, page 339.

By such arguments, we didn’t have a steam engine in, for example, the early Roman Empire, because we didn’t need a steam engine—because we had a large slave pool.

Other variants of roughly the same argument go as follows: “[Peter Levi]: What technology is nowadays expected to accomplish is the concentration or the transference of energy. And we know from the raising of obelisks that the practical mathematics were quite highly developed. It’s quite clever to raise a monolithic column or an obelisk. But I take it that what went wrong with the Hellenistic rulers’ exploration of different techniques is that they had too much man power—they had too many slaves. To have slaves is, apart from being wicked, inefficient, because you may use a million men where one machine could have done the job.” [...] “[Peter Green]:... It’s not so much that slaves were available, which indeed they were. No, the ruling classes were scared, as the Puritans said, of Satan finding work for idle hands to do. One of the great things about not developing a source of energy that did not depend on muscle power was the fear of what the muscles might get up to if they weren’t kept fully employed. The sort of inventions that were taken up and used practically were the things that needed muscle power to start with, including the Archimedean screw.” From the Discussion section following: “ ‘The Base Mechanic Arts’? Some Thoughts on the Contribution of Science (Pure and Applied) to the Culture of the Hellenistic Age,” K. D. White, in: Hellenistic History and Culture, Peter Green (editor), University of California Press, 1993, pages 234 and 236.

As an example, perhaps the only clearly documented one, see: “Free Labour and Public Works at Rome,” P. A. Brunt, The Journal of Roman Studies, 70:81-100, 1980. Brunt cites Suetonis, who mentions an incident in the life of Vespasian: “mechanico quoque, grandis columnas exigua impensa perducturum in Capitolium pollicenti, praemium pro commento non mediocre optulit, operam remisit, praefatus sineret se plebiculam pascere.” (“To a mechanical engineer, who promised to transport some heavy columns to the Capitol at small expense, he gave no mean reward for his invention, but refused to make use of it, saying: ‘You must let me feed my poor commons.’ ”) This he gives as evidence that keeping the populace happy was more important than new invention.

Such ideas are old, still current, and widely accepted: “[Schneider] traced the early path of the slavery/stagnation/blockage view from Diels in the 1920s through Ferrero, Rostovtzeff, and Lefebvre de Noëttes to Finley, Pleket, and Lee in the 1970s, and its perpetuation by Gille in the 1980s.” See: “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered,” K. Greene, The Economic History Review, 53(1):29-59, 2000.

But there’s something wrong with all such sorts of explanations. “[T]he importance of slavery should not be exaggerated. The ancient slave owner had at least two good reasons to want to reduce his dependence on slave labor if he possibly could, for slaves were quite expensive to feed and they could be difficult to control.” Greek Science After Aristotle, G. E. R. Lloyd, W. W. Norton, 1973, page 108.

Similarly: “[S. M. Burstein]: The common wisdom that cheap slave labor inhibited the development of technology in antiquity should probably be reconsidered for two reasons. First, slaves are expensive, not cheap. Second, as the history of the antebellum American South indicates, the use of slave labor is not incompatible with the development of labor-saving technology, provided—and it is an important proviso—that the technology increases the productivity and value of the slaves.” From: “ ‘The Base Mechanic Arts’? Some Thoughts on the Contribution of Science (Pure and Applied) to the Culture of the Hellenistic Age,” K. D. White, in: Hellenistic History and Culture, Peter Green (editor), University of California Press, 1993, pages 236-237.

All the fairy tales fall apart once it’s seen that slave labor is free labor, but it’s not labor for free. Slave dealers didn’t simply give slaves away. They cost something to capture, feed, clothe, house, and guard. Further, if a plentitude of slaves or coolies is the reason we didn’t build a steam engine, why then did we ever bother to invent labor-saving tools like sails and waterwheels? Or bother to use animal power (horses, oxen, asses, camels) to turn capstans and such? Slaves would’ve sufficed, and often did suffice when the oxen or horse died, for those needs as well. If the waterwheel broke, get the slaves to grind the maize. If the sea’s winds died, get the slaves to row. It seems that using such an argument is ‘just-so’ history.

Yet further, the ‘fact,’ originally stated most forcefully by M. I. Finley in 1965 (and in his widely read 1973 book, The Ancient Economy,), and so widely accepted even today, that the Roman empire didn’t make use of watermills is now debunked. “[S]ubsequent research has revealed numerous water-mills from Hadrian’s Wall to north Africa and to Palestine, and has demonstrated that Italy was not excluded from this phenomenon.” See: “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered,” K. Greene, The Economic History Review, 53(1):29-59, 2000.

It also seems unlikely that we didn’t build a steam engine because we were idiots. For example, in the early Roman Empire we had more flexible financial tools than those we had in eighteenth-century France. So we likely weren’t any stupider then than we are today. However, those tools weren’t as flexible as those we had in eighteenth-century Britain. In Rome, we didn’t have a national debt or a central bank or paper currency, so there was a limit to how much capital we could amass for new enterprises, like building a steam engine. But such tools can’t be all we needed because the Netherlands, and Italy before it, had financial tools about as flexible as those that Britain had. See: “Financial Intermediation in the Early Roman Empire,” P. Temin, The Journal of Economic History, 64(3):705-733, 2004.

Also: “Contrary to Finley, who asserted, ‘[A]ncient slavery... co-existed with other forms of dependent labor, not with free wage-labor,’ and Schiavone, who added recently that ‘slavery... led to the eventual stagnation of the [Roman economic] system, blocking off other paths,’ the analysis herein finds that free hired labor was widespread and that ancient slavery was part of a unified labor force in the early Roman empire, not a barrier to economic progress.” From: “The Labor Market of the Early Roman Empire,” P. Temin, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34(4):513-538, 2004.

In sum: “The last twenty-five years have seen a radical overhaul of views on the level and importance of technological development achieved in the Roman world. From the 1960s to the 1980s the view prevailed that ancient technology in general, and Roman technology in particular, was stagnant and contributed little to the economy. Since then a number of studies have argued for a much higher level of ancient technological development, and a more rapid and widespread uptake of that technology. Ancient technology has re-entered the debate on the economy, and the task is now to assess what contribution technological developments might have made to economic growth. [...] [I]t looks increasingly difficult to deny the importance of technological developments to the achievement of per capita economic growth.” From: “Quantifying the Roman Economy: Integration, Growth, Decline?” A. Bowman, A. Wilson, in Quantifying the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems, Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson (editors), Oxford University Press, 2009, pages 3-86, especially pages 33-38.

It thus seems unlikely that in Rome we didn’t invent a steam engine because we loved slavery, or because we couldn’t imagine living without slaves, or because we needed to keep slaves employed to thus avoid revolution, or because we were stupid. It seems more likely that it was because we didn’t know enough metallurgy, engineering, and physics. We couldn’t make the high-grade iron we would have needed to build a safe and efficient one. And considering what was to happen to both Polzunov in Siberia and Watt in Scotland, we likely didn’t have the skilled machinists we would have needed to maintain a high-precision one, even if an alien spaceship had simply dropped one off in the forum. In the early Roman Empire we didn’t have the tools we would have needed to make the tools we would have needed. We didn’t even have the ideas we would have needed to make the ideas we would have needed. In short, it seems likely that developing all the many tools and skills and knowledge that let us build an efficient steam engine took millennia of accident. All that came together only in the 1700s, and it happened first in Britain.

It would be interesting exercise in alternate history to try to work out how all that could have happened in Italy or China two millennia ago, or Egypt or Iraq four millennia ago.

The high price of grain during (and artifically propped up after) the Napoleonic wars, compounded the problem. “No doubt, a labourer, whose income was only £20 a year, would, in general, act wisely in substituting hasty-pudding, barley bread, boiled milk, and potatoes, for bread and beer; but in most parts of this county, he is debarred not more by prejudice, than by local difficulties, from using a diet that requires cooking at home. The extreme dearness of fuel in Oxfordshire, compels him to purchase his dinner at the baker’s; and, from his unavoidable consumption of bread, he has little left for cloaths, in a country where warm cloathing is most essentially wanted.” The State of the Poor: or a history of the labouring classes in England, from the Conquest to the present period; in which are particularly considered, their domestic economy, with respect to diet, dress, fuel, and habitation; and the various plans which, from time to time, have been proposed and adopted for the relief of the poor: together with parochial reports relative to the administration of work-houses, and houses of industry; the state of the Friendly Societies, and other public institutions; in several agricultural, commercial and manufacturing, districts. With a large appendix; containing a comparative and chronological table of the prices of labour, of provisions, and of other commodities; an account of the poor in Scotland; and many original documents on subjects of national importance, Frederick Morton Eden, Volume II, B. & J. White, G. & G. Robinson, T. Payne, R. Faulder, T. Egerton, J. Debrett, and D. Bremner, 1797, page 587.

None of that means that the industrial phase change was good for Britain’s trees. In fact, with the coming of the railway, then the internal combustion engine able to reach anywhere, even more trees were cut until Britain’s forestation had dropped to an all-time low of four percent by 1918. Today it is 11 percent. A Reference for the Forestry Industry, The Forestry Industry Council of Great Britain, 1998.

Brtain’s (then continental Europe’s) attitudes to the natural world started changing after the scientific revolution (also, the scientific revolution was itself partly an outgrowth of changes in attitudes toward the natural world). Deforestation, rather than a calamity, increasingly came to be seen as a symptom of increased industrial change, and therefore of ‘progress.’

“There is no positive information concerning the time when coal was first produced in France. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries coal was imported from Newcastle, England, and from Liege, Belgium, and traditions indicate that coal was being mined during this period in the Loire, Brassac, and Decize coal fields of France. In 1548 the first concession for coal mining of which there is any record was granted by Henry II. In 1667 Louis XIV placed an import tax on coal, which tax was increased in 1692, resulting in increased mining operations in France. In 1698 an edict was issued granting land proprietors the right to mine coal for their own profit on their lands without the permission of the sovereign, and as a result coal mining was actively carried on in France, beginning in the Loire and Brassac fields and gradually extending to the others. In 1744 Louis XV annulled the law of 1698, and required that thereafter concessions for coal mining must be obtained from the sovereign. The first concession for lignite mining was granted in 1788.” Coal Mine Labor in Europe, Carroll Davidson Wright, United States Bureau of Labor, 1905, page 183.

Continuity, Chance and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England, E. A. Wrigley, Cambridge University Press, 1988, page 54. The History of the British Coal Industry, Volume I: Before 1700: Towards the Age of Coal, John Hatcher, Clarendon Press, 1993, Table 4.1, page 68.

“[O]f the fifty-five patents granted for inventions granted during the reign of Elizabeth, 1561-99, one in seven is for the raising of water, and of the 127 patents granted between 1617 and 1642, the same proportion is observable.” A Short History of the Steam Engine, H. W. Dickinson, 1938, Frank Cass and Co., Reprint Edition, 1963, page 16.

English Medieval Population: Reconciling Time Series and Cross Sectional Evidences,” S. Broadberry, B. M. S. Campbell, B. van Leeuwen, (unpublished manuscript), 2010. “Statistics of production and productivity in English agriculture 1086-1871,” M. Overton, B. M. S. Campbell, in: Land productivity and agro-systems in the North Sea area (middle ages-20th century): Elements for Comparison, Bas J. P. van Bavel and Erik Thoen (editors), Brepols, 1999, pages 189-209. Christ’s Hospital of London, 1552-1598: “A Passing Deed of Pity”, Carol Kazmierczak Manzione, Associated University Presses, 1995, page 17. “People and Land in the Middle Ages, 1066-1500,” B. Campbell, in: Robert A. Dodgshon and Robin A. Butlin (editors), Historical Geography of England and Wales, Second Edition, Elsevier, 1990, pages 69-122. The Population History of England 1541-1871, A Reconstruction, E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofield, Cambridge University Press, 1981, Table 7.8, pages 208-209.

Henry VIII had continued a major push to bring iron making to England, by importing foreign ironworkers. His father, Henry VII, the first Tudor king, had started the push in the 1490s, after he stole the throne. (For example, he started the first blast furnace in England in 1491.) But it was only by the 1540s, under his son Henry, that industry in England really started to take off. The push continued under Elizabeth I, Henry’s daughter, who continued to import foreign experts in the 1570s. She increased the production of brass and glass in England. All three sovereigns lived in great fear of invasion. And iron-, brass-, glass-, and ship- production all needed massive numbers of trees. For example, a battleship (like the later Victory, which launched in 1765) might need more than 6,000 trees, at least 2,000 of which were 100-year-old oak trees. The Mary Rose, which launched in 1511 and sank in 1545, needed around 600. D. Goodburn, “Woodworking Aspects of the Mary Rose,” in: Your Noblest Shippe: Anatomy of a Tudor Warship, The Archaeology of the Mary Rose, Volume 2, Peter Marsden (editor), The Mary Rose Trust, Marsden, 2009, pages 66-68, and 71. The Iron Industry of the Weald, Henry Cleere and David Crossley, Jeremy Hodgkinson (editor), Second Edition, Merton Priory Press, 1995. Industry before the Industrial Revolution: Incorporating a study of the Chartered Companies of the Society of Mines Royal and of Mineral and Battery Works, Volume II, William Reese, University of Wales Press, 1968. Wealdean Iron, Ernest Straker, G. Bell & Sons, 1931. Opera Mineralia Explicata: Or, The Mineral Kingdom, Within The Dominions Of Great Britain, Display’d. Being a Complete History of the Ancient Corporations of the City of London, of and for the Mines, the Mineral and the Battery works. With all the Original Grants, Leases, Instruments, Writs of Privilege and Protection, by Sea and Land, from Arrest (except in the Mineral Courts); or being Prest, or Serving Juries and Parish-Offices: as also the Records of the said Mineral Courts, from the Conquest, down to this present year, 1713. Likewise Proposals for New Settlements and Plentiful Provision for All the Industrious Poor, be their Number ever so Great. M. S. (that is, Moses Stringer), Jonas Brown, 1731, Chapter 3, pages 27 and on.

Richard II, William Shakespeare, Act II, Scene I.

Here are estimates of urban population percentages: c. 1520 - 5.25 percent, c. 1600 - 8.00 percent, c. 1670 - 13.25 percent, c. 1700 - 16.25 percent, c. 1750 - 20.75 percent. c. 1800 - 27.75 percent. Energy and the English Industrial Revolution, E. A. Wrigley, Cambridge University Press, 2010, Table 3.2 page 61.

This is especially interesting given the discussion on the previous pages: “Removing English urban totals from those for Europe suggests that in continental Europe as a whole urbanisation was almost at a standstill between 1600 and 1800.” In other words, almost all new European urbanization in two entire centuries happened in England. Some of that was England playing catch-up with more heavily urbanized countries—particularly Italy and the Netherlands.

Of course, Charles I wasn’t the first monarch of England to be deposed, counting from Athelstan in 924. He was merely the first to be deposed via popular unrest. Before him, Harold II (1066), William II (1100) (possibly), Edward II (1327), Richard II (1399), Henry VI (1461), Edward V (uncrowned) (1483), Richard III (1485), and Jane (uncrowned) (1553), all lost dynastic (or external, in the case of Harold) power struggles. After him, only James II (1688) did.

“From a period of immemorial antiquity it had been the practice of every English government to contract debts. What the Revolution introduced was the practice of honestly paying them.” The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, Vol. I Thomas Babington Macaulay, Tauchnitz, 1849, page 284 (and on).

“The immediate result of England’s entry into the war against France in 1689 was to make public expenditure increase between two and three times. [...] [B]oth the government and Parliament made serious mistakes which ran the new state into Crisis. [...] [T]here was before the 1690s little or no experience of large and sophisticated financial projects, either in Whitehall or in the City of London. [...] In the harsh and uncertain conditions of eighteenth-century life the state lottery was a perennial way of escape into wealth and leisure—if only in the imagination. [...] [I]t attracted more subscribers than any other form of government loan. [...] In April 1694, a month after passing the Bill for the Million Lottery, Parliament assented to a very different project whose consequences were to be as far-reaching as the prior decision to create a National Debt. This was the establishment of the Bank of England.” [...] The first measures taken to create a system of government long-term borrowing were thus marked by haste, carelessness, and episodic failure—even if in comparison with the management of short-term finance they were shiningly successful. But such mistakes and errors of judgement were perhaps inevitable in a trial period. Some valuable lessons had been learned: about the Connections between long- and short-dated finance, about consultation with the City of London, about the importance of foreign confidence in sterling, about the relative popularity of different kinds of loans. Above all, a national bank had been established which quickly showed that in the quality of its management it could challenge comparison with the Bank of Amsterdam, hitherto the cynosure of European eyes. It provided a point of growing importance around which the developing machine of government finance could turn.” The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688-1756, P. G. M. Dickson, Macmillan, 1967, pages 46-47, 54, 57-58, and Table 2 (pages 48-49). See also page 256 for early bank subscribers. See also The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688-1783, John Brewer, Unwin Hyman, 1989, Chapter 5.

“In effect, the Bank of England created a bond market, providing safe investment at reliable rates for investors and providing the government with a ready source of funds at low rates. It also systematized over several years the national debt. Over the long run, through the continental and world wars of the 1690s and the long eighteenth century until Waterloo, Britain had a huge financial advantage over much larger and arguably wealthier France, because its government could borrow at much lower rates, thanks to the Bank of England. The bank facilitated that borrowing and provided a ready source of currency, and the representative Parliament, which levied the taxes that provided reliable interest payments: institutions that got their beginnings in the arrangements that Parliament devised to finance the wars of William III.” Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America’s Founding Fathers, Michael Barone, Random House, 2007, page 224.

The government was in such desperate need that it allowed the Bank of England to register as a joint-stock company—so, unlike every other bank, its investors had no personal liability if the bank failed. Its job was to lend money to the government at eight percent, and pass on that interest to its subscribers, less overhead costs (and profit). Its capital of £1.2 million was subscribed within 12 days. Only 60 percent of it, £720,000, was called up immediately, and that was loaned to the government in installments, the first of which was on August 1st, 1694. In return, the bank took the government’s promise to repay the loan, with interest (interest-bearing tallies, or bonds—in short, government debt), which essentially were backed by an Act of Parliament that amounted to earmarked taxes to be collected in future. The public then accepted the bank’s notes “as good as gold.” Thus for £100,000 in earmarked tax revenue, the government could drawn on £1.2 million (and the bank’s subscribers could expect £96,000 a year, and of course the bank’s proprietors could expect the difference, £4,000, every year). Overall, in the 15 years from 1688 to 1702, the government only borrowed £13 million as compared to the £59 million it raised in taxes.

However, the Bank of England wasn’t the first money-making scheme England tried to fund its latest war with France. The Bank was hard fought in Parliament, and were it not for the onerous war with France likely it would not have succeeded. Parliament first tried annuities and lotteries (which were popular) and tontines (which weren’t; a tontine is for a group who put in money and the last person to die gets it all). Nor was the Bank of England the first national bank; it’s just one of the oldest ones still surviving (after the Bank of Sweden). Banks had been founded in Amsterdam (1609), Barcelona (1609), Middle-burg (1616), Hamburg (1619), Delft (1621), Nuremberg (1621), Rotterdam (1635), and Sweden (1656).

But there were many arguments over high taxes. For example, here’s part of one about increasing the size of the navy from 20,000 to 30,000 seamen in 1735. It’s part of a combined statement by Robert Walpole, Horatio Walpole, and (James?) Oglethorpe.

“To pretend to tell us, Sir, what France and Spain intended to have done last Year, or to pretend to tell us what they intend to do this next Year, with the Ships of War they have continued in Commission, is, I think, something extraordinary. We may perhaps guess at some of their Designs, but I shall always think it very imprudent, to leave the Peace and Quiet of this Nation to depend upon such Guess-work; especially when we consider, that they have no Occasion to fit out any great Fleet against any Power in Europe but ourselves; and therefore it is not to be presumed, that they would put themselves to such a great Expence, unless they were suspicious that the Measures they have resolved to pursue, may make this Nation engage in the War; and in such a Case, I think it is natural to believe, they would take the first Opportunity to invade or disturb us: They have such an absolute Command over all the Seamen of their Country, they have always such Numbers of regular Troops upon their Coasts, or within a few Days march of their Sea-Ports, that when they have their Ships ready equip’d and fit for sailing, it would be easy for them to clap Seamen and Land-Forces on Board; and they might arrive upon the Coasts of this Kingdom, before it would be possible for us to man and fit our Fleet sufficient to engage them, if we had not made some extraordinary Provision beforehand: This every Man must be convinced of, who knows the Difficulty we had to procure Seamen enough for the Squadron we fitted out last Summer, notwithstanding the long Time we had to look for them, and the Method of Pressing which we were even then obliged to make use of. Nor does it signify to tell us, that at this Rate we shall always be obliged to fit out Squadrons, and put ourselves to a great Expence, whenever any of our Neighbours begin to fit out one; for I take it to be a right Maxim, I really think we ought to prepare and fit out a Squadron, whenever we see any of our Neighbours doing so, unless we very well know the Purposes their Squadron is designed for. The Expence bestowed upon fitting out a Squadron may be an Expence to the Publick, but it is little or no Loss to the Nation; the whole is expended among our own People, and it not only improves our Seamen, by making them acquainted with the Service on Board a Man of War, but it increases their Number; for every Fleet we fit out encourages a Number of Land-Men to engage in the Sea-Service: Whereas, if by neglecting to do so, the Kingdom should be invaded, and a civil War kindled up, the Nation would in that Case suffer a real Loss, a Loss which might far surmount the Expence the Publick could be put to by the fitting out of twenty Squadrons; so that We may suffer by neglecting this Maxim, but can never suffer by observing it.

I shall readily grant, that this Nation would be more formidable, if we owed no publick Debts, and had the same Fleet and the same regular Army we have at present; but if we had no Squadron ready to put to Sea, nor any regular Troops ready to take the Field, I cannot admit that we should then be so formidable as we are at present, even tho’ we did not owe a Shilling in the World. We all know, that what now makes a Nation formidable, is not the Number nor the Riches of its Inhabitants, but the Number of Ships of War provided with able Seamen, and the Number of regular well disciplined Troops they have at Command: And, whatever Gentlemen may think of the Acceptation of his Majesty’s good Offices, I am persuaded they would not have been so readily accepted, if the Parties had not seen us preparing to do them bad Offices, in Case they had refused to accept of our good.”

“Debate in the Commons on the Number of Seamen for the Year 1735,” The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Volume IX, A.D. 1733-1737, Hansard, 1811, pages 691-719, specifically pages 715-716.

The idea has been challenged as more quantitative and comparative data has come to light, but it’s hardly been disproved. Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development, Joseph E. Inikori, Cambridge University Press, 2002. Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 1660-1800, Kenneth Morgan, Cambridge University Press, 2001. “The Atlantic Economy of the Eighteenth Century: Some Speculations on Economic Development in Britain America, Africa, and Elsewhere,” S. L. Engerman, Journal of European Economic History, 24(1):145-175, 1995. The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies, and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe, Joseph E. Inikori and Stanley Engerman (editors), Duke University Press, 1992.

In France the Title of Marquis is given gratis to any one who will accept of it; and whosoever arrives at Paris from the midst of the most remote Provinces with Money in his Purse, and a Name terminating in ac or ille, may strut about, and cry, such a Man as I! A Man of my Rank and Figure! And may look down upon a Trader with sovereign Contempt; whilst the Trader on the other Side, by thus often hearing his Profession treated so disdainfully, is Fool enough to blush at it. However, I need not say which is most useful to a Nation; a Lord, powder’d in the tip of the Mode, who knows exactly at what a Clock the King rises and goes to bed; and who gives himself Airs of Grandeur and State, at the same Time that he is acting the Slave in the Anti-chamber of a prime Minister; or a Merchant, who enriches his Country, dispatches Orders from his Compting-House to Surat and Grand Cairo, and contributes to the Felicity of the World.”

Letters Concerning the English Nation,. by Mr. de Voltaire. London, Printed for C. Davis in Pater-Noster-Row, and A. Lyon in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden. First edition, translated by John Lockman, 1733, pages 69-72.

For a discussion of some of the current economic theories, see: The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention, William Rosen, University of Chicago Press, 2010, Chapter 11. However, Rosen avoids discussing at least two of the most venerable and still quite popular (even today) theories, namely: genes and religion.

Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare, Act III, Scene I.

Hunter-gatherers in Japan had pottery perhaps as much as 16Kya. Ancient Jomon of Japan, Junko Habu, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Hunter-gatherers in China had pre-neolithic pottery as much as 20Kya. “Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China,” X. Wu, C. Zhang, P. Goldberg, D. Cohen, Y. Pan, T. Arpin, O. Bar-Yosef, Science, 336(6089):1696-1700, 2012.

Oxen are castrated male cattle. Cattle were domesticated more than once, in one case (the zebu) in India perhaps 9Kya. “Domestication of cattle: Two or three events?,” D. Pitt, N. Sevane, E. L. Nicolazzi, D. E. MacHugh, S. D. E. Park, L. Colli, R. Martinez, M. W. Bruford, P. Orozco-terWengel, Evolutionary applications, 12(1):123-136, 2018.

Horses were (perhaps) domesticated perhaps 5.5Kya on the Steppes. “Reconstructing the origin and spread of horse domestication in the Eurasian steppe,” V. Warmuth, A. Eriksson, M. A. Bower, G. Barker, E. Barrett, B. K. Hanks, S. Li, D. Lomitashvili, M. Ochir-Goryaeva, G. V. Sizonov, V. Soyonov, A. Manica, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(21):8202-8206, 2012.

It would be wrong, though, to assume that Britain in 1776 was already well-off, just because a larger but still tiny percentage of its population now were. Even as late as 1850 Britons only ate about as well as Indians did in 1998. In 1776 the Poor Laws were still in full force, and for good reason—most of the population were still starving, or near starvation. They were also strictly tied to the land—and not just in an farming sense, but also in a legal sense. To travel, the poor needed passes, which they rarely got.

For example, on May 28th, 1795, a bill slightly ameliorated the travel problem: “Many industrious poor persons, chargeable to the parish, township, or place where they live, merely from want of work there, would in any other place where sufficient employment is to be had, maintain themselves and families without being burthensome to any parish, township, or place; and such poor persons are for the most part compelled to live in their own parishes, townships, or places, and are not permitted to inhabit elsewhere, under pretence that they are likely to become chargeable to the parish, township, or place into which they go for the purpose of getting employment, although the labour of such poor persons might, in many instances, be very beneficial to such parish, township, or place.” Poor Removal Bill, 35 George III, Chapter 101, (To Prevent the Removal of Poor Persons, Until They Shall Become Actually Chargeable). The bill explicitly excluded pregnant females, as the law had done for centuries already—they were the least able to work and the most expensive to support.

See also: The World Economy: A Millennia Perspective, Angus Maddison, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001.

Fifty years later (1795), one observer wrote that: “Water is seldom convenient; wind is a feeble and precarious agent; and muscular force is very expensive and very limited; but steam is free from each of these imperfections, and is superior to all in strength and duration.” Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660-1800 Christine MacLeod, Cambridge University Press, 1988, page 176. However, steam engines were still expensive.

Watt had trouble: “[T]he making of the invention is not the sole difficulty. It is one thing to invent, said Sir Marc Brunel, and another thing to make the invention work.... [Watt’s steam-engine] was so much in advance of the mechanical capability of the age that it was with the greatest difficulty it could be executed. When labouring upon his invention at Glasgow, Watt was baffled and thrown into despair by the clumsiness and incompetency of his workmen. Writing to Dr. Roebuck on one occasion, he said, “You ask what is the principal hindrance in erecting engines? It is always the smith-work.” His first cylinder was made by a whitesmith, of hammered iron soldered together, but having used quicksilver to keep the cylinder air-tight, it dropped through the inequalities into the interior, and “played the devil with the solder.” Yet, inefficient though the whitesmith was, Watt could ill spare him, and we find him writing to Dr. Roebuck almost in despair, saying, “My old white-iron man is dead!” feeling his loss to be almost irreparable. His next cylinder was cast and bored at Carron, but it was so untrue that it proved next to useless. The piston could not be kept steam tight, notwithstanding the various expedients which were adopted of stuffing it with paper, cork, putty, pasteboard, and old hats.... Yet better work could not be had. First-rate workmen in machinery did not as yet exist; they were only in process of education. Nearly everything had to be done by hand. The tools used were of a very imperfect kind. A few ill-constructed lathes, with some drills and boring-machines of a rude sort, constituted the principal furniture of the workshop....

Watt endeavoured to remedy the defect by keeping certain sets of workmen to special classes of work, allowing them to do nothing else. Fathers were induced to bring up their sons at the same bench with themselves, and initiate them in the dexterity which they had acquired by experience; and at Soho it was not unusual for the same precise line of work to be followed by members of the same family for three generations. In this way as great a degree of accuracy of a mechanical kind was arrived at was practicable under the circumstances. But notwithstanding all this care, accuracy of fitting could not be secured so long as the manufacture of steam-engines was conducted mainly by hand.”

Industrial Biography: Iron Workers And Tool Makers, Samuel Smiles, John Murray, 1863, pages 179-181.

Why this, and similar advances, didn’t lead to a huge change in China is a puzzle. (The medieval Islamic world is also puzzling.) China had so very much so very early, but the pieces either didn’t come together in industrial synergy, or when they did they didn’t stay together long enough to break our pattern of subsistence. Why? At least one big piece of ‘network physics,’ and probably many big pieces, must still be missing. The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Mark Elvin, Stanford University Press, 1973.

For example, to make pots we might need clay for the pots, potter’s wheels and lathes to shape the pots, flint and salt to glaze the pots, coal to fire the pots, power to grind the flint and run the wheels and lathes, and, of course, potters. But geography is a problem. Where do we put the pottery? Where the clay is? Where the coal is? How about where the power is? What about the flint, or salt—or potters? Wherever we site the pottery, we might need ships, carts, packhorses, and people, to fetch the clay, coal, flint, or whatever is missing—maybe even people—because to make pots we have to bring everything together. That transport adds either time or cost, or both. Plus, power is a special case. Waterwheels and windmills are stuck in place.

For any large-scale industry, we need large amounts of stuff. To make large amounts of any tangible thing, edible or not—whether it’s ground grain for an army, crucible steel for swords, spun thread for clothes, or dressed stones for a pyramid—we need lots of three things: power, hands, and resources (that is, materials and energy). To get lots of power—outside of ourselves and our draft animals, which would mean ongoing and irreducible food expense, even counting slavery—we usually need swift-running water, and to get that we need hills. To get lots of hands, we need food, which means water, but usually not swift-running water, which means plains. To get lots of resources beyond the usual—land, plants, and solar energy—we often need quarries or mines. However, hills, plains, and mines don’t often go together. Of course, that wouldn’t matter if mass transport, or any transport, was cheap, or at least fast, or better yet, both. But on land it wasn’t. So even after the horse, then the waterwheel, cheap, fast, and large-scale industry was all but impossible.

So for millennia most of our industry had to be small-scale. Only a few hands could move to where power was, or where resources were. Most hands stayed where food was, and we moved resources to where hands were, then hands made do for the missing power. None of us anywhere on the planet saw the problem, but we all faced it daily: Could we bring all three industrial needs—power, hands, and resources—together in one place? Or could we cut transport times, or costs, or maybe even both? Either way would smash the barrier and free us from our cage. In Britain, by around 1800, canals let us put a dent in the second, but the steam engine let us do both: the first by around 1800 with the steam-powered factory, then the second by around 1830 with the steam-powered locomotive.

“In Burslem, and its neighbourhood, are near one hundred and fifty separate Potteries, for making various kinds of stone and earthenware; which, together, find constant employment and support for near seven thousand people. The ware in these Potteries is exported in vast quantities from London, Bristol, Liverpool, Hull, and other seaports, to our several colonies in America and the West Indies, as well as to almost every port in Europe. Great quantities of flint-stones are used in making some of the ware, which are brought by sea, from different parts of the coast, to Liverpool and Hull: and the clay for the making of white ware is brought from Devonshire and Cornwall, chiefly to Liverpool; the materials from whence are brought by water, up the rivers Mersey and Weaver, to Winsford, in Cheshire; those from Hull, up the Trent, to Willington; and from Winsford and Willington, the whole are brought by land-carriage to Burslem. The ware, when made, is conveyed to Liverpool and Hull, in the same manner as the material brought from those places.

Many thousands of tons of shipping, and seamen in proportion, which in summer trade to the northern seas, are employed in winter in carrying materials for the Burslem ware: and, as much salt is consumed in glazing one species of it, as pays annually near £5,000 duty to Government. Add to these considerations the prodigious quantity of coals used in the Potteries, and the loading and freight this manufacture constantly supplies, as well for land-carriage as inland navigation, and it will appear, that the manufacturers, sailors, bargemen, carriers, colliers, men employed in the salt-works, and others who are supported by the pot trade, amount to a great many thousand people; and every shilling received for ware at foreign markets is so much clear gain to the nation, as not one foreigner is employed in, or any material imported from abroad for any branch of it; and the trade flourishes so much, as to have increased by two-thirds within the last fourteen years.

The Potters concerned in this very considerable manufacture, presuming from the above and many other reasons that might be offered, the Pot trade not unworthy the attention of Parliament, have presented a petition for leave to bring in a Bill to repair and widen the road from Red Bull, at Lawton, in Cheshire, to Cliff Bank, in Staffordshire; which runs quite through the Potteries, and falls at each end into a Turnpike road. This road, especially the northern road from Burslem to the Red Bull, is so very narrow, deep, and foundrous, as to be almost impassable for carriages; and in the winter, almost for pack-horses; for which reason, the carriages, with materials and ware, to and from Liverpool, and the salt-works in Cheshire, are obliged to go to Newcastle, and from thence to the Red Bull, which is nine miles and a half, (whereof three miles and a half, viz. from Burslem to Newcastle, are not Turnpike road), instead of five miles, which is the distance from Burslem to the Red Bull, by the road prayed to be amended.”

The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent, in the Commencement of the Reign of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria: Comprising Its History, Statistics, Civil Polity, & Traffic With Biographical and Geneologicial Notices of Eminent Individuals and Families; Also, the Manorial History of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and Incidental Notices of Other Neighbouring Place & Objects, John Ward, W. Lewis & Son, 1843, pages 28-29. For more general background, see also: The Wedgwoods: Being a Life of Josiah Wedgwood, With Notices of his Works and their Productions, Memoirs of the Wedgwood and other families And a History of the Early Potteries of Staffordshire, Llewellynn Jewitt, Virtue Brothers and Co., 1865, pages 162-163.

“The [early British railways] originated in the wagon ways, or tramways, used in the coal industry, and it was only with the construction of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) that it was discovered that railways could be used for passengers and general freight. The S&DR was launched in 1825 as a line designed to carry coal some 30 miles from collieries south of Durham to Stockton on the coast so that it could be transported by ship to London and elsewhere. The intention was to reduce the exorbitant cost of moving coal from the colliery to the coast. The S&DR’s authorising Act of Parliament followed the pattern of those for turnpike roads and canals. While the S&DR was free to operate its own vehicles on the railway, it had to permit the owners of other vehicles to use it on payment of a toll. The result was that the railway was used in a variety of different ways. Most of the traffic was pulled by horses, and while a large proportion of the trains were owned by the S&DR itself, individual colliery owners used their own wagons and horses. It was also used for passenger traffic, and two lady publicans ran horse-drawn carriages. The result was a combination of chaos, invention and success. The railway was built as a single track with passing places, and as traffic increased there were queues (and disputes) for their use. Light passenger coaches were supposed to give way to heavier coal trains. The locomotive engines introduced under the guidance of George Stephenson confirmed that mobile engines were at least as good as suppliers of motive power such as horses or stationary engines hauling wagons by ropes. The success, both technical and commercial, of the S&DR demonstrated for the first time that railways could have a commercial use beyond coal and mineral traffic in the north-east of England.

The discovery that railways could be highly profitable for transporting goods generally, not just coal and people, was made by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), which set the pattern for all other railways. Like the S&DR, the L&MR was established to break the stranglehold of a monopoly canal which took an indirect route between the two cities. The result of the monopoly was that the rapidly expanding cotton trade was faced with massive transport costs between its main centre, Manchester, and its chief port, Liverpool. As a consequence, and in what was to become the traditional fashion, the businessmen of the two cities, Liverpool merchants and Manchester mill owners, collaborated to build a railway between the two centres. An Act was passed in 1826, and the railway was opened in September 1830. Almost immediately upon completion, the L&MR was carrying mail, road ‘containers’ for Pickfords and had begun passenger excursions. From the start the proportion of passenger traffic was far larger than had been expected. It rapidly became clear that there were very large profits to be made, and that passengers as much as freight would be responsible for profitability. By the end of 1830, 70,000 passengers had been carried by the L&MR, and between 1831 and 1845 passengers accounted for 56 per cent of its total traffic receipts.”

railway.com: Parallels between the early British railways and the ICT revolution, Robert C. B. Miller, The Institute of Economic Affairs, 2003, pages 34-35.

Real enterprise was, however, steadily pursuing its aim amid all the excitement. Application had been made to parliament for leave to lay down a railway from Liverpool to Manchester—a work then become indispensable to those two increasing and important towns. At that period, and for some time afterwards, canal-boats, and slow, heavy roadwagons were the only available means for the transport of heavy goods or bulky merchandise. The charge for conveyance from London to Yorkshire amounted frequently to £13 per ton, and even at this high cost the service was very imperfect. Beneficial as canals had proved they were becoming inadequate to the growing requirements of trade. Besides the road there were two canals for the traffic between Liverpool and Manchester, the distance by the latter fifty-five miles, and the carriage of goods in some intances £2 per ton. Manchester was so entirely dependent on Liverpool for supplies of raw material, and the saving of time in transport so much an object, that any measure for an additional route was more a necessity than a speculation. It was notorious that goods were frequently conveyed from Liverpool to New York in less time than to Manchester. To make a third canal was impossible, as the district afforded no more water than sufficed for the two already existing. A thousand tons of merchandise were sent daily between the two towns, and produced a yearly revenue of £200,000 to the carriers. On one of the canals the profits were so great that the proprietors received the amount of their original outlay every alternate year.

Reasonable compliance with their wishes would have satisfied the merchants, who sought only to secure prompt and certain means of transport, not to depreciate canal property. Failing in their object, a railway, which had from time to time been talked about, was again discussed. The ‘Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company’ was formed, and their prospectus issued in 1824. In the following year the bill came before parliament, and there encountered all the opposition which selfishness could invent or ignorance employ, as may be seen in the parliamentary records of the session. The bill, however, was successfully carried in 1826.”

“Railway Communications,” in: Chambers’s Papers for the People, Volume 12, William Chambers, J. W. Moore, 1852, pages 14-15.

See also: “The collapse of the Railway Mania, the development of capital markets, and the forgotten role of Robert Lucas Nash,” A. Odlyzko, Accounting History Review, 21(3):309-345, 2011. “This time is different: An example of a giant, wildly speculative, and successful investment mania,” A. Odlyzko, B. E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 10(1):article 60, 2010. Fire & Steam: A History of the Railways in Britain, C. Wolmar, Atlantic Book, 2007. The Railway Mania and Its Aftermath, 1845-1852, Henry Grote Lewin, The Railway Gazette, 1936.

Allen convincingly argues that in Britain, as opposed to France and China, labor was expensive and capital and energy were cheap. The substitution of capital and energy for labor was then economically forced. This is a great argument. However, it doesn’t quite explain why Britain was able to supply the machinery and know-how to accomplish that substitution, and why that particular substitution then went on to trigger such huge changes.

Also, see Elvin, and the even earlier Killough, for a sketch of an earlier version of the same argument: The Pattern of the Chinese Past, Mark Elvin, Stanford University Press, 1973. International Trade, Hugh Baxter Killough, McGraw-Hill, 1938, pages 83-84.

The following quote seems apropos: “This is not inappropriately called the iron age, and certainly it deserves the name of the metallic age. That men should chase wild animals, and having taken, should tame and feed them, and thus always secure a supply; that they should appropriate the spontaneous fruits of the earth, and, imitating the processes of nature, should cast seed into the ground and become cultivators, always to have the fruits of the earth; that they should, from wrapping their limbs in the skins of animals, weave clothing to protect their bodies and become manufacturers; that they should launch a hollow tree on a stream, and end by navigating every part of the ocean, absolutely winning bread from the salt wave,— seems less surprising than that that they should find the means of subsistence and of welfare in the bowels of the earth.... [E]very step has been successive; slowly, gradually, but surely, has man been led from utter ignorance of the objects around him to use and profit by every solid thing on the surface of the earth, by the waters which surround it, by the circumambient atmosphere, and by the minerals deep hidden in its bowels.... In 1798... the make of iron [in Britain] was 125,000 tons; in 1806 it was 258,000 tons; in 1823 it was 450,000 tons; in 1830, 670,000 tons; and now it is more than five times as much. We use iron in ways that our fathers never thought of. Our palaces and our ships are built of iron. Our railways are in the main iron; our telegraphs depend on iron.” From: “The British Iron Trade,” The Economist, 14(659):391-392, 1856.

Our industrial phase change wasn’t the first time we fell into that kind of pulsing, self-propelling, synergetic cycle. In our recent past, for example, we autocatalytically cemented another: get slaves to harvest sugar to buy tobacco to buy ships to get slaves to work plantations to buy opium to buy tea to get slaves. That particular cycle changed the futures of Britain, the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, India, Indonesia, and China. We made another cycle even further back in time: make war to get slaves to grow food to feed slaves to swell armies to support kings to make war to get slaves. The industrial phase change, however, may be our first synergetic cycle that didn’t directly depend on slaves.

The text takes some liberties with the term a chemist might use for that kind of process. The word ‘synergy’ comes from the Greek synergos, which roughly means ‘working together’ or ‘combined action.’ The word is in common use but chemists don’t normally use the word (although they might sometimes use ‘synergistic’). For the same idea (of a self-stimulating reaction network) they might instead say ‘jointly catalytic’ or ‘collectively autocatalytic’ or ‘network catalytic.’ But such phrases are too cumbersome for a book of popular science. For a survey of much more relaxed meanings of the word in physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, and anthropology, see: Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution, Peter A. Corning, University of Chicago Press, 2005. “The Synergism Hypothesis: On the Concept of Synergy and Its Role in the Evolution of Complex Systems,” P. A. Corning, Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 21(2):133-172, 1998.

In economics, a similar idea is called ‘agglomeration economies’ or ‘economies of agglomeration’ (also sometimes ‘economies of scope’) (to contrast it with ‘economies of scale’—also called ‘increasing returns to scale’—which is subdivided into ‘internal,’ that is, at the firm level, and ‘external,’ that is, at the industry level). It’s related to what economists from Adam Smith on call ‘division of labor’ (that is, specialization) coupled with concomitant ‘externalities,’ ‘complementarities,’ ‘spillovers,’ and ‘increasing returns.’ Paul Krugman extended that to ‘economic geography’ (or ‘geographic economics’—or sometimes ‘location theory’) then to international trade, based on Alfred Marshall’s 1890 observation of the spatial formation of reaction networks (he didn’t call it that). That is, it is division of labor when that happens across multiple nearby firms (for example, in a city) as opposed to inside one firm. Perhaps the distinctions that economists draw relate to whether the division of labor is intentioned or not, whether it pre-dates or post-dates some event (that is, whether it happens as a result of some event, or whether the event happens because of it), whether it’s within one firm or not, within one industry or not, or within one cluster, city, or country or not. But for the text’s purposes, none of that matters since attribution of invention, ownership, and income division is irrelevant from the species point of view. Agglomeration Economics, Edward L. Glaeser (editor), University of Chicago Press, 2010. World Development Report 2009: Reshaping Economic Geography, The World Bank, 2009, Chapter 4. “Intra-industry Foreign Direct Investment,” L. Alfaro, A. Charlton, American Economic Review, 99(5):2096-2119, 2009. “Location, Competition and Economic Development: Local Clusters in a Global Economy,” M. Porter, Economic Development Quarterly, 14(1):15-34, 2000. “Urban Concentration: The Role of Increasing Returns and Transport Goods,” P. Krugman, International Regional Science Review, 19(1-2):5-30, 1996. Principles of Economics: An Introductory Volume, Alfred Marshall, Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1890, pages 271-272.

For millennia, however, men and women had well-defined roles. In China, for example, the saying is nan geng nü zhi (men plow women weave). For millennia, agrarian synergy had forced women all over the world into baby-making. When you’re a perpetual baby-machine, the three jobs that best fit you are child watching, home food production, and home clothing production. When some of us were speaking languages like Akkadian, those jobs were spinning thread and weaving, and milling flour and cooking. But in the 1800s such tasks began to matter far less than before. Our new factories and industrial farms were pumping out mass-produced food and clothes in vast peristaltic waves. Clothes got so cheap that many of us could afford more than one set. Food also got cheaper and cheaper. Child watching costs also declined as cities grew and schools ballooned. All three of the traditional female occupations grew less economically valuable. Women found other things to do, things that paid money.

“They are rather volatile than otherwise, but in general have very good natural capacities. If they have any genius, it is not cramped in their infancy by being overawed by their parents. There is very little subordination observed in their youth. Implicit obedience to old age is not among their qualifications. Their persons are in general tall and genteel, particularly the women, they are remarkably well shaped. I think I have not seen three crooked women in the country. Few, or none of them wear stays in the summer and there are but few that wear them constantly in the winter, which may be a principal reason why they have such good shapes. But to counterbalance this great perfection they have very bad teeth. Very few of them have a good mouth at twenty-five. It is said that eating so much hot bread (for they in general bake every meal) and fruit, is the reason why their teeth decay so early. They are good natured, familiar, and agreeable upon the whole, but confoundedly indolent. The men are universal Mechanics, Carpenters, Sadlers and Coopers, but very indifferent Husbandmen. Though the inhabitants of this Country are composed of different Nations and different languages, yet it is very remarkable that they in general speak better English than the English do. No County or Colonial dialect is to be distinguished here, except it be the New Englanders, who have a sort of whining cadence that I cannot describe.

The great population of this country is amazing. The emigration from Europe, added to the natural population, is supposed to double their numbers every twenty years, some will say, every sixteen years. It is certain that they increase much faster than they do in England, indeed they marry much sooner. Perhaps one reason may be, in England they cannot maintain a family with so much ease as they do in America which I believe deters many from marrying very early in life. None in England, but those who have not the fear of want and poverty before their eyes, will marry till they have a sufficiency to maintain and provide for a family. But here there are no fears of that sort and with the least spark of industry, they may support a family of small children. When they grow to manhood, they can provide for themselves. That great curiosity, an Old Maid, is seldom seen in this country. They generally marry before they are twenty-two, often before they are sixteen.

In short, this was a paradise on Earth for women, the epicure’s Elysium and the very centre of freedom and hospitality. But in the short space of three years, it has become the theatre of War, the Country of distraction, and the seat of slavery, confusion, and lawless oppression. May the Almighty of his infinite goodness and mercy, reunite and reestablish them on their former happy and flourishing situation. I am almost tired with scribbling, but these hints may be of service if ever I correct my Journal.”

“Saturday, July 19th, 1777.” The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777, edited by Samuel Thornely, Dial Press, 1924.

But that didn’t make the United States truly unusual. Britain, and the rest of Eurasia, wasn’t much different, except for being far more urban. That pattern had held for millennia. For example, in seventeenth-century England, Shakespeare could read, but neither of his daughters could. The pattern wasn’t uniform, though. Small newly rich places could be different. For instance, in fourteenth-century Florence, Dante pined for the good old days—back before rich Florentine women grew so uppity. (Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, Canto XV.) “Gender and Civic Authority: Sexual Control in a Medieval Italian Town,” C. Lansing, Journal of Social History, 31(1):33-59, 1997, page 42.

The resemblance between all of our agrarian groups until the coming of industrialization doesn’t mean that all such groups were exactly the same. For example, here is de Tocqueville comparing France to the United States: “In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the two sexes, and to make them keep pace one with the other, but in two pathways which are always different. American women never manage the outward concerns of the family, or conduct a business, or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand, ever compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields, or to make any of those laborious exertions which demand the exertion of physical strength. No families are so poor as to form an exception to this rule. If on the one hand an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic employments, on the other hand she is never forced to go beyond it. Hence it is that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy of personal appearance and always retain the manners of women although they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of men.” Democracy in America: Part the Second; the Social Influence of Democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve, J. & H. G. Langley, 1840, page 225.

Mostly though, wherever the plow had touched down women had fallen over, supine and silent. Thus, nineteenth-century women in Britain were, by law, inferior to men. Married women didn’t even exist, legally. They were home-bound, unable to vote, barely allowed to trade. They also had to be widows before they could control their own property. Outside of brothels and nunneries, half of us in 1830, in the United States, Britain, and nearly everywhere else, were wards of the other half, not counting slaves and natives.

One of [my servants] was a pretty girl, whose natural disposition must have been gentle and kind; but her good feelings were soured, and her gentleness turned to morbid sensitiveness, by having heard a thousand and a thousand times that she was as good as any other lady, that all men were equal, and women too, and that it was a sin and a shame for a free-born American to be treated like a servant.”

Domestic Manners of the Americans, Mrs. Trollope, Whittaker, Treacher & Co., 1832, pages 61-62.

Later on (page 74) she mentioned women and religion in the United States. “The influence which the ministers of all the innumerable religious sects throughout America, have on the females of their respective congregations, approaches very nearly to what we read of in Spain, or in other strictly Roman Catholic countries. There are many causes for this peculiar influence. Where equality of rank is affectedly acknowledged by the rich, and clamourously claimed by the poor, distinction and preeminence are allowed to the clergy only. This gives them high importance in the eyes of the ladies. I think, also, that it is from the clergy only that the women of America receive that sort of attention which is so dearly valued by every female heart throughout the world. With the priests of America, the women hold that degree of influential importance which, in the countries of Europe, is allowed them throughout all orders and ranks of society, except, perhaps, the very lowest; and in return for this they seem to give their hearts and souls into their keeping. I never saw, or read, of any country where religion had so strong a hold upon the women, or a slighter hold upon the men.”

There is much more of this, including descriptions of ‘Revivals’ as a form of theater.

Morse was hardly the last holdout against change. For example, here is Emerson in 1847: “Things are in the saddle, / and ride mankind.” (However, although this has been taken by many humanists along with his line: “law for man and law for thing” as including him in the Luddite camp, others disagree and see it as much more historically specific.) Aside from the whole Luddite movement, much of which might be taken as working-class reaction, there were strong reactions within the religious, literary, and even patrician classes (for example, Lord Byron). One writer in particular is worth quoting here, and that is the fulminator (over many issues, not just this one), Thomas Carlyle. Here he is, writing in 1829, on the evils of mechanization, in terms quite similar to Karl Marx’s writings in 1844:

“Were we required to characterise this age of ours by any single epithet, we should be tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of Machinery, in every outward and inward sense of that word; the age which, with its whole undivided might, forwards, teaches and practises the great art of adapting means to ends. Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all is by rule and calculated contrivance. For the simplest operation, some helps and accompaniments, some cunning abbreviating process is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion are all discredited, and thrown aside. On every hand, the living artisan is driven from his workshop, to make room for a speedier, inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that ply it faster. The sailor furls his sail, and lays down his oar; and bids a strong, unwearied servant, on vaporous wings, bear him through the waters. Men have crossed oceans by steam; the Birmingham Fire-king has visited the fabulous East; and the genius of the Cape were there any Camoens now to sing it, has again been alarmed, and with far stranger thunders than Gamas. There is no end to machinery. Even the horse is stripped of his harness, and finds a fleet fire-horse invoked in his stead. Nay, we have an artist that hatches chickens by steam; the very brood-hen is to be superseded! For all earthly, and for some unearthly purposes, we have machines and mechanic furtherances; for mincing our cabbages; for casting us into magnetic sleep. We remove mountains, and make seas our smooth highways; nothing can resist us. We war with rude Nature; and, by our resistless engines, come off always victorious, and loaded with spoils.”

The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle, Volume Three, Chapman and Hall, 1858, pages 100-101. See also: Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite Tradition in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives, Nicols Fox, Island Press, 2002, especially Chapter 4. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, Leo Marx, Oxford University Press, 1964, especially Chapter 4. “Emerson’s ‘Ode Inscribed to W. H. Channing,’ ” G. Arms, College English, 22(6):407-409, 1961.

For instance, Singer, like many boys in his time, left home at 13. He kept moving for the next 26 years. Like him, most white men were on the move, and women followed their men. The new nation was ballooning west, into an expanding native-free vacuum. But that in itself wasn’t new. The same slaughter was happening at about the same time for about the same reasons in Russia, Australia, and South America. Foragers were dying everywhere as our new transport tools carried the gun and the plow to every land.

For example, in the 1800s the, then small, Russian state expanded east much as the, then small, United States expanded west. Russian expansion into the Balkans was partly checked by the British and French in the Crimean War in 1854, but it continued expanding from 1856 on into the steppes of Central Asia, eventually stretching all the way to the Pacific. Although it was more conquest than outright replacement, it still led to many of the usual genocides against nomadic, or even settled, peoples, just as western expansion did in the United States starting a little earlier. Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe, Willard Sunderland, Cornell University Press, 2004.

“Home and the Sewing Machine,” The National Magazine, Volume 12, 1858, pages 539-544.

No one invention has brought with it so great a relief for our mothers and daughters as these iron needle-women. Indeed, it is the only invention that can be claimed chiefly for woman’s benefit. The inventive genius of man, ever alert to furnish the world with machinery for saving labor and cheapening the cost of manufactures, seemed to regard man as the only laborer, prior to the invention of the sewing machine....

[E]verywhere that the busy needle is plied, these tireless workers have found their way, carrying relief for woman’s trembling hands and weary eyes. The swift-flying needle—this best boon to woman in the nineteenth century—has already won many victories, and soon the song of the shirt will be heard only in tradition of sufferings passed away.”

“The Story of the Sewing-Machine,” New York Times, January 7th, 1860.

In 1860, an estimated 12,106 people lived in Bridgeport. Population of the 100 largest cities and other urban places in the United States: 1790 to 1990, Population Division Working Paper Number 27, United States Bureau of the Census, 1998.

Incidentally, Bishop also lists manufactory occupations, with a breakdown by male and female, for many towns, notably Hartford, where Samuel Colt had his gun manufactory. Hartford had a much larger spread of female occupations (but then, it was a much larger town than Bridgeport), however, the top three female occupations were still clothing of one kind or another. The largest group was 595 women in clothing. Then 512 women in ‘silk, sewing.’ Then 409 in hosiery. Then 302 in paper. Philadelphia was much larger still, and so had an even wider spread of industries.

Anomalies of the Sewing machine

In an editorial in a recent issue of the Scientific American, under the above title, the following paragraphs appeared, to which we have received a reply from a lady subscriber from Michigan.

“A psychological fact, possibly new, which has come to light in this sewing machine business is that a woman will rather pay $50 for a machine in monthly installments of five dollars than $25 outright, although able to do so.

“The curious processes of reasoning by which the feminine mind is led to regard the lapse of time as a cheapener and a hundred per cent interest as of no consequence, have not yet, we believe, been discovered.”

Our correspondent replies: “She does it from policy, for if she says, ’Husband, I wish $25 to buy a sewing machine with.’ she expects a shrug of the shoulders, and is unable to obtain the money; but if she says, ’I can buy a sewing machine, and pay for it in monthly installments, only $5 each month,’ perhaps she can get the coveted machine. A psychological fact, but is it masculine or feminine?”

See also: Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit, Lendol Calder, Princeton University Press, 1999, page 164.

“Sitting Bull, most renowned Sioux of modern history, is dead. He was not a Chief, but without Kingly lineage he arose from a lowly position to the greatest Medicine Man of his time, by virtue of his shrewdness and daring.

He was an Indian with a white man’s spirit of hatred and revenge for those who had wronged him and his. In his day he saw his son and his tribe gradually driven from their possessions: forced to give up their old hunting grounds and espouse the hard working and uncongenial avocations of the whites. And these, his conquerors, were marked in their dealings with his people by selfishness, falsehood and treachery. What wonder that his wild nature, untamed by years of subjection, should still revolt? What wonder that a fiery rage still burned within his breast and that he should seek every opportunity of obtaining vengeance upon his natural enemies.

The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in later ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroism.

We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America.”

Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, December 20th, 1890.

“The peculiar policy of the government in employing so weak and vacillating a person as General Miles to look after the uneasy Indians, has resulted in a terrible loss of blood to our soldiers, and a battle which, at its best, is a disgrace to the war department. There has been plenty of time for prompt and decisive measures, the employment of which would have prevented this disaster.

The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.

An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that ‘when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre.’ ”

Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, January 3rd, 1891.

See also: Women and Work in Britain since 1840, Gerry Holloway, Routledge, 2005. “Jobs for the Girls: The Expansion of Clerical Work for Women, 1850‑1914,” M. Zimmeck, in Unequal Opportunities: Women’s Employment in England, 1800-1918, Angela V. John (editor), Blackwell, 1986, pages 152-177. “ ‘To Barter Their Souls For Gold:’ Female Clerks in Federal Government Offices, 1862-1890,” C. S. Aron, Journal of American History, 67:835‑53, 1980‑1981. History of American Technology, John W. Oliver, Ronald Press, 1956, pages 440-442. The Natural History of a Social Institution: The Young Women’s Christian Association, Mary S. Sims, The Women’s Press, 1936, pages 84-85. Shorthand Instruction and Practice, Julius Ensing Rockwell, Bureau of Education, Circular of Information No. 1, 1893, Whole number 192, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1893.

In 1891, F. Henrietta Müller (whose penname was ‘Helena B. Temple’) commented that, “One of the things which always humiliated me very much was the way in which women’s interests and opinions were systematically excluded from the World’s Press. I was mortified too, that our cause should be represented by a little monthly leaflet, not worthy of the name of a newspaper called the Women’s Suffrage Journal. I realised of what vital importance it was that women should have a newspaper of their own through which to voice their thoughts, and I formed the daring resolve that if no one else better fitted for the work would come forward, I would try and do it myself.” From: “Interview,” Woman’s Herald 4(161):915-916, 1891. (November 28th, 1891, 915-916.) Quoted in: Feminist Periodicals, 1855-1984: An Annotated Critical Bibliography of British, Irish, Commonwealth and International Titles, David Doughan and Denise Sanchez (editors), New York University Press, 1987, pages 3-4.

Despite all the agitation since at least 1792, it wasn’t until 1918 that 1918 that all adult men, and all women over 30, could vote in Britain. It wasn’t until 1920 that all adult women could vote in the United States. It wasn’t until 1928 that all adult women could vote in Britain.

“This problem of education, started in 1838, went on for three years, while the baby grew, like other babies, unconsciously, as a vegetable, the outside world working as it never had worked before, to get his new universe ready for him. Often in old age he puzzled over the question whether, on the doctrine of chances, he was at liberty to accept himself or his world as an accident. No such accident had ever happened before in human experience. For him, alone, the old universe was thrown into the ash-heap and a new one created. He and his eighteenth-century, troglodytic Boston were suddenly cut apart—separated forever—in act if not in sentiment, by the opening of the Boston and Albany Railroad; the appearance of the first Cunard steamers in the bay; and the telegraphic messages which carried from Baltimore to Washington the news that Henry Clay and James K. Polk were nominated for the Presidency. This was in May, 1844; he was six years old; his new world was ready for use, and only fragments of the old met his eyes.”

The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography, Henry Adams, Houghton Mifflin, 1918, page 5.

Here’s Zola on the issue a year before:

“— Alors, l’émancipation de la femme par la bicyclette.

— Mon Dieu! pourquoi pas?... Cela semble drôle, et pourtant voyez quel chemin parcouru déjà: la culotte qui délivre les jambes, les sorties en commun qui mêlent et égalisent les sexes, la femme et les enfants qui suivent le mari partout, les camarades comme nous deux qui peuvent s’en aller à travers champs, à travers bois, sans qu’on s’en étonne.”

[“So women are to be emancipated by cycling?

‘Well, why not? It may seem a droll idea; but see what progress has been made already! By wearing rationals women free their limbs from prison; then the facilities which cycling affords people for going out together tend to greater intercourse and equality between the sexes; the wife and the children can follow the husband everywhere, and friends like ourselves are at liberty to roam hither and thither without astonishing anybody.”]

Paris, A Novel, Émile Zola, translated by Ernest Alfred Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus, 1899, pages 335-336.

See also: “Liberating Technologies? Of Bicycles, Balance and the ’New Woman’ in the 1890s,” A.-K. Ebert, Icon, 16(Special Issue: Technology in Everyday Life):25-52, 2010.

See also: Bit by Bit, Stan Augarten, Ticknor and Fields, 1984, pages 37-39. It describes the Arithmometer, the first commercial adding machine (it also subtracted, multiplied and divided) in 1851, which was based on Leibniz’s Stepped Reckoner, which goes back to 1631, but which was never fully developed. There’s also Pascal’s Pascaline, which was built in 1644 but pitched to aristocrats, it never sold well (“bookkeeping was for servants”).

“Von Neumann Thought Turing’s Universal Machine was ’Simple and Neat.’: But That Didn’t Tell Him How to Design a Computer,” T. Haigh, M. Priestley, Communications of the ACM, 63(1):26-32, 2020. ENIAC In Action: Making and Remaking the Modern Computer, Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley, and Crispin Rope, The MIT Press, 2016. The Computer—My Life, Konrad Zuse, translated by Patricia McKenna and J. Andrew Ross, Springer-Verlag, 1993. Atanasoff: Forgotten Father of the Computer, Clark R. Mollenhoff, Iowa State University Press, 1988. Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges, Simon and Schuster, 1983.

For a general reader’s book that tries to trace all the strands, see also: The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer, Jane Smiley, Doubleday, 2010.

The first billion was reached in 2005. The second billion in 2010. The third billion in 2014. The fourth billion by 2018. Then growth rate slowed. The second half of the world will take longer to get online.

Data collated from the United Nations International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, the World Bank, and the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Nowadays, faster and longer-range matter- and data-flow (transport and communication) can mean larger markets, longer supply-chains, and thus more money, and more competition. That can splinter having an idea from testing it, finding the money to build it, distributing and accounting for the money to build it, organizing the people and tools needed to build it, building it, legally defending it, regulating it, managing it, owning it, profiting from it, and controlling it. Large companies can now support many roles: scientist, engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, investor, banker, lawyer, shareholder, board member, director, manager, accountant, designer, contractor, marketer, regulator, consultant. The people playing such roles might be distinct when building something large or complicated. Similar splintering can happen with large growing or servicing concerns, too, whether they be corporate farms or investment banks or major hospitals.

However, even in multinationals, while most such people may no longer be kin, or close friends, to be hired into the company they, often, still have to be ‘near’ each other, if not in location, then in language, origin, friendship circle, or at least, perceived education. Part of the reason for the persistence of such ties may be because they help guarantee performance, but also that they enhance trust and reduce the chance of betrayal, malfeasance, or non-compliance. Companies survive only if they cohere long enough to profit from internal cooperation.

But if a ‘mental railroad’ comes to exist, some of those geographic, linguistic, credit, and legal barriers to company creation, cohesion, and maintenance might erode. The barriers may no longer be quite so vital to enhancing or enforcing trust. It may no longer matter so much where someone lives, what language they speak, where they’re from, or perhaps even that some particular person in the company knew them before joining. Perhaps only skills, personalities, or predilections may matter. (Of course, government agencies, militaries, and defense and aerospace contractors, won’t ever adopt this model. Trust there is paramount; it’s not inter-company, it’s inter-government; and it’s not money but lives at stake.)

If so, no matter how small the company, or how esoteric its product or service, its roles might start splintering as some company tasks spin off into world-spanning contracts. If that happens, more people around the world might compete for such a contract, then perhaps farm out some of it, which other contractors might compete for, then they might farm out some of that to yet other contractors, and so on. Many such contractors might live anywhere, speak any language, and be any age, any gender, any sexual orientation. If so, only contracts might then bind such a company together.

Just as when the railroad started linking mines, factories, cities, ports, and such, there will surely be all sorts of barriers—particularly those surrounding individual, corporate, and national (maybe even regional) espionage, sabotage, and rivalry. So, probably, this will be largely a legal, political, and geopolitical issue, not so much a technical one. But if such global contracts do become viable, then after a while, all that may be left of any such company may be the network that glues producers—whether on farms, in factories, or in offices—to consumers.

Further, some of those producers, and even some of their consumers, may become robots—more and more of which may be any size, from whole city blocks down to gnats, so that some ‘services’ or even ‘factories’ (maybe eventually even some ‘farms’ too?) might even fit on rooftops or in bedroom closets. Why not? Establishing, branding, growing, and marketing such networks across national boundaries would then become such a company’s main business, regardless of what it grows, makes, or serves—or to whom, or what, it serves that to. Increasingly, company reputation may become everything it is to its clients. ‘Can you deliver the thing (food, fuel, part, service), in time and in budget, as promised?’ After a while, that may be all that defines the company.

If such companies were (legally) allowed to come to exist, and if they were rewarded, they could grow in number, variety, and size. As they compete, they could skeletonize as other companies arise to aid them. For instance, writing, insuring, and enforcing distributed contracts so that they could work in varied legal domains might grow so useful that it alone might become a new kind of company’s business. Identifying, targeting, and tracking suitable talent might become another kind of company’s business. Designing sets of contracts so that they mesh well, or are standardized, or are accredited, might become yet another kind of company’s business, and so on. Then, such helper companies could themselves skeletonize. The result could be a bouquet of skeletonized global companies, driving down global wages but driving up global variety.

Another such kind of helper company might arise to solve problems for other such companies—or for any company at all—or for no company at all, for some of them might even do some things just for the sheer joy of trying to see if they could do it. Science and math seem like prime candidates for that and pioneer volunteer groups in those areas already exist. In any such group, no one need necessarily be superfast or supersmart, but with the right tools and links to others, the group might well be—if not compared to other such groups, certainly compared to a lone person, or any number of lone people. That group might have an edge in terms of facility, creativity, curiosity, or tenacity.

Were such groups to become routine, a new term might enter the languages: ‘metaconcert.’ It might denote how people behave when they mass together to solve human problems, for there would then be a new kind of power grid—a mental one—because cleverness would then be on tap, like water or electricity. Depending on demand, perhaps half the planet might be in constant touch, and, enhanced with ever cheaper thinking aids, might attack problems—at least technical ones in science, engineering, medicine, math, finance, and business—in ever larger metaconcerts across planetary distances.

If the sheltering effects of location, language, origin, and prior friendship do indeed decline, any profit-motivated skeletonized groups that survive would have to become more nimble. With fewer tethers to physical existence, many such groups may then have the lifespans of mayflies—winking into and out of existence. Change would then be not merely constant, but torrential. As with steam engine dispersal two centuries ago, new centers of ‘mental industry’ would then spring up wherever they’re best suited to grow. Mental production would then explode, just as physical production once did when rails synergetically linked coal and iron and factories, making for a fifth wave of industrial phase change, possibly more like a tsunami than a wave.

Such tasks far exceed our tools and skills. We’re still our own mental carthorses. We don’t yet have mental steam engines.

Research toward what might eventually become such a thing is proceeding along several lines (although no responsible researcher says that the ultimate result might be a ‘global brain,’ or at least, nobody says so publicly). The problem is how to coordinate action by massive numbers of mobile, computational agents, each with limited knowledge, as they interact to solve various problems in a massive, distributed, global computer network. The chief areas of research are: ubiquitous computing (also called ubicomp), pervasive computing (sometimes called ambient intelligence), mobile agents, massively parallel computation, and grid computing. Security for Ubiquitous Computing, Frank Stajano, John Wiley & Sons, 2002. Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems, E. Bonabeau, M. Dorigo, G. Theraulaz, F. Kluegl, Oxford University Press, 1999. The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure, Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman (editors), Morgan Kaufmann, 1998. Software Agents, James E. White (editor), AAAI Press/MIT Press, 1997. The Ecology of Computation, B. A. Hubermann (editor), North-Holland, 1988.

“Opening of the Northern Railroad to Lebanon, N.H.,” Daniel Webster, Wednesday 17th Novemember, 1847, The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, pages 116-117.

There are two main characteristics of the House of Commons which will command the approval and the support of reflective and experienced Members. They will, I have no doubt, sound odd to foreign ears. The first is that its shape should be oblong and not semi-circular. Here is a very potent factor in our political life. The semi-circular assembly, which appeals to political theorists, enables every individual or every group to move round the centre, adopting various shades of pink according as the weather changes. I am a convinced supporter of the party system in preference to the group system. I have seen many earnest and ardent Parliaments destroyed by the group system. The party system is much favoured by the oblong form of Chamber. It is easy for an individual to move through those insensible gradations from Left to Right but the act of crossing the Floor is one which requires serious consideration. I am well informed on this matter, for I have accomplished that difficult process, not only once but twice. Logic is a poor guide compared with custom. Logic which has created in so many countries semi-circular assemblies which have buildings which give to every Member, not only a seat to sit in but often a desk to write at, with a lid to bang, has proved fatal to Parliamentary Government as we know it here in its home and in the land of its birth.

The second characteristic of a Chamber formed on the lines of the House of Commons is that it should not be big enough to contain all its Members at once without over-crowding and that there should be no question of every Member having a separate seat reserved for him. The reason for this has long been a puzzle to uninstructed outsiders and has frequently excited the curiosity and even the criticism of new Members. Yet it is not so difficult to understand if you look at it from a practical point of view. If the House is big enough to contain all its Members, nine-tenths of its Debates will be conducted in the depressing atmosphere of an almost empty or half-empty Chamber. The essence of good House of Commons speaking is the conversational style, the facility for quick, informal interruptions and interchanges. Harangues from a rostrum would be a bad substitute for the conversational style in which so much of our business is done. But the conversational style requires a fairly small space, and there should be on great occasions a sense of crowd and urgency. There should be a sense of the importance of much that is said and a sense that great matters are being decided, there and then, by the House.”

Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963, Volume VII: 1943-1949, Robert Rhodes James (editor), Chelsea House Publishers, 1974, pages 6869-6871. See also: The Second World War, Volume V: Closing the Ring, Winston S. Churchill, Houghton Mifflin, 1951, pages 149-151.

Marshall McLuhan may have been rephrasing Churchill’s observation that “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us” when he said “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” in The Medium is the Massage. Note that the quote isn’t from his book of that name but from his album, The Medium is the Massage, which appeared the same year (1967). He has a child speak it on Side 2.

As for penal slavery, “It is truly extraordinary that European scholars have either neglected this whole aspect of the subject or defined it as something other than slavery when they recognized it.” Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Orlando Patterson, Harvard University Press, 1982, pages 44-45.

The term was in use in Europe (at least in Italy and France, perhaps England) by at least 1731. “[...] ils n’ont point d’abord recours au Canon, qu’ils ont eux mêmes nommé ultima ratio Regum, la raison à laquelle on a recours quand toutes les autres sont inutiles.” [First they did not resort to Cannon, they have even called them ultima ratio Regum, the reason that’s used when all others are useless.] From: “Reflexions sur les Nouvelles d’Italie,” in: Lettre historique (et politique), Contenant l’état présent de l’Europe, ce qui se passe dans toutes les Cours, l’interêt des Princes, leurs brigues, & généralement tout ce qu’il y a de curieux pour le Mois de Janvier 1731, Henri Basnage de Beauval, Jacques Bernard, and Jean baron de Carlscroon Du-Mont, Herman Uytwerf, 1731, pages 267-272.

Another popular one was Pluribus nec impar [A match for many].

My father has spent many hundreds a year to get the best mode, and most accurate, of making the blocks, and he certainly succeeded; and so much so, that I have no hope of anything ever better being discovered, and I am convinced there cannot.”

However, Southamptom’s rejection may have turned to dejection once Brunel built his factory, for:

“where FIFTY MEN were necessary to complete the shells of blocks previous to the erection of Brunel’s machinery, FOUR MEN only are now required; and that, to prepare the sheaves, SIX MEN can now do the work which formerly demanded the labours of SIXTY.

So that TEN MEN, by the aid of this machinery, can accomplish with uniformity, celerity, and ease, what formerly required the uncertain labour of ONE HUNDRED AND TEN.”

Memoir of the life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel: Civil Engineer, Vice-President of the Royal Society, corresponding member of the Institute of France, etc., Richard Beamish, Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, Second Edition, 1862, pages 50-51 and pages 97-98.

Brunel got as far as he did, despite many failures, largely because his wife’s brother was senior in the British Navy. He provided introductions.

Brunel then worked with Samuel Bentham, who was himself very inventive. Brother of Jeremy Bentham (the political radical and philosopher), Samuel was inspector general of the British Navy. They then hired Henry Maudslay to build the machines they would need. Maudslay was one of Britain’s rising stars in precision tools. His machines for Brunel’s block-making manufactory at the Portsmouth yards were so well made that they were still in use in 1944, 141 years later. Blocks for the landing boats at Normandy on D-Day were made there. At the same Portsmouth yards, Bentham had a steam engine in use to drain the docks as early as 1799, and, by 1802, another to run mechanical saws.

The block factory paid for itself in just four years. But it suffered after the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815 and demand dried up. By 1821 Brunel was in jail for debt. The government let him, and his family, languish there until he started corresponding with the Tsar of Russia, who was interested in hiring him away. Then the government paid off his debts with the understanding that he’d remain in Britain. He then went on to invent several more machines and initiate many more building projects. His son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, did the same.

The Greater Genius? Harold Bagust, Ian Allan Publishing, 2006. Brunel: The Man Who Made the World, Steven Brindle, Sterling Publishing Company, 2005, page 37. The Portsmouth Block Mills: Bentham, Brunel and the start of the Royal Navy’s Industrial Revolution, Jonathan Coad, English Heritage, 2005. Henry Maudslay & the Pioneers of the Machine Age, John Cantrell and Gillian Cookson (editors), Tempus Publishing, 2002. “The Portsmouth System of Manufacture,” C. C. Cooper, Technology and Culture, 25(2):182-225, 1984. English and American Tool Builders, Joseph Wickham Roe, Yale University Press, 1916.

Jefferson mentions the event toward the end of his letter to John Jay on August 30th as follows: “An improvement is made here in the construction of muskets, which it may be interesting to Congress to know, should they at any time propose to procure any. It consists in the making every part of them so exactly alike, that what belongs to any one, may be used for every other musket in the magazine. The government here has examined and approved the method, and is establishing a large manufactory for the purpose of putting it into execution. As yet, the inventor has only completed the lock of the musket, on this plan. He will proceed immediately to have the barrel, stock, and other parts, executed in the same way. Supposing it might be useful in the United States, I went to the workman. He presented me the parts of fifty locks taken to pieces, and arranged in compartments. I put several together myself, taking pieces at hazard as they came to hand, and they fitted in the most perfect manner. The advantages of this, when arms need repair, are evident. He effects it by tools of his own contrivance, which, at the same time, abridge the work, so that he thinks he shall be able to furnish the musket two livres cheaper than the common price. But it will be two or three years before he will be able to furnish any quantity. I mention it now, as it may have influence on the plan for furnishing our magazines with this arm.” The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private: Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State, Volume 1, Thomas Jefferson, Taylor & Maury, 1853, pages 411-412.

Another important catalyst was Major Louis de Tousard, who kept pushing the idea in the United States (after leaving France in 1793 after the Revolution), particularly by writing a proposition that partly led to the establishment of West Point in 1802. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, David A. Hounshell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, pages 26-27.

First verse: “Allons enfants de la Patrie, (Arise, children of the Fatherland) / Le jour de gloire est arrivé! (The day of glory has arrived!) / Contre nous de la tyrannie, (Against us tyranny’s) / L’étendard sanglant est levé (repeat) (Bloody banner is raised) / Entendez-vous dans les campagnes (Do you hear, in the fields) / Mugir ces féroces soldats? (The roar of those ferocious soldiers?) Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras (They’re coming right into your midst) / Éorger vos fils, vos compagnes! (To cut the throats of your sons, your women!)”

Chorus: “Aux armes, citoyens, (To arms, citizens) / Formez vos bataillons, (Form your battalions) / Marchons, marchons, (Let’s march, let’s march) / Qu’un sang impur (Let an impure blood) / Abreuve nos sillons (repeat) (Water our furrows)”

It was also in the First Barbary war from 1801-1805 (against Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco). Before, its ships had been protected by Britain’s navy, then by France’s navy (from 1778-1783), and for a while it simply paid tribute. That began to break down and conflict started in 1801, when Jefferson became president. That was the second time that United States troops were used abroad, and was also undeclared (by the United States, although it was ‘declared’ by Tripoli by chopping down the consulate’s flagpole, the custom at the time). At the time, the United States navy had just started and consisted of just six ships. The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World, Frank Lambert, Hill and Wang, 2005.

“An act to encourage the importation of pig and bar iron from his Majesty’s colonies in America; and to prevent the erection of any mill, or other engine, for slitting or rolling of iron; or any plateing forge to work with a tilt hammer; or any furnace for making steel in any of the said colonies.”

There were many limitations, not just of technology, but also of people skilled in the technology, particular textile artisans. Britain wanted to encourage its own industry, by gaining the right raw materials from the colonies, yet discourage industrial competition from the colonies. In return, the United States, after independence in 1789, would offer bounties for the skilled, who would disguise themselves and their tools to slip through the export bans. It would also enact the first Tariff Act, which imposed some of the highest rates on slit and rolled iron, castings, mails, spikes and wool cards (the wire brushes used for carding wool). The idea was to stimulate home-grown production. A Social History of American Technology, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Oxford University Press, 1997. “An Industry Evolves: Lathes to Computers,” J. J. Benes, American Machinist, August 1996. Connections, James Burke, Macmillan, 1978, page 148. English and American Tool Builders, Joseph Wickham Roe, Yale University Press, 1916, page 111.

The machine was built for the Schuyler copper mines (now near Belleville, New Jersey). Benjamin Franklin mentioned a visit to the mine in a letter he wrote on February 13th, 1750: “I know of but one valuable copper mine in this country, which is that of Schuyler’s in the Jerseys. This yields good copper, and has turned out vast wealth to the owners. I was at it last fall, but they were not then at work. The water has grown too hard for them, and they waited for a fire-engine from England to drain their pits. I suppose they will have that at work next summer; it costs them one thousand pounds sterling.” The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Volume III, 1750-1759, Albert Henry Smyth (editor), Macmillan, 1905, page 1.

The machine was smuggled in by Josiah Hornblower, of Cornwall, who brought all the parts for a Newcomen engine, which he, his brother, and their father had built by hand. He also brought many spare parts because he knew that he could not rely on the crude colonial machinists to make new ones. By 1755, the machine was in operation, pumping out the deepest mine shaft—the first time steam power was used anywhere in the colony. Five years later the machine was down for repairs, with a new brass cylinder having to be sent for all the way from London. Then, in 1761, Josiah and a partner leased the mine from its owner, John Schuyler. The next year there was a fire. By 1767 the mine was idle as wars plagued the area. Another fire in 1773 closed the mine. By 1794 Nicholas Roosevelt, who, in partnership with Arent Schuyler, John’s son, had leased the mine, repaired the steam engine, then went bankrupt. The exhausted mine went on to bankrupt many partnerships for the next 50 years. However, by 1838 the new United States had over 5,000 steam engines. By then the new country had begun to turn the corner of industrialization. Josiah Hornblower and the First Steam Engine, With Some Notices of the Schuyler Copper Mines at Second River, N. J., and a Genealogy of the Hornblower Family, William Nelson, Daily Advertiser Printing House, 1883.

But so what? Relative to Europe in 1800, lots of countries were backwaters—Papua New Guinea, for instance. The new country wasn’t merely hicksville; there, any labor—skilled or unskilled—was undependable. It was expanding quickly. And as it expanded, and killed off more and more of its native hunter-gatherers, land was cheap and plentiful. So holding on to labor was hard. Anyone with a grubstake could head west and homestead. Europe, though, aside from Russia (which was expanding east much as the United States was expanding west, but which had its own problems), had killed off its native hunter-gatherers seven millennia before. So it had no new land to steal—at least, not in Europe—and it had large, stagnant pools of skilled labor. Thus, in Europe, only military emergency was enough to overcome its labor inertia—and then, only while the emergency lasted. For the infant country, though, it was all one long emergency. (Perhaps the same forces would apply were we to ever colonize another planet.)

Being land-rich and labor-poor mattered a lot, but if that were all, then Russia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, or Uruguay might have developed mass production first. They, too, were rapidly crowding out earlier farmers, herders, foragers, or nomads at about the same time. But they weren’t mavericks living under threat of imminent dissolution. In the United States, making guns of swappable parts was central to survival, then expansion. Just as with the first bloom of the steam engine in Britain as opposed to anywhere else, various accidents of geography and history came together to make the United States peculiarly suited to adopting the new steam power and the new precision tools quickly. But the main reason it could adopt those new tools at all was that there were new tools to adopt.

For instance, in 1810 the United States had no working steam engines, almost a century after Britain’s first ones. By 1838, it had over 5,000. So the United States did what Britain and France couldn’t, but were it not for France and Britain it might well have been just as stuck in our age-old production tarpit as they were.

The idea that labor shortage encouraged machines in the United States is hardly new. It seems to have first been articulated as part of previous scholarship, and then questioned, in: American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Labour Saving Inventions, H. J. Habakkuk, Cambridge University Press, 1962. See, for example: The Emergence of Industrial America: Strategic Factors in American Economic Growth Since 1870, Peter George, SUNY Press, 1982, pages 37-47. See also: Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe, Willard Sunderland, Cornell University Press, 2004.

“Lee’s appointment as superintendent of the Springfield Armory in 1815 followed an important change within the War Department. James Monroe, then secretary of war, pushed through Congress legislation that gave control of the Springfield and Harpers Ferry armories to the Ordnance Department, thus removing them from the immediate supervision of the secretary of war. An army bureau, the Ordnance Department had been created in 1812 to inspect and distribute military stores. Colonel Decius Wadsworth, who had worked with Louis Tousard in the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, was the first chief of ordnance. To assist him, Wadsworth recruited a group of West Point junior officers. When the department gained jurisdiction over the armories in February 1815, these West Pointers moved immediately toward the institution of an American version of ‘le système Gribeauval,’ which Tousard had championed in his American Artillerist’s Companion. From their experience in the War of 1812, when a vast number of arms had been damaged beyond repair in the field but could have been fixed had parts simply interchanged, the ordnance officers believed that uniform parts manufacture (proven technically possible by Blanc, North, and possibly others) would be worth almost any price. Lieutenant George Bomford, Wadsworth’s chief assistant and his successor (1821-42), proved to be instrumental in the department’s efforts to achieve uniformity.” From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, David A. Hounshell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, page 33. See also: Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change, Merritt Roe Smith, Cornell University Press, 1977, page 104-107.

Just as with the steam engine in Britain, swappable parts took a long time to develop in the United States. It depended on decades of cross-pollinating work of the two men most in charge of ordnance: Decius Wadsworth and then George Bomford, and also Roswell Lee; and those who made it happen, some from gun develpment and some from textile development: John Hancock Hall, John H. King, Philip Burkart, Daniel Young, Jerome Young, Armistead M. Ball, James Henry Burton, Christian Sharps; Samuel Slater, Horatio Nelson Slater and John Fox Slater, Amos Adams Lawrence, Simeon North, Sylvester Nash, Thomas Blanchard, Joseph Whitworth, Jean Laurent Palmer, S. E. Robbins, Richard S. Lawrence, Oliver Winchester, Samuel Colt, and others. Industrializing Antebellum America: The Rise of Manufacturing Entrepreneurs in the Early Republic, Barbara M. Tucker and Kenneth H. Tucker Jr., Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Ingenious Yankees: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures in the Private Sector, Donald R. Hoke, Columbia University Press, 1990. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, David A. Hounshell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. Samuel Slater and the Origins of the American Textile Industry, 1790-1860, Barbara M. Tucker, Cornell University Press, 1984. “Interchangeable Parts Reexamined—The Private Sector of the American Arms Industry on the Eve of the Civil War,” R. A. Howard, Technology and Culture, 19(4):633-649, 1978. “Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840-1910,” N. Rosenberg, The Journal of Economic History, 23(04):414-443, 1963.

One can stand for many: Simeon North. On November 7th, 1808, he wrote to the Secretary of the Navy: “To make my contract for pistols advantageous to the United States and to myself I must go to a great proportion of the expense before I deliver any pistols. I find that by confining a workman to one particular limb of the pistol untill he has made two thousand, I save at least one quarter of his labor, to what I should provided I finish^d them by small quantities; and the work will be as much better as it is quicker made.” Simeon North, First Official Pistol Maker of the United States: A Memoir, S. N. D. North and Ralph H. North, The Rumford Press, 1913, page 64.

In such ways did this group in the United States develop much the same basic production ideas as the group that James Watt and others fit into in Britain had to, since they had earlier had to do much the same sorts of things with what were initially largely unskilled hands.

That more or less the same thing happened in two different countries when trying to solve difficult industrial problems in two different domains is partly attributable to some cross-fertilization (from Britain and France to the United States) but is also attributable to network forces. By 1890, Alfred Marshall was to put our drive toward the formation of industrial reaction networks as follows:

“When an industry has thus chosen a locality for itself, it is likely to stay there long: so great are the advantages which people following the same skilled trade get from near neighbourhood to one another. The mysteries of the trade become no mysteries; but are as it were in the air, and children learn many of them unconsciously. Good work is rightly appreciated, inventions and improvements in machinery, in processes and the general organization of the business have their merits promptly discussed: if one man starts a new idea, it is taken up by others and combined with suggestions of their own; and thus it becomes the source of further new ideas. And presently subsidiary trades grow up in the neighbourhood, supplying it with implements and materials, organizing its traffic, and in many ways conducing to the economy of its material.

Again, the economic use of expensive machinery can sometimes be attained in a very high degree in a district in which there is a large aggregate production of the same kind, even though no individual capital employed in the trade be very large. For subsidiary industries devoting themselves each to one small branch of the process of production, and working it for a great many of their neighbours, are able to keep in constant use machinery of the most highly specialized character, and to make it pay its expenses, though its original cost may have been high, and its rate of depreciation very rapid.

Again, in all but the earliest stages of economic development a localized industry gains a great advantage from the fact that it offers a constant market for skill. Employers are apt to resort to any place where they are likely to find a good choice of workers with the special skill which they require; while men seeking employment naturally go to places where there are many employers who need such skill as theirs and where therefore it is likely to find a good market. The owner of an isolated factory, even if he has access to a plentiful supply of general labour, is often put to great shifts for want of some special skilled labour; and a skilled workman, when thrown out of employment in it, has no easy refuge. Social forces here co-operate with economic: there are often strong friendships between employers and employed: but neither side likes to feel that in case of any disagreeable incident happening between them, they must go on rubbing against one another: both sides like to be able easily to break off old associations should they become irksome. These difficulties are still a great obstacle to the success of any business in which special skill is needed, but which is not in the neighbourhood of others like it: they are however being diminished by the railway, the printing-press and the telegraph.” Principles of Economics: An Introductory Volume, Alfred Marshall, Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1890, pages 271-272.

By the 1851 Great Exhibition, knowledgable Britons would be writing this: “The Americans carry out the factory system, the well-planned division of labour, to a greater extent than we do. They have not more hands than are requisite to do the work which is to be done; and they have not before their minds that fear of strikes, and grumblings and discontent, which frequently deter inventors from introducing new machines in England. Among us, guns and pistols are handwork, made in pieces by artisans who use the hammer and file, and other hand-tools; but in the United States the art is regarded as a kind of engineering, in which steam-power and beautiful machines are employed.” Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, “What Is A Revolver?” Anonymous, Number 519, December 10th, 1853. (Robert Chambers is the likely author of this piece; he often wrote anonymously to fill his journal.)

Even after 1851, mass production still took more decades to evolve and spread. For instance, in 1852 Samuel Colt started a revolver factory in London to rival his first one Hartford, Connecticut. However, the workers he hired there repeatedly sabotaged it, so he fired them and imported trained staff from his hometown. By 1854 his London factory was open for business. As with Blanc’s, and Brunel’s, it was successful—for a while. Britain and France had just declared war on Russia in the Crimea and, as usual, all of us in Europe went gun-mad. By December 1856, though, Colt closed his London factory. The war had ended. British gunsmiths were still making nearly everything by hand in their cottages and after the shooting war against Russia ended, they won the propaganda war against Colt with ‘Buy British.’ See: “Colt’s London Armoury,” H. B. Blackmore, in: Technological Change: The United States and Britain in the 19th Century, S. B. Saul (editor), Methuen & Co., 1970, pages 171-196.

By 1873, though, a respected German engineer wrote that “[T]he entirely new ideas of American machinery have tossed the English out of the satchel, and we must without hesitation attach ourselves to the new system if we do not want to fall behind.” That was Franz Reuleaux, author of the seminal Kinematics of Machinery. “Industry and Transport,” W. J. Ashworth, in: A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain, Chris Williams (editor), Wiley-Blackwell, 2004, pages 223-237. New Profession, Old Order: Engineers and German Society, 1815-1914, Kees Gispen, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pages 115-118.

At the Vienna Exhibition in 1873, Reuleaux noted that “Upon the field of inventions and inventive genius, there are but few highly remarkable achievements present, and among these America held the highest rank. Her machine exhibition bore almost exclusively the character of originality, * * * and it contained examples of the highest order of constructive ability and perfect workmanship.” See: “American Machinery at International Exhibitions,” T. R. Pickering, Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume V, November 1883 and May 1884, pages 113-130.

Reuleaux was widely respected and he traveled to World Exhibitions in London (1862), Paris (1867), Vienna (1873), Philadelphia (1876), Sidney (1879), and Chicago (1893). The Machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Franz Reuleaux: Kinematics of Machines from the Renaissance to the 20th century, Francis C. Moon, Springer, 2007, page 56.

Incidentally, on page 57, Moon summarizes Reuleaux’s eight-volume Book of Inventions (in 1884) this way: “He did not accept the contemporary theory of invention as resulting from scientific discovery, a view that is often expressed in popular literature on technology in the United States. Nor did he believe in the discontinuous genius theory of invention, where the ‘hero’ inventor, working alone, makes an important advance that benefits humankind. He viewed both scientific discovery and technical invention as evolving from a tension between the two, sometimes within the same man. Reuleaux viewed the development of new machine technology as one of evolution, that every invention has had a close antecedent developed further by clever inventors, new scientific ideas and the pressure of marketplace competition.”

Reuleaux was not alone in thinking along those lines. In the 1840s, Friedrich List, a German political economist, had long been trying to figure out how the United States, and especially England, were shooting ahead so quickly. Before 1844, List wrote (in reaction to Adam Smith’s ‘division of labor’ idea) that: “If we consider merely bodily labour as the cause of wealth, how can we then explain why modern nations are incomparably richer, more populous, more powerful, and prosperous than the nations of ancient times? The ancient nations employed (in proportion to the whole population) infinitely more hands, the work was much harder, each individual possessed much more land, and yet the masses were much worse fed and clothed than is the case in modern nations. In order to explain these phenomena, we must refer to the progress which has been made in the course of the last thousand years in sciences and arts, domestic and public regulations, cultivation of the mind and capabilities of production. The present state of the nations is the result of the accumulation of all discoveries, inventions, improvements, perfections, and exertion of all generations which have lived before us. They form the mental capital of the present human race, and every separate nation is productive only in the proportion in which it has known how to appropriate these attainments of former generations and to increase them by its own acquirements, in which the natural capabilities of its territory, its extent and geographical position, its population and political power, have been able to develop as completely and symmetrically as possible all sources of wealth within its boundaries, and to extend its moral, intellectual, commercial, and political influence over less advanced nations and especially over the affairs of the world.” The National System of Political Economy, Friedrich List, translated by Sampson S. Lloyd, Longmans, Green and Co., 1916, pages 113-114.

“I invented nothing new. I simply assembled into a car the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work, and the discoveries of still other men who preceded them. Had I worked fifty or even ten or even five years before I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the great forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.”

“The Schoolmaster of Dearborn,” New Outlook, CLXIV (September 1934), pages 61-62, in: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent, William Greenleaf, Wayne State University Press, 1961, Reprint Edition, 2011, page 138.

“No society is so isolated or self-sufficient that it has never borrowed at least some aspects of its technology from an outside source. Because humans engaged in normal communications are bound to exchange information about novel techniques or artifacts, general cultural contacts are the oldest means of transferring knowledge about technology from one culture to another. These contacts may be the result of exploration, travel, trade, war, or migration. All of these ensure that the parties, concerned will be exposed to new technological opportunities. What is traditional practice for one culture may be an important innovation in a different setting.” The Evolution of Technology, George Basalla, Cambridge University Press, 1988, page 78.

For an example of human stigmergy (in an electronic landscape), see: “Group path formation,” R. L. Goldstone, A. Jones, M. Roberts, IEEE Transactions on System, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A,. 36(3):611-620, 2006.

For more general discussion, and an introduction to more expansionary terms like ‘sematectonic’ (by E. O. Wilson), and how it fits in to a whole panoply of terms to do with self-organization, see Chapter 7. (Stigmergy often means witting or unwitting communication via modification of the environment; putting up a signpost is witting, and creating shortcuts on grass by repeated walking is unwitting.) “Mindscapes and Landscapes: Hayek and Simon on Cognitive Extension,” L. Marsh, in: Hayek and Behavioral Economics Roger Frantz and Robert Leeson (editors), Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pages 197-220.

These phenomena have multiplied so rapidly, as to constitute a new science. Manifest Destiny must have its chair, within friendly proximity to those of Political Economy and the Science of Government. It ranks with the speculative Sciences. [...]

Between these two sects of believers in Manifest Predestination, these political Calvinists on the one hand, and the Universalists, or those advocating world-wide Republicanism, on the other, is there no middle ground, where compromise may be possible? Doubtless yes. A political evangel may very well be preached with the same impressive eloquence that sped the religion of Islam, like a prairie-fire, from Persia to the Pillars of Hercules; the conjoint eloquence of Saint and Scimetar. The influence of republican example may be strengthened and enforced by the direct application of power. In this way can Mexico be republicanized, and in no other. Cuba and its enslaved population, must owe its future liberties either to this principle, whether employed in the form of grape-shot, or as round dollars. It is morally certain that purely democratic institutions can never exist quietly in South America, unless some inconceivable revolution occur in the character of the people. Everywhere, beyond our borders, on this Western Hemisphere, do we see the need of the steady, ballasting traits of Anglo-Saxonism. It will never do to argue the practicability of our system beyond the confines of the race, until the experiment has been abundantly tried. The lights now before us seem to justify the idea that such institutions as those our Fathers devised, must be sustained by the continued exercise of traits peculiar to the national character. Believing this, and both branches of the Predestinarians accepting the fact that the national influence and national force must operate together, we see nothing irrational in the hope of a more dazzling future for the race than imagination has yet ventured to outline. Not a continent, a half-globe, but the world—shall be ours. Through what vista into the future shall we look to see a more splendid destiny?”

From: “The Science of Manifest Destiny,” New York Times, September 9th, 1852. (The New York Times, which started publishing on September 18th, 1851, was then one year old.)

By 1882, Walt Whitman was to crow: “Long ere the second centennial arrives, there will be some forty to fifty great States, among them Canada and Cuba. When the present century closes, our population will be sixty or seventy millions. The Pacific will be ours, and the Atlantic mainly ours. There will be daily electric communication with ever part of the globe. What an age! What a land! Where, elsewhere, one so great? The individuality of one nation must then, as always, lead the world. Can there be any doubt who the leader ought to be?” From: “Democratic Vistas,” Democratic Vistas and Other Papers, Walt Whitman, (London, 1888), page 66.

For an overview of the various technical problems that had to be solved (especially tool steel in 1899) before true mass production could happen, see: “Mr. Taylor, Mr. Ford, and the Advent of High-Volume Mass Production: 1900-1912,” J. Paxton, Economics & Business Journal: Inquiries & Perspectives, 4(1):74-90, 2012.

The ideas are old. It was bringing them together that was new. For example, we had manufactories in China around 1,000 years ago: “In +1175, the Hangchow factory [for printing paper money], for example, employed more than a thousand daily workers.” Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing, Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien, Joseph Needham, Cambridge University Press, 1985, page 48.

We had grain mills in the Roman Empire over 1,000 years ago: “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered,” K. Greene, The Economic History Review, 53(1):29-59, 2000. Division of labor is also old. For example, Xenophon explained 2,400 years ago why Greek artisans specialize in cities. The Ancient Economy, M. I. Finley, University of California Press, 1973, page 135. Moreover, any large mass of us will specialize—for example, in armies. Probably the idea is so old that it’s impossible to date.

Division of labor in manufactories is also old. Around 1676 William Petty noted that “Cloth must be cheaper made, when one Cards, another Spins, another Weaves, another Draws, another Dresses, another Presses and Packs; than when all the Operations above-mentioned, were clumsily performed by the same hand.” Political Arithmetick, OR A DISCOURSE Concerning, The Extent and Value of Lands, People, Buildings: Husbandry, Manufacture, Commerce, Fishery, Artizans, Seamen, Soldiers; Publick Revenues, Interest, Taxes, Superlucration, Registries, Banks Valuation of Men, Increasing of Seamen, of Militia’s, Harbours, Situation, Shipping, Power at Sea, &c. As the same relates to every Country in general, but more particularly to the Territories of His Majesty of Great Britain, and his Neighbours of Holland, Zealand, and France, William Petty, Robert Clavel and Hen. Mortlock, 1690, page 19.

A century later, in 1776, Adam Smith noted that “[A pin-maker] could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving, the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some factories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day.” An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, Edwin Cannan Edition, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952, Book I, Chapter 1, page 3.

In other words, pin-makers specialized and together they formed a reaction network. Before that, a pin-maker could only make about one pin a day. Now, the same pin-maker could average around 5,000 pins a day. The price of pins dropped like a rock. It’s widely accepted that Smith based his example of division of labor on the Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau’s 1761 introduction to L’Art de l’Epinglier.

By dividing labor we could thus make an assembly line. By adding a steam engine we could also power all the tools on that line. That alone was a huge change, but mass production also involves yet another idea—precision parts. While we could divide our labor in factories to make pins in volume, those pins needn’t be precision-made. Conversely, we could make precision pins in low volume in factories without dividing our labor—painstakingly and by hand.

Also, mass production isn’t just volume: For example, Abraham Darby’s brass castings for cast iron, or Josiah Wedgwood’s pottery molds for kiln pottery, or Christopher Polhem’s cogwheels milling machine, or any number of other such items (bootlaces, buttons, coins, cannon balls, and so on), all were in volume, yet none were ‘mass produced.’ In 1452, Gutenberg had made the lead type for his printing press in bulk, but that wasn’t ‘mass production’ either.

Mass production is thus a form of volume production in which we divide both the making of, and the putting together of, standard parts into a series of steps so simple that we can make tools do them. We can then divide the labor of making and putting together the parts for those tools, thus closing the recursive loop. For efficiency sake, today’s forms of mass production extend the assembly line to a conveyor belt.

However, as Hounshell notes, the wooden clock industry did contribute to the marketing strategies later used by the sewing machine industry. Ingenious Yankees: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures in the Private Sector, Donald Hoke, Columbia University Press, 1990. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, David A. Hounshell, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, page 51.

Here are just the first 10 conclusions of the original 1842 report:

“The follow conclusions in regard to Ironstone mines, blast furnaces, underground labour in tin, copper lead, and zinc mines, etc.]

From the whole of the evidence which has been collected, and of which we have thus endeavoured to give a digest, we find — in regard to COAL MINES-

1 That instances occur in which Children are taken into these mines to work as early as four years of age, sometimes at five, and between five and six, not unfrequently between six and seven, and often from seven to eight, while from eight to nine is the ordinary age at which employment in these mines commences.

2 That a very large proportion of the persons employed in carrying on the work of these mines is under thirteen and eighteen.

3 That in several districts female Children begin work in these mines at the same early ages as the males.

4 That a great body of the Children and Young Persons employed in these mines are of the families of the adult workpeople engaged in the pits, or belong to the poorest population in the neighbourhood, and are hired and paid in some districts by the workpeople, but in others by the proprietors or contractors.

5 That there are in some districts also a small number of parish apprentices, who are bound to serve their masters until twenty-one years of age, in an employment in which there is nothing of deserving the name of skill to be acquired, under circumstances of frequent ill-treatment, and under the oppressive condition that they shall receive only food and clothing, while their free companions may be obtaining a man’s wages.

6 That in many instances much that skill and capital can effect to render the place of work unoppresive, healthy, and safe, is done, often with complete success, as far as regards the healthfulness and comfort of the mines; but that to render them perfectly safe does not appear to be practicable by any means yet known; while in great numbers of instances their condition in regard both to ventilation and drainage is lamentably defective.

7 That the nature of the employment which is assigned to the youngest Children, generally that of ‘trapping’, requires that they should be in the pit as soon as the work of the day commences, and, according to the present system, that they should not leave the pit before the work of the day is at an end.

8 That although this employment scarcely deserves the name of labour, yet, as the Children engaged in it are commonly excluded from light and are always without companions, it would, were it not for the passing and repassing of the coal carriages, amount to solitary confinement of the worst order.

9 That in those districts in which the seams of coal are so thick that horses go direct to the workings, or in which the side passages from the workings to the horseways are not at any length, the lights in the main ways render the situation of these Children comparatively less cheerless, dull, and stupefying; but that in some districts they remaining solitude and darkness during the whole time they are in the pit, and according to their won account, many of them never see the light of day for weeks together during the greater part of the winter season, excepting on those days in the week when work is not going on, and on the Sundays.

10 That at different ages, from six years old and upwards, the hard work of pushing and dragging the carriages of coal from the workings to the main ways, or to the foot of the shaft, begins; a labour which all classes of witness concur in stating requires the unremitting exertion of all the physical power which the young workers possess.”

Children’s Employment Commission (Mines) 1842 report, Thomas Tooke, T. Southwood Smith, Leonard Horner, Robert J Sanders.

Criminal penalties were so severe that in practice few convicts were actually hanged, so transportation (essentially penal slavery) was a popular alternative. Also, pregnant women, young children, clergymen, anyone who could read (or pretend to) well enough to pass muster, and—of course—anyone who was rich, often received pardons or reduced penalties, like whipping or branding or pillorying. The laws were beginning to be softened by the 1830s—after huge postwar political unrest from 1816 on, largely having to do with the way the rich treated the poor—but many such laws were still in force by the 1850s. Crime and Punishment in England: A Sourcebook, Andrew Barrett and Christopher Harrison (editors), Routledge, 2001. “London Crime and the Making of the ‘Bloody Code,’ 1689-1718,” J. M. Beattie, in: Stilling the Grumbling Hive: The Response to Social and Economic Problems in England, 1689-1750, Lee Davison, Tim Hitchcock, Tim Keirn, and Robert B. Shoemaker (editors), St. Martin’s Press, 1992, pages 39-76. The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century, Peter Linebaugh, Penguin, 1991. Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth-century England, Frank McLynn, Routledge, 1989.

In 1857, Britain had the following numbers of child committments: 29,949 who were between 16 and 21, 10,624 between 12 and 16, and 1,877 under 12 years old. “Crime, Pauperism, and Education in Great Britain,” The American Journal of Education, 6(16):311, 1859. For far more detail, see: “A Survey of Indictable and Summary Jurisdiction Offences in England and Wales, from 1857 to 1876, in Quinquennial Periods, and in 1877 and 1878,” L. Levi, Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 43(3):423-461, 1880.

In Britain, after passage of the new Poor Law in 1834, an unwed mother bore the sole financial responsibility until her child turned 16. Many a poor and unwed mother couldn’t support her offspring, especially if she was young and had been impregnated by the master of the house or shop or factory in which she worked. Then, too, there was the stigma of having an illegitimate child. So what many mothers wanted was to make the child disappear. But it was illegal to kill your children (or at least, to be caught at it). Baby farmers existed for those (many) mothers who couldn’t bring themselves to kill their own children, or who didn’t want to risk it, or who chose to believe that their children would be raised properly, albeit very cheaply. Child Abuse and Moral Reform in England 1870-1908, George K. Behlmer, Stanford University Press, 1982.

Baby farming also existed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States until at least 1917. One Chicago ‘farmer’s slogan was: “It’s cheaper and easier to buy a baby for $100.00 than to have one of your own.” Baby Farms in Chicago: An Investigation Made for the Juvenile Protective Association, Arthur Alden Guild, Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1917.

Mandeville’s 1723 satiric comment below suggests something of England’s more usual attitude to the children of its laboring classes, prior to mass production:

“Few Children make any Progress at School, but at the same time they are capable of being employ’d in some Business or other, so that every Hour those of poor People spend at their Book is so much time lost to the Society. Going to School in comparison to Working is Idleness, and the longer Boys continue in this easy sort of Life, the more unfit they’ll be when grown up for downright Labour, both as to Strength and Inclination. Men who are to remain and end their Days in a Laborious, Tiresome and Painful Station of Life, the sooner they are put upon it at first, the more patiently they’ll submit to it for ever after. Hard Labour and the coarsest Diet are a proper Punishment to several kinds of Malefactors, but to impose either on those that have not been used and brought up to both is the greatest Cruelty, when there is no Crime you can charge them with.” The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Volume 1, Bernard de Mandeville, edited by F. B. Kaye, Clarendon Press, 1924, pages 288-289.

Similar attitudes prevailed in the United States. The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling, John Taylor Gatto, Oxford Village Press, 2001.

“[...] [A]dvertising is the life of trade.

Two examples of this influence have come to me in a casual way. While I can not vouch for the details, I believe in their outline they are substantially correct. One relates to an American industry that had rather phenomenal growth and prosperity in the late eighties and early nineties, being the foundation of one or two large fortunes. In its development it had been a most generous advertiser. A time came when various concerns engaged in this line of manufacturing were merged and consolidated. There being no longer any keen competition, it was felt that it was now no longer necessary to explain to the public the value of this product or the superiority of one make over another. In order to save the large expense that had been made for that purpose, advertising was substantially abandoned. The inevitable result followed, which all well-informed trade quarters now know would follow. But the value of advertising was not so well understood 25 or 30 years ago. This concern soon became almost a complete failure. As I recall, it had to be reorganized, entailing great losses. This line of trade was later revived under the direction and counsel of some of its old managers, and with the proper amount of publicity became a successful enterprise. [This was probably ‘Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound’]

But let us turn from the unfortunate experience of the loss that occurred through lack of advertising to an example of gain that was made through the shrewd application of this principle. In a somewhat typical American community a concern was engaged in an industrial enterprise. Its employees were not required to be men of great skill. Oftentimes they were new arrivals in this country who had been brought up to be accustomed to the meager scale of living abroad. Their wants were not large, so that under the American rate of wages they found it possible to supply themselves and their families without working anywhere near full time. As a result, production was low compared with the number employed and was out of proportion to the overhead expense of management and capital costs. Some fertile mind conceived the idea of locating a good milliner in that community. The wares of this shop were generously advertised through window display, newspaper space, and circularization. I suppose that every head of a family knows that a new bonnet on the head of one of the women in the neighborhood is contagious. The result in that community almost at once was better wearing apparel for the women, which necessitated more steady employment for the men. The output of the plant was greatly increased, its cost units were reduced, its profits were enlarged, it could sell its product to its customers at a lower figure, and the whole industry was improved. More wealth was produced. But the reaction went even further. The whole standard of living in that locality was raised. All the people became better clothed, better fed, and better housed. They had aspirations, and the means to satisfy them, for the finer things of life. All of this came from the judicious application of the principle of advertising.

The system which brought about these results is well known to the members of this association. You have seen innumerable instances where concerns have failed through lack of advertising and innumerable others where they have made a success through the right kind and amount of publicity. Under its stimulation the country has gone from the old hand methods of production which were so slow and laborious with high unit costs and low wages to our present great factory system and its mass production with the astonishing result of low unit costs and high wages. The preeminence of America in industry, which has constantly brought about a reduction of costs, has come very largely through mass production. Mass production is only possible where there is mass demand. Mass demand has been created almost entirely through advertising.

In former days goods were expected to sell themselves. Often times they were carried about from door to door. Otherwise,they were displayed on the shelves and counters of the merchant. The public were supposed to know of these sources of supply and depend on themselves for their knowledge of what was to be sold. Modern business could neither have been created nor can it be maintained on any such system. It constantly requires publicity. It is not enough that goods are made, a demand for them must also be made. It is on this foundation of enlarging production through the demands created by advertising that very much of the success of the American industrial system rests.”

President Calvin Coolidge, Speech to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, October 27th, 1926.

Coolidge wasn’t wrong. He himself benefitted from media manipulation. His ‘pancake breakfast’ with Al Jolson and other vaudeville stars helped his 1924 election. Nor was that a one-off. For example, from 1900 to 1925, population rose 50 percent, but consumption of goods went up 400 percent. Telling people what to buy, then enticing people to buy, mattered. The History and Development of Advertising, Frank Presbrey, Doubleday, 1929, page 598.

This wasn’t merely a question of spin. It was engineering. It had been unconscious before, and aimed at the rich. Now it was being done consciously, and aimed at the mass. Bernays, who had engineered Coolidge’s ‘pancake breakfast,’ and many other publicity stunts and advertising campaigns, wrote: “This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.” From: “Manipulating Public Opinion: The Why and The How,” American Journal of Sociology, E. L. Bernays, 33(6):958-971, 1928 (page 971, last paragraph of last page). See also Josiah Wedgwood, the earliest mass-marketer: Josiah Wedgwood: Entrepreneur to the Enlightenment, Brian Dolan, HarperCollins, 2004. The Wedgwoods: Being a Life of Josiah Wedgwood, With Notices of his Works and their Productions, Memoirs of the Wedgwood and other families And a History of the Early Potteries of Staffordshire, Llewellynn Jewitt, Virtue Brothers and Co., 1865.

(1) On a wall: “The petty thieves support Vatia for the aedilship.” (2) Near a home: “At Nuceria, look for Novellia Primigenia near the Roman gate in the prostitute’s district.” (3) On a street: “Traveler, eat bread in Pompeii but go to Nuceria to drink.” (4) On a block of flats: “For rent from July 1st. Streetfront shops with counter space, classy second-story rooms, and one townhouse. Renters, contact Primus, slave of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius.”

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume 4: Inscriptiones parietariae Pompeianae, Herculanenses, Stabianae, Karl Zangemeister and Richard Schöne (editors), Walter de Guyter, Reprint 1955. Abbreviated as CIL IV. Original Latin: (1) “Vatiam aed[ilem] furunculi rog[ant]” CIL IV 576. (2) “Nuceria quaeres ad porta romana in vico venerio novelliam primigeniam” CIL IV 8356. (3) “Viator Pompeis pane gustas Nuceriae bibes” CIL IV 8903 (partial). (4) “Insula Arriana Polliana [C]n Al[le]i[i] Nigidi[i] Mai[us] / Locantur ex [kalendis] Iuli[i]s primis / Tabernae cum pergulis suis et c[e]nacula equestria et domus / Conductor convenito Primum [C]n Al[le]i[i] Nigidi[i] Mai[us] ser[vum]” CIL IV 138.

Most of what we wrote was much the same for millennia. Here’s a little more of what we scrawled: In a tavern: “Restituta, shuck your dress, I beg, show [your] hairy c[*bleep*].” In a bar: “I f[*bleep*]ed the barmaid.” In a gladiator barracks: “Antiochus spent time here with his [girlfriend] Cithera.” On a merchant’s house: “Atimetus got me pregnant.” In a basilica: “I wonder, o wall, that you haven’t collapsed in ruin with the tedious scribbles of so many writers.” Original Latin: “Restituta pone tunicam rogo redes pilosa co” CIL IV 3951. “Futui copanam” CIL IV 8442. “Antiochus hic mansit cum sua Cithera” CIL IV 8792 (second entry). Gravido me tene(t) / Atm[etus?] CIL IV 10231. The last one is a famous epigraph: “Admiror o paries te non cecidisse ruinis qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas” CIL IV 1904. [Note: The two bleeped words are stronger forms of “pudendum,” and “screwed.” Figure it out for yourself.]

Here’s another, of many pronouncements of the same stripe: “It seems to be a law of nature, that the poor should be to a certain degree improvident, that there may always be some to fulfil the most servile, the most sordid, and the most ignoble offices in the community. The stock of human happiness is thereby much increased, whilst the more delicate are not only relieved from drudgery, and freed from those occasional employments which would make them miserable, but are left at liberty, without interruption, to pursue those callings which are suited to their various dispositions, and most useful to the state. As for the lowest of the poor, by custom they are reconciled to the meanest occupations, to the most laborious works, and to the most hazardous pursuits; whilst the hope of their reward makes them chearful in the midst of all their dangers and their toils. The fleets and armies of a state would soon be in want of soldiers and of sailors, if sobriety and diligence universally prevailed: for what is it but distress and poverty which can prevail upon the lower classes of the people to encounter all the horrors which await them on the tempestuous ocean, or in the field of battle? Men who are easy in their circumstances are not among the foremost to engage in a seafaring or military life. There must be a degree of pressure, and that which is attended with the least violence will be the best. When hunger is either felt or feared, the desire of obtaining bread will quietly dispose the mind to undergo the greatest hardships, and will sweeten the severest labours. The peasant with a sickle in his hand is happier than the prince upon his throne.” A Dissertation on the Poor Laws by a Well-Wisher to Mankind, Joseph Townsend, Section VII, page 35, 1786, University of California Press, 1971.

Nor was that attitude rare earlier in England (or, probably, anywhere else). Compare the same thought from about 1388, four centuries prior: “And gif laboreris weren not, boþe prestis and knyȝtis mosten bicome acremen and heerdis, and ellis þey sholde for defaute of bodily sustenaunce deie.” [If laborers didn’t exist, both priests and knights must become farmers and herders, or else they would, for lack of bodily sustenance, die.] “Thomas Wimbledon’s Sermon: ‘Redde racionem villicacionis tue,’ ” N. H. Owen, Mediaeval Studies, 28:176-197, 1966.

That idea extended to slavery itself. The notion that many of us just have to be enslaved so that the few can have decent lives is very old. For example, Aristotle, 2,300 years ago, wrote: “But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature? There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.... Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.... It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and that for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.” Politics, Aristotle, Book I, Chapters iii-vii, translated by Benjamin Jowett, 1885, Dover, Reprint Edition, 2000, pages 32-34.

Today, slavery is no longer legal, but it still exists. Today, it’s common to say that we abolished legal slavery in the nineteenth century ‘because it was bad.’ But that can’t possibly be all that matters. If it were, why didn’t we abandon it millennia before? If the explanation for that then amounts to ‘because our ancestors were bad,’ then why are there an estimated 100,000 slaves today just in the United States alone? Why are 27 million of us still slaves today? Why must 250 million of our children between the ages of 5 and 14 still labor today? Why are we forcing perhaps 60 million of those children to become prostitutes or soldiers? Aren’t those things bad too? We’ve been slavers and slaves ever since we phase changed into farming and herding, millennia ago. The Hebrews kept slaves. The Maya kept slaves. The Bantu kept slaves. The Persians, the Romans, the Egyptians, the Sumerians—anyone and everyone kept slaves. Even when we tried to abandon slavery we rarely succeeded. For instance, the first effort in Europe to ban slavery came in 655. Europe still kept slaves 1,300 years later. We had to do more than talk before we could do without slavery—and we still haven’t fully done so.

Nor did we change our division of labor simply because of the steam engine alone. The United States had steam engines early on but still kept legal slaves up past the mid nineteenth century. Japan, Germany, China, and Russia all had steam engines by the late nineteenth century, but they still kept penal slaves in the twentieth century. In short, throughout our farming history, we all wanted slaves for our fields, our armies, our beds—or maybe even just as a threat of punishment. It didn’t much matter whether we had a king, a constitutional monarchy, a federal republic, a collective. It didn’t much matter whether we were Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Polytheists. It didn’t matter where we lived, nor what languages we spoke, nor what we looked like. Land and bodies were wealth. Legal slavery began to end worldwide only with our phase change into industry. That helped alter whether slavery was legal or not, whether our children had to work or not, whether women got paid for their labor or not, and what jobs men did.

For a sampling of the wider history, see: Slaves and Warriors in Medieval Britain and Ireland: 800-1200, David Wyatt, Brill, 2009. Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem, Suzanne Miers, Rowman Altamira, 2003. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery In The Mediterranean, The Barbary Coast, And Italy, 1500-1800, Robert Davis, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Speaking of Slavery: Color, Ethnicity, and Human Bondage in Italy, Steven A. Epstein, Cornell University Press, 2001. Beyond Child Labor: Affirming Rights, United Nations Children’s Fund, 2001. Slavery in the Arab World, Murray Gordon, New Amsterdam Books, 1989. Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, two volumes, John Ralph Willis (editor), Routledge, 1986. Slavery and Human Progress, David Brion Davis, Oxford University Press, 1984. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, Orlando Patterson, Harvard University Press, 1982.

Noah is supposed to have used it to caulk his ark. “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.” The Bible, The King James Version, Genesis 6:14.

Ditto for Gilgamesh before that. The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, Volume I, A. R. George, Oxford University Press, 2006, page 513.

See also: The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum, James G. Speight, CRC Press, Fourth Edition, 2006, pages 3-10. But our hydrocarbon use started exploding only in the late 1800s. That’s when, through our usual bumbling, we developed practical versions of both the internal combustion engine and the dynamo.

However, if consumers put energy in themselves, that figure may be falling locally over time. In one district: “One average kcal of food energy requires a minimum input of approximately 6 kcal of fossil energy, down from 9 or 10 in 1970.” From: “The potential of Onondaga County to feed its own population and that of Syracuse, New York: Past, present, and future,” S. B. Balogh, C. A. S. Hall, A. M. Guzman, D. E. Balcarce, A. Hamilton, in: Global Economic and Environmental Aspects of Biofuels, David Pimentel (editor), CRC Press, 2012, pages 273-320.

As for the neolithic estimate, that is more debated. “Human genetic data reveal contrasting demographic patterns between sedentary and nomadic populations that predate the emergence of farming,” C. Aimé, G. Laval, E. Patin, P. Verdu, L. Ségurel, R. Chaix, T. Hegay, L. Quintana-Murci, E. Heyer, F. Austerlitz, Molecular biology and evolution, 30(12):2629-44, 2013. “MtDNA analysis of global populations support that major population expansions began before Neolithic Time,” H.-X. Zheng, S. Yan, Z.-D. Qin, L. Jin, Scientific Reports, 2:745, 2012. “When the World’s Population Took Off: The Springboard of the Neolithic Demographic Transition,” J.-P. Bocquet-Appel, Science, 333(6042):560-561, 2011.

Recently, consensus seems to be forming that no matter when the peak is, economic and political decisions taken within two decades of it will make a huge difference on its mitigation. One new study predicts the peak as early as 2014. “Forecasting World Crude Oil Production Using Multicyclic Hubbert Model,” I. S. Nashawi, A. Malallah, M. Al-Bisharah, Energy Fuels, 24(3):1788-1800, 2010. “Uncertainty about Future Oil Supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production,” United States Government Accountability Office, GAO-07-283, 2007. “Peaking of World Oil Production: Recent forecasts,” R. L. Hirsch, World Oil, 228(4), 2007. “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management,” R. L. Hirsch, R. Bezdek, R. Wendling, United States Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, 2005. “Long Term World Oil Supply Scenarios - the future is neither as bleak or as rosy as some assert,” J. H. Wood, G. R. Long, D. F. Morehouse, Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy, 2004.

Both sides of today’s arguments about oil depletion and alternative energy have clear political agendas. They each see the same amount of future oil in the ground in two completely different ways. Huge amounts of power and money—not to mention strong feelings of guilt and shame—depend on what policies each of our countries adopt. So the urge to sway those policy choices one way or the other is strong. However, the data on which such policies might be based is poor—and may even be deliberately distorted in some cases. When giants clash, amateurs can only watch and try to come to as reasonable a conclusion as possible. Those who say that oil production has peaked, or will soon, seem right. Physics favors them. But that still means that we have as much oil left as we’ve used until now. So those who say that we’ll likely invent our way out of disaster also seem right. Economics favors them. That seems to be roughly what those who are most informed seem to be saying on our oil futures markets. That’s where we place long-term public bets about future oil supplies and consumption patterns. There at least, hard data is in constant demand and continuous evaluation. Also, politics matters less there. Futures traders are betting thousands of millions of dollars on being right. Maybe they’re wrong, but so far it doesn’t seem so.

Since then, particularly since 2009, horizontal drilling, and most especially hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’), when used with CCPP (combined cycle power plants), has changed the landscape a fair amount, particularly in North America, opening up vast new reserves of natural gas, and thus easing dependence on coal and shiftng some dependence away from oil. Also, fracking releases about half the carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour compared to coal, so it’s also having some effect on the climate change arguments.

In 2011, the International Monetary Fund’s database figures for GDP PPP (that is, purchasing power parity) from 2009 to 2011 were: $15,064.816 thousand million for the United States, $15,788.584 thousand million for the European Union, and $19,819.335 thousand million for East Asia (now classified as ‘Developing Asia’). With a world total GDP (PPP) of $78,852.864 thousand million, that means 19 percent for the U.S., 20 percent for the E.U., and 25 percent for Developing Asia. However, nominal GDP figures are different. Market measures are also different. World Economic Outlook Database, International Monetary Fund, 2011.

For gasoline, the average for 2018 based on 43 countries was 367.97 thousand barrels per day. The highest value was in the USA: 9328.98 thousand barrels per day. In 2019, about 142.17 billion gallons (or about 3.39 billion barrels—there are 42 U.S. gallons in a barrel) of finished motor gasoline were consumed in the United States, an average of about 389.51 million gallons (or about 9.27 million barrels) per day. “Petroleum Supply Monthly,” With Data for March 2020 Energy Information Administration United States Department of Energy, 2004.

“California is the second largest consumers of gasoline and diesel fuels in the world, surpassed only by the United States as a whole. In 2006, Californians consumed an estimated 20 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel on the state’s roadways, an increase of nearly 50 percent over the last 20 years. This demand continues, even in the face of record petroleum prices.” State Alternative Fuels Plan, AB 1007 Report, California Energy Commission, 2007, page 11.

In 2008, energy from solar panels costs at least 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s about three times as much as retail electricity, even in a sunny region. Solar panel efficiency is measured as a percentage of the energy hitting it. Today’s commodity solar panels have energy efficiencies around 10 to 15 percent. Some research versions are now up to about 40 percent, but they’re expensive since they need exotic materials and delicate production processes. Cheap versions are around 8 percent, or less. It takes about 20 years for a solar installation to pay for itself.

The following abstract summarizes where experts think the technology is going over the next four decades: “Subjective probabilistic judgments about future module prices of 26 current and emerging photovoltaic (PV) technologies were obtained from 18 PV technology experts. Fourteen experts provided detailed assessments, including likely future efficiencies and prices under four policy scenarios. While there is considerable dispersion among the judgments, the results suggest a high likelihood that some PV technology will achieve a price of $1.20/Wp by 2030. Only 7 of 18 experts assess a better-than-even chance that any PV technology will achieve $0.30/Wp by 2030; 10 of 18 experts give this assessment by 2050. Given these odds, and the wide dispersion in results, we conclude that PV may have difficulty becoming economically competitive with other options for large-scale, low-carbon bulk electricity in the next 40 years. If $0.30/Wp is not reached, then PV will likely continue to expand in markets other than bulk power. In assessing different policy mechanisms, a majority of experts judged that R&D would most increase efficiency, while deployment incentives would most decrease price. This implies a possible disconnect between research and policy goals. Governments should be cautious about large subsidies for deployment of present PV technology while continuing to invest in R&D to lower cost and reduce uncertainty.” From: “Expert Assessments of Future Photovoltaic Technologies,” A. E. Curtright, M. G. Morgan, D. W. Keith, Environmental Science and Technology, 42(24):9031-9038, 2008.

(Note: ‘Wp’ means ‘peak Watts,’ that is the wattage that a panel can produce on a bright sunny day. So a price of ‘$1.20/Wp’ means that the panel costs $1.20 for every watt pumped out on the panel’s best day. Also note that over the past decade, good ratings for panels are in the $4.50/Wp to $5.50/Wp range.)

Here are some more startups: Natron Energy, NantEnergy, NeoSun, Primus Power, Sakti3, UniEnergy Technologies, are also still around. All are mainly research shops awaiting their big break. One such startup, Ambri, has gone through all those stages except the last. Their idea is, basically, the reverse of aluminum electrolysis; it started with magnesium and antimony—two dirt-cheap metals that are widely available—so if it could be made to work it could be done at scale.

But it’s not just startups trying to survive on a few tens of millions of dollars; big companies have gotten into new batteries, too. For example, General Electric sunk perhaps a billion dollars on Durathon, an internal push to replace lithium-ion batteries with their sodium-ion (sodium-nickle-chloride with molten salt) batteries. But they started in 2010, when lithium-ion was $1,000 a kilowatt-hour. By 2015, when it dropped to $350 a KWh, they gave up. (By 2016, it was $273 per kWh. By 2019 they sold the entire parent subsidiary, GE Transportation, to Wabtec.) “Wabtec and GE Transportation complete merger,” Railway Gazette International, February 25th, 2019. “Lithium-Ion Battery Costs and Market,” C. Curry, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, July 2017.

Why did lithium-ion drop in cost so fast? Easy: phones and electric vehicles (and behind them, more than anyone else, Apple and Tesla). As those markets mushroomed, demand escalated, so research on improving them focused. Now hundreds of millions of dollars a year at Panasonic, LG Chem, and Samsung, (also Mitsubishi and Saft), go into improving battery performance. However, it’s being optimized not for grid-scale battery use, but for phones and cars (and laptops). So the emphasis has been on chasing expensive, low-weight, small-size, batteries whose capacities fade, not low-cost, long-life, fade-free batteries. Improving one thing often means paying for it by reducing something else so that intensive research doesn’t transfer to grid scale.

For reliable power, what we need is rechargeable gigawatt-scale batteries that we could place anywhere, to store energy when the sun shines then give it back when the sun doesn’t. To be cheap enough for deployment they have to last for many years (ideally, decades), recharging over and over again, with low capacity-fade. For that, lithium-ion likely won’t cut it, and may never. It’s expensive (although cost has been falling unexpectedly fast with wider use, but, as mentioned, that’s for low-weight, small-size, fade-free batteries). Also, lithium has a fire-risk, and recharge potential drops below useful levels too fast. Its rare elements (lithium and cobalt) may also be a little too local to only a few sensitive nations (China, the Republic of the Congo). (Why wean off oil only to get addicted to lithium or cobalt?) Also, there’s too little of it compared to plentiful stuff like aluminum or magnesium. In general, rare, toxic, and costly elements are, a bad idea. So the search is on for grid-scale rechargeable batteries that are cheap, long-lived, and easy to build anywhere.

The tried-and-true way to do grid energy storage (grid-scale rechargeable batteries) with reasonably low loss per recharge is to use hydroelectric dams (this is pumped-storage hydroelectric). Almost 96 percent of the world’s grid scale battery power is of this type. We can often get back as much as 80-85% of the energy put in. Problem is: there are few places on the planet that have the right geological features to make it possible at gigawatt scale. To make it work, you need two dams near each other but also at different heights (high enough so that it’s worth while linking the two with a channel into which you put pumps and turbines). When grid power is cheap you pump water from the lower dam up to the upper dam, and when power is dear, you let water run back down through the turbines to generate electricity.

A startup, Quidnet Energy (founded 2013), is trying to drill wells next to a dam and force-pump water from the dam down the wells, then run the water in reverse through a turbine to recover some of the energy used. This might alleviate the problem, if they can get the recovery percentage high enough and the cost to drill plus equipment low enough.

If you have a mountain, a similar idea is to put a railroad on it. Fill a train with rocks and, when you have cheap power, pull the train up the mountain; then, when you need power, let it run down again. A startup, Energy Vault (founded 2017), is trying to do something similar with AI software controlling a multi-headed crane. When grid power is cheap, it stores that as potential energy by stacking heavy blocks into a giant tower; then when power is dear again, it releases it by lowering blocks to the ground. “SoftBank to invest $110m in brick tower energy storage start-up,” L. Hook, Financial Times, August 15th, 2019.

If you have a big mine, pump compressed air in, then let the air out again through a wind turbine. All such cases need some special geological feature: two nearby dams, a mountain, a mine. Also, they must have no other use. (For example, water in the dam can’t be needed for irrigation.) Failing that, you go with combustion-turbine (natural gas or coal), or hydroelectric or nuclear power plants, which idle when solar or wind is plentiful, but are on hot-standby to ramp up and take over to handle load-shifting and replace the missing sun or wind. (Such plants are called ‘peaker,’ ‘peaking,’ ‘load-shifting,’ or ‘load-following’ plants.) That costs far more energy than running at normal capacity. Energy Storage: A Nontechnical Guide, Richard Baxter, PennWell Books, 2006.

Too-rapid deployment of solar (and wind) recently led to a special case (as happened in California because of tax breaks and mandates, plus China flooding the market with cheaper panels). Lunchtime supply began to far exceed what it once was. To avoid massive surge, which would destroy all equipment, many peaker power plants need to be throttled back since demand doesn’t also increase to consume supply, and there was no way to store the energy oversupply (so it was just dumped). Then as dinnertime approached, all the oversupply went away, which meant that those idling plants then needed to ramp up again to meet peak demand. This led to a ‘duck curve’ of ever-more-defined duckieness as solar (or wind) deployment rose, and also ever more stress on the system. The upside, though, is that the width of peak demand narrows, so if we had a grid storage solution that could outlast the ever-shorter peak, both the thing causing the problem (increased solar) and the thing producing the solution (grid-scale batteries) could work in tandem to smooth out grid power and reduce the need for peaker plants. This made grid storage batteries even more attractive. “Overgeneration from Solar Energy in California: A Field Guide to the Duck Chart,” P. Denholm, M. O’Connell, G. Brinkman, and J. Jorgenson, NREL/TP-6A20-65023, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, November 2015.

Solar is a potentially much larger supply than wind, but, like wind, it’s variable, and we want power anytime, not just when the sun’s high and there’s no cloud, storm, or snow. Without batteries, we solve that problem today with peaker plants. But that can burn even more fossil fuels than not having solar (or wind) at all. If such plants were running all the time, instead of being on hot-standby, they would be more efficient. “Grid-Scale Battery Storage: Frequently Asked Questions,” T. Bowen, I. Chernyakhovskiy, P. L. Denholm, NREL/TP-6A20-74426, National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), September, 2019. “The Potential for Energy Storage to Provide Peaking Capacity in California under Increased Penetration of Solar Photovoltaics,” P. Denholm, R. Margolis, NREL/TP-6A20-70905, National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), March, 2018.

The problem of energy is simple: we want to live as well as possible as cheaply as possible; we never want to face it, but we’re cheapskates. These days, renewables like solar have good odor—they’re ‘clean,’ they’re ‘unlimited,’ they’re cheap (or even ‘free’), so only politics must be keeping us from much more of them. But little of that is true. Yes, there’s politics (there’s always politics) and, yes, they’re easier to start and build out, so they’re easier to scale, but all options have costs; all are limited; none are ‘clean.’ Gathering energy, whether it’s from the sun, the wind, the waters, or whatever, then getting it to do work—that is, getting power from that energy—takes factories and tools, which we have to design and make. Like wind, solar is a dilute and variable energy source that’s far less efficient than fixed and concentrated sources like coal or oil—or even better, uranium or thorium. Solar panels have to reverse that to concentrate energy again to be useful. Making those panels means digging stuff out of the ground, refining it, shaping it, transporting it, installing it, running it. Even just choosing where to put it means sacrificing land we might otherwise use for growing food, or something else. Everything has a cost. No power system can be ‘clean,’ nor ‘unlimited,’ nor ‘free.’ We pay in money, we pay in opportunity, we pay in effluent and planetary destruction, and we pay in lives—not only other species but also our own. In choosing among options, all we can do is learn a bit more about them then decide which set of costs we’re willing to pay, now and in the future.

The problem with ‘clean’ and ‘unlimited’ energy sources is that: 1/ They aren’t ‘clean.’ To build a wind farm or solar farm or hydro dam or whatever, takes energy and raw materials—cement, steel, cobalt, lithium, whatever—which means mining and fabrication. Without stored energy already saved to do the work, that takes energy and raw materials, which burns fuels. For example, ‘load-following’ electricity (peaker plants) add 12 percent of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Smelting iron and steel adds five more percent. Making cement means burning limestone, which adds a further four percent. Everything we do has a cost. “Net-zero Emissions Energy Systems,” S. J. Davis, N. S. Lewis, M. Shaner, S. Aggarwal, D. Arent, I. L. Azevedo, S. M. Benson, T. Bradley, J. Brouwer, Y.-M. Chiang, C. T. M. Clack, A. Cohen, S. Doig, J. Edmonds, P. Fennell, C. B. Field, B. Hannegan, B.-M. Hodge, M. I. Hoffert, E. Ingersoll, P. Jaramillo, K. S. Lackner, K. J. Mach, M. Mastrandrea, J. Ogden, P. F. Peterson, D. L. Sanchez, D. Sperling, J. Stagner, J. E. Trancik, C.-J. Yang, K. Caldeira, Science, 360(6396):eaas9793, 2018.

2/ They aren’t ‘unlimited.’ Even if such things were dropped from the sky by space aliens, we’re already maxed out on hydro (there are only so many rivers), there’s only so much wind, there’s only so much biomass—and we’re already at the stage of cutting down forests to feed biomass into biomass burners, which makes no sense, and so on. Solar is our long-term future. Statistical Review of World Energy 2018, British Petroleum, 2018, page 50. Energy and Civilization: A History, Vaclav Smil, The MIT Press, 2017, page 397. “Europe’s Green-Fuel Search Turns to America’s Forests,” J. Scheck, I. J. Dugan, The Wall Street Journal, May 27th, 2013.

Today’s solar and wind (and tidal) farms exist not because they pay but because of laws and mandates to discourage old technology, and government subsidy to encourage new technology (Germany, Spain, Denmark, the United States, the United Kingdom, elsewhere). That’s tax payer will and money at work to juice the market to try to get the technology developed more quickly than it would otherwise. It doesn’t yet pay. But it will.

Solving the grid-scale rechargeable battery problem is important because without it, all the ‘clean’ (or ‘green’) schemes—solar (photovoltaic or solar thermal), wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, ocean thermal...) and all the ‘clean’ electric vehicles, and such, don’t mean much—except even more carbon dioxide and more over-production. Today (directly or indirectly) they all really run on fossil fuels—natural gas, coal, or oil—or hydro or nuclear power.

Finally, there’s the question of what else we pay for our power besides money (whether out-of-pocket, or via tax) and carbon dioxide in the air. Incidents like Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima get a lot of media attention, but deaths per terawatt from nuclear is by far the lowest among all power sources. Coal is by far the highest. Solar (at least rooftop solar) (and wind) is also not the lowest. Nuclear is—by far. “How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources,” J. Conca, Forbes Magazine, June 10th, 2012.

Solving the problem is about gaining knowledge about the space of possible solutions as we grope around in the dark. Likely, all the people licking their wounds now from all the failed attempts over the past couple decades will be circulating around and eventually some will put their heads together and create a new network which will struggle to get funding and finally solve it. Evolution is blind.

Here’s the problem from the consumer end (not residential but commercial, industrial, or municipal). You’re mayor of a small town, or CEO of a company, or manager of a factory, and cost of grid power is going up (and perhaps surges, or brownouts, or maybe even blackouts, are either not uncommon or are increasing). That cost is high only during the daytime, when demand is high. It’s always much lower late at night. So what you want to do is arbitrage the cost down (buy low, sell high). Essentially, you want a gigantic UPS, plus surge protector. So you’re looking into plopping down some money on a newfangled grid-scale battery solution (sort of like cloud storage, except for energy). Problem is, the field isn’t stable yet, there are many tiny companies with many solutions, and the tech is based on exotic science you don’t understand.

You aren’t a scientist, and none of these potential battery companies have been around long enough to have a proven track record (many have already tried and died, so all the ones out there now are so new and fragile that none have much income, so none have been around long enough to be through IPO to offer stock on the stock market). Plus, choosing any one would be an enormous spend, since it would mean lock-in for 10- to 20- years. What happens if you choose wrong and it goes belly-up? It’s too big a spend, too much risk, and too little information for you to decide anything.

Besides, you have no serious push to move off grid power. The government hasn’t mandated any change, and has no tax credits for storage use. This is just something you’d be doing to reduce your long-term spend on electricity (and also ensure no brownouts or surges). So it’s sort of like buying insurance, plus lowering costs over time (that is, if the battery company you pick survives, and if grid power continues to climb in price, like in California, Texas, Florida, Hawa’ii, and so on, but not Tennessee). So why take a risk? No one’s going to fire you for not doing anything since no one else understands the situation, either. So the battery companies keep dying on the vine, propped up only for as long as their investors have patience.

Now a startup, Prisma Energy Solutions (founded 2017), claims to have found a way to break the logjam. Their plan to solve your dilemma with a lease program so that you can rent-to-buy instead of having to buy outright. Or just keep leasing until the market stabilizes and you know what shakes out. So you can join their program, then lease the service for only 5 years at a time, not 10 or 20, and don’t have to choose any particular company. Also, the battery companies get income, so they get to survive and develop the tech instead of going under all the time.

(BEGIN GUESSWORK: Prisma MUST be pooling battery companies somehow, perhaps like collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), so that, if any one, or a few of their contracted companies, do fail, lessees still get guaranteed power from the pool). Perhaps they stack them in shipping container trucks and back them into loading bays to just jack into a factory or business directly. Dunno how else they could make it work... where are they gonna find the money to lease so many expensive experimental batteries? that’s like the very earliest form of RAID hardware, except for power and at GIGAWATT scale! or maybe they’re also buying used car batteries as backup for the backup? a market is developing for used tesla batteries, for instance, so perhaps they’re making racks of them as backup in case too many companies fail?) In 2017, California put 396 stacks of Tesla batteries to use for 80 megawatt-hours backup at the Mira Loma substation in Ontario, California. The array can power 15,000 homes for over four hours. That’s enough to get over most peak shortfalls. “Rows of Tesla batteries will keep Southern California’s lights on during the night,” A. Micu, ZME Science, January 30th, 2017.

In 2011, the proportions were: about two-fifths of the electricity came from coal-fired power plants. Natural gas supplied roughly another quarter, and nuclear about another fifth. Oil added only about two more percent. That accounted for almost nine-tenths of the country’s electrical energy. Water power added more than half the rest. The remaining dribble mostly came from biomass (like wood). Wind, geothermal, tidal, and solar were so tiny that they simply didn’t matter. But the picture changes a lot when looking at the same country’s total energy use. Oil claimed over a third of that. (Of that oil, almost three-quarters went to transport, and almost a quarter to industry.) Coal claimed a further fifth; natural gas claimed a further quarter or so. Nuclear added roughly another twelfth. Again, that was about nine-tenths of the country’s total energy use (electricity included). But here, only around a third of the rest was water power. And, again, most of the dribble left was biomass, but increasingly wind. Geothermal, tidal, and solar again simply didn’t matter.

For 2011 figures, see: Figure 2.0: “Primary Energy Consumption by Source and Sector” (page 37), Figure 2.1a: “Energy Consumption Estimates by Sector Overview” (page 38), Figure 8.2a: “Electricity Net Generation, Total (All Sectors)” (page 222), Figure 8.2b: “Electricity Net Generation by Sector” (page 223), Figure 10.1: “Renewable Energy Consumption by Major Source” (page 278), Annual Energy Review 2011, Report No. DOE/EIA-0384(2011), Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy, September, 2012. Note: for the 6 percent of ’Other’ for electricity sources, it lists: “Wind, petroleum, wood, waste, geothermal, other gases, solar thermal and photovoltaic, batteries, chemicals, hydrogen, pitch, purchased steam, sulfur, miscellaneous technologies, and non-renewable waste (municipal solid waste from non-biogenic sources, and tire-derived fuels).”

Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 30, Stacy C. Davis, Susan W. Diegel, and Robert G. Boundy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, United States Department of Energy, 2011. Table 1-11: “Number of U.S. Aircraft, Vehicles, Vessels, and Other Conveyances” Table 4-4: “U.S. Energy Consumption by the Transportation Sector” Table 4-6: “Energy Consumption by Mode of Transportation” National Transportation Statistics, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, United States Department of Transportation, 2011.

In 2012: “Today’s share of fossil fuels in the global mix, at 82%, is the same as it was 25 years ago; the strong rise of renewables only reduces this to around 75% in 2035.” World Energy Outlook 2013, International Energy Agency, 2013.

In 1971, coal, oil, and natural gas was 86.3 percent, and has only fallen slightly as a relative percentage since then, although the world total energy supply has increased 2.6 times (from 5,519 Mtoe to 14,282 Mtoe) and its structure has changed. Natural gas was 16.2 percent, oil was 44.1 percent, and coal was 26 percent. World Energy Balances: Overview, International Energy Agency, 2020.

In 2008 a pound of uranium cost over 1,300 times as much as a pound of coal. In the United States as of May 2008, spot prices for uranium oxide (U₃O₈) were around $60 a pound and Central Appalachian coal, a benchmark grade, were around $90 a short ton (2,000 pounds). Most of coal’s cost isn’t mining it, it’s transporting it. “Coal News and Markets,” May 12, 2008, Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy. “Ux Weekly,” May 12, 2008, The Ux Consulting Company, LLC.

Incidentally, radioactivity is a source of great fear and also of great fearmongering. Most of the radiation one of us receives over a lifetime (about 82 percent, in the United States) comes from natural sources, including food, no matter how ‘organic.’ About 55 percent comes from radon in the home (and other structures). And nuclear power plants release far less radiation than coal-fired plants do. They also kill far fewer of us than any other power source, including all accidents (Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima). Deaths per terawatt from nuclear is by far the lowest among all power sources. Coal is by far the highest. But solar (and wind) is also not the lowest. Nuclear is. By far. “How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources,” J. Conca, Forbes Magazine, June 10th, 2012. Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy, Gwyneth Cravens, Knopf, 2007. “Radioactive Elements in Coal and Fly Ash: Abundance, Forms, and Environmental Significance,” Fact Sheet FS-163-97, United States Geological Survey, 1997. Environmental Aspects of Trace Elements in Coal, D. J. Swaine and F. Goodarzi (editors), Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995. “Ionizing radiation exposure of the population of the United States,” National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, Report 93, 1987.

“Metabolic engineering is the enabling science of development of efficient cell factories for the production of fuels, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and food ingredients through microbial fermentations. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a key cell factory already used for the production of a wide range of industrial products, and here we review ongoing work, particularly in industry, on using this organism for the production of butanol, which can be used as biofuel, and isoprenoids, which can find a wide range of applications including as pharmaceuticals and as biodiesel. We also look into how engineering of yeast can lead to improved uptake of sugars that are present in biomass hydrolyzates, and hereby allow for utilization of biomass as feedstock in the production of fuels and chemicals employing S. cerevisiae. Finally, we discuss the perspectives of how technologies from systems biology and synthetic biology can be used to advance metabolic engineering of yeast.” From: “Metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae: a key cell factory platform for future biorefineries,” K.-K. Hong, J. Nielsen, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 69(16):2671-2690, 2012.

“Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt,” J. Fargione, J. Hill, D. Tilman, S. Polasky, P. Hawthorne, Science, 319(5867):1235-1238, 2008. “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change,” T. Searchinger, R. Heimlich, R. A. Houghton, F. Dong, A. Elobeid, J. Fabiosa, S. Tokgoz, D. Hayes, T.-H. Yu, Science, 319(5867):1238-1240, 2008.

Further, a global economic slump in 2008 halved the growth rate of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. Emissions from burning fossil fuels and from making cement rose 1.7 percent in 2008, as against 3.3 percent in 2007. “Global CO2 emissions: annual increase halves in 2008,” Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), 2009.

On the other hand, the rising price of oil in 2007-2008 helped increase food cost. That then led to riots and other unrest in 22 countries—all of them poor. Poor countries feel even more of a pinch than rich countries do.

In 2006, the EIA estimated that it was about 7 percent as of 2003 (the latest data available as of 2006). International Energy Outlook 2006, Report DOE/EIA-0484(2006), Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy, June 2006, Tables A2 and A8 in the Reference Case Projections Tables (1990-2030).

By 2013, the EIA put their estimate for 2010 renewables at 10.7 percent (renewables only comprised 7.6 percent for the industrial sector). “World industrial sector delivered energy consumption by region and energy source, 2010-2040 (quadrillion Btu)” Table 18. (page 127), “World total energy consumption by region and fuel, Reference case, 2009-2040 (quadrillion Btu)” Table A2. (page 181), International Energy Outlook 2013, Report DOE/EIA-0484(2013), Energy Information Administration, United States Department of Energy, June 2013.

Overall energy consumption in 2006 was around 448 exajoules, thus giving a burn rate per second of about 14.2 terawatts. (Note the difference between energy and power; A joule is a unit of energy; a watt is a unit of power; energy = power * time) “A multi-trillion dollar/year business supplies about 450 Exajoules (EJ, or 10¹⁸ joules); equivalently, we ‘burn’ energy at a rate over 14 Terawatts (TW, or trillion watts). About 86% is supplied by fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas. The United States uses about a quarter of the total.” Report of the Energy Research Council, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006, page 6.

The solar irradiation on the upper atmosphere per second is about 340 watts per meter squared, or around 174 petawatts (174,000 terawatts) in total. So the solar energy reaching our planet in an hour is more than enough to supply all of our current energy needs for a year. About half of that energy incident on top of the earth’s atmosphere reaches the surface. “Radiation (Solar), ” Q. Fu, in: Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences, James R. Holton, Judith A. Curry, John A. Pyle (editors), Academic Press, 2003, pages 1859-1863. “Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget,” J. T. Kiehl, K. E. Trenberth, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 78(2):197-208, 1997.

By 2018, SpaceX was regularly launching their reusable-booster, in-house parts, Falcon 9, with launch costs to LEO of $62 million, and GTO (geosynchronous transfer orbit) capacity of 18,300 pounds, which yielded a cost of about $4,100 per pound to GEO. The Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2018, FAA AST, Office of Commercial Space Transportation, United States Federal Aviation Administration, 2018, page 144. In 2016, Charles F. Bolden, Jr., NASA Administrator, noted that more venture capital was invested in 2015 than in all 15 years prior to that combined.

From 1957 to 1999, our species launched about 104 times a year. From 2001 to 2005, we launched about 62 times a year. Of all those launches, only about 19 a year were commercial. For these earlier figures, see: The Space Launch Industry Recent Trends and Near-Term Outlook, Futron Corporation, 2004. “Space Launch Vehicle Reliability,” I-S. Chang, Crosslink, 2(1):23-32, 2001.

As most institutional satellites are placed into orbit by national launchers, the market open to international competition is relatively small. It was about USD 2 billion in 2013, a 20% decrease compared to 2012. As of spring 2014, there were six companies able to commercially launch satellites to geostationary (GEO) orbit, which is the most profitable orbit, home to large commercial communications satellites. They include the European Arianespace company (the current market leader, with the Ariane 5 launcher), the Russian Federation’s International Launch Services (Proton launcher), the United States’ Lockheed Martin (Atlas V) and Boeing (Delta launchers), China Great Wall (Long March launchers) and Sea Launch, an international consortium (Norway, Russian Federation, Ukraine and United States). Other companies can launch satellites in lower orbits, most notably SpaceX (USA), which carried out its first commercial launch in December 2013 with its Falcon 9. It is currently developing its Falcon heavy launch vehicle, with two commercial flights scheduled for 2015 and 2017. India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has a long track record. India is also developing and has successfully tested a heavy-lift cryogenic engine for its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with the ambition to enter the commercial GEO launch market. Launch demand in the next 10 years is expected to remain robust, with stable or increasing demand from institutional and commercial actors driven primarily by growth in emerging economies.”

The Space Economy at a Glance 2014, OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2014, page 52.

“Space infrastructure is associated with launch vehicles, satellite operations and services, human spaceflight, and other critical functions. Rocket launch attempts, the most publicly visible reminder of space activity, increased in 2014 to 92, up from 81 launch attempts in 2013. The United States and Russia conducted the majority of the launch attempts in 2014, but organizations and countries such as the European Space Agency, China, India, and Japan also successfully launched payloads into orbit. New launch systems continued to be explored in 2014, with one company testing space launch vehicle reusability as a possible way to lower the costs of launch objects into orbit. Other companies focused on suborbital rocket flight, hoping to entice potential passengers into an adventure to the edge of space and back.

The nature and size of rocket payloads, the satellites, are changing. Of the nearly 300 satellites launched in 2014, slightly less than half weighed 10 kilograms (22 pounds) or less. In 2014, a single Russian space launch vehicle launched and deployed a combination of 33 small satellites and cubesats into low Earth orbit. Some of those deployed satellites eventually deployed more satellites into orbit as well. The size and commonality of parts in cubesats is increasingly attracting researchers, small companies, and schools to invest, build, launch, and operate satellites in space. The International Space Station started to become a launch platform itself, deploying small satellites into orbit.”

The Space Report: The Authoritative Guide to Global Space Activity, The Space Foundation, 2015.

As as 2014, the most efficient solar panels were between 40 percent and 44 percent efficient (Sharp, Solar Junction, Spire Semiconductor, Spectrolab, NREL, Fraunhofer). However, those are research products, or are military-grade, intended for use in space, but perhaps only, or primarily, for private contractors (that is, subcontractors of defense contractors in the aerospace or weapons business). At least, that might be a reasonable guess since these products (all multijunction cells) never seem to reach the mass market, despite more than one occasion when a subsidiary company of a parent company (for example, Spectrolab, now owned by Boeing) announces that the product is about to be mass produced, but then it never actually is. In the commodity market (all crystalline silicon cells or, more recently, thin-film cells), 15 percent is still a reasonable efficiency to expect, although 20 percent is becoming more normal than before. When it comes to space, the two most important variables are efficiency and weight-to-power ratio. The ideal is high efficiency and low weight-to-power ratio. The lower the efficiency, the less energy extracted per square meter, and the higher the weight-to-power, the more weight has to be carried up for the same power returned. For satellites, for example, long-life and robustness and low-weight are valuable. The commodity market is earth-based and (so far) is not terribly motivated by such variables, but the military and exploration market is. The solar power panels on the ISS (International Space Station) are currently in the 1 watt per kilogram range, and those on most commercial satellites are limited to the 80-100 watts per kilogram range.

Entech, a NASA spinoff in Texas, has a promising technology, now marketed as SolarVolt, that scores on the low-weight, high-efficiency metrics and that may one day have the advantage of being mass producible. However, even stretched Fresnel lens multijunction panels are bounded to at most 300 watts per kilogram (so about 136 watts per pound). “Low-Cost 20X Silicon-Cell-Based Linear Fresnel Lens Concentrator Panel,” M. O’Neill, A. J. McDanal, D. Spears, C. Stevenson, D. Gelbaum, Seventh International Conference on Concentrating Photovoltaic Systems (CPV-7), Las Vegas, April 2011, pages 120-124. “Space Solar Cells and Arrays,” S. Bailey, R. Raffaelle, in: Solar Cells and Their Applications, Lewis Fraas and Larry Partain (editors), John Wiley, Second Edition, 2010, 397-494. “The Stretched Lens Array SquareRigger (SLASR) for Space Power,” M. F. Piszczor, Jr., M. J. O’Neill, M. I. Eskenazi, H. W. Brandhorst, Jr., 4th International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference (IECEC), San Diego, June 26-29, 2006.

“Although launching satellites appears to be a routine operation to the general public, there are still major risks involved. A branch of the insurance sector specifically covers the commercial space sector’s operations. The main risks covered still tend to be a failure at launch or mechanical troubles for large commercial telecommunications satellites. In addition to launch and deployment failure, space debris and solar storms pose collision and damage risks for satellites. The insured values usually cover the satellite’s replacement costs and/or the resulting business interruption.

In late 2013, there were around 205 insured satellites in orbit, of which 185 were in geo-synchronous orbit (GSO). The total insured value represented about USD 24 billion. Every year, there are on average 70-80 launches worldwide, of which 30-40 are insured, carrying 20-25 GSO satellites and 15-30 low-earth orbit satellites. Average insured value for a satellite in low-earth orbit is approximately USD 40 million with an operational lifespan of five years, while the more costly GSO satellites (USD100-400 million insured value) have an operational life span of about 15 years. A dual launch may be insured for up to USD 750 million. Annual premiums average between USD 750 million and USD 1 billion. The number of satellite failures in a given year has dropped in the last decades, but the average claim per loss has gone up from USD 38 million in the mid-1990s to USD 116 million in 2013, due to the increased size and complexity of telecommunications satellites. For instance, 2013 may be the first money-losing year for the insurance industry since 2007, with reported premiums of USD 775 million and possibly more than USD 800 million in claims.

Commercial suborbital flights and space tourism are not covered by any existing insurance regime. The few paying space tourists to the International Space Station have so far taken out personal accident insurance. As suborbital vehicles transporting paying customers on the edge of space (not entering into a full orbit) are to start operations in 2014-15, insurance issues will need to be addressed.”

The Space Economy at a Glance 2014, OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2014, page 76.

“[...] launch insurance for a satellite may vary from 10%-20% of the satellite value depending in part on the number of recent launch vehicle failures. This would translate to industry-wide costs dedicated to commercial satellite insurance ranging from $5 billion - $10 billion over the next ten years. On average, this is about $3.5 million to $7 million per satellite.” Risk Transfer Modeling among Hierarchically Associated Stakeholders in Development of Space Systems, Thomas Grove Henkle, doctoral thesis, University of Southern California, 2007, page 5.

See also: Communication Satellites, Donald H. Martin, The Aerospace Press, Fourth Edition, 2000. “Cost Drivers — Why Do Conventional Satellites Cost So Much?” C. Elliott, Small Satellites Systems and Services, 4S Symposium, Conference, Arcachon, France, 1992, pages 703-708. “Insurance for Space Systems,” S. Fordyce, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 3(1):211-214, 1985.

Article IV

States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.

The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all States Parties to the Treaty exclusively for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden. The use of military personnel for scientific research or for any other peaceful purposes shall not be prohibited. The use of any equipment or facility necessary for peaceful exploration of the moon and other celestial bodies shall also not be prohibited.

Five other treaties address space issues. These are: the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, which prohibits nuclear tests and any other nuclear explosions in the atmosphere or outer space; the Astronauts Rescue Agreement of 1968, requiring the safe return of astronauts and objects launched into space to their country of origin; the Liability Convention of 1972, establishing procedures for determining the liability of a state that damages or destroys space objects of another state; the Registration Convention of 1976 requiring the registration of objects launched into space; and the Moon Agreement of 1984, which took the first steps to establish a regime for exploiting the natural resources of space.

Laser Weapons in Space: A Critical Assessment, William H. Possel, Lt. Col., USAF, Maxwell Air Force Base, 1998.

In 2010, figures were: On earth, new coal plants might cost around $1 thousand million per gigawatt. Natural gas, $1.2 thousand million. Hydroelectric, $1.3 thousand million. Nuclear, $2 thousand million. (Solar would be $5.1 thousand million—except that none yet exist in the gigawatt range.) Those figures are very approximate. In reality, they vary depending on the plant’s scale, on what technology it uses, on the country it’s sited in, and on overall energy demand. The figures also don’t count various government subsidies (for example, Germany heavily subsidizes solar power plants), nor does it count maintenance costs, various lawsuit costs, taxes, and so on.

The nuclear estimate comes from China’s project of building four of the latest Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors, which produce 1.117 gigawatts, for $8 thousand million U.S. for operation starting in 2013 to 2015.

The coal estimate comes from India’s project of building a 4-gigawatt coal plant for $4 thousand million. It expects to build at least five over five years.

Both China and India’s projects are using the same steam generator technology, supplied by Doosan Heavy Industries and Toshiba.

The hydroelectric estimate comes from China’s Three Gorges Dam project, In 2011 it expected to produce 22.5 gigawatts at a cost of $30 thousand million. It’s using turbines made by a consortium that includes General Electric.

The natural gas estimate comes from the proposed Eastshore Energy Center, in Hayward, California. Originally expected to go onstream in 2009, it application was denied in 2008. It was to produce 115.5 megawatts and cost $140 million.

The photovoltaic power plant estimate comes from the €130 million ($204 million U.S.) cost of the 40-megawatt Waldpolenz project in Germany. In 2007 it was the world’s biggest photovoltaic power plant.

The particular instrument referenced in the text is the new Large Binocular Telescope atop Mount Graham in Arizona. It cost $120 million, but $13 million per year to run. However, as adaptive optics and lucky-imaging techniques spread, all large earth-based telescopes were being upgraded. In 2009, at least ten were about twice as good as Hubble in many wavelengths. Hubble was still useful, however, particularly for deep-field and ultraviolet (and higher) observations. In general, our best telescopes have doubled in size every 30 years over the last century. Science with the VLT in the ELT Era, Alan Moorwood (editor), Springer, 2009. The Universe in a Mirror: The Saga of the Hubble Telescope and the Visionaries Who Built It, Robert Zimmerman, Princeton University Press, 2008. “Is the broken Hubble Telescope worth saving?” C. Moskowitz, USA Today, October 10th, 2008.

In 2010 BP spent over $93 million on advertising alone. Oil companies seem to be presenting one public face but by their (less public) exploration and investment decisions are presenting another face. “BP Tripled Its Ad Budget After Oil Spill,” Wall Street Journal, T. Tracy, September 1st, 2010. “BP to Invest $500 Million on Biofuels at a Research Center,” J. Mouawad, New York Times, June 14th, 2006.

Space robotics is still in the covered-wagon stage, but there have already been a few in-space experiments (Germany’s ROTEX in 1993, Japan’s ETS-VII in 1997, and Germany’s ROKVISS in 2005). “Ground verification of the feasibility of telepresent on-orbit servicing,” E. Stoll, U. Walter, J. Artigas, C. Preusche, P. Kremer, G. Hirzinger, J. Letschnik, H. Pongrac, Journal of Field Robotics, 26(3):287-307, 2009. Advances in Telerobotics, Manuel Ferre, Martin Buss, Rafael Aracil, Claudio Melchiorri, Carlos Balaguer (editors), Springer, 2007. The Moon: Resources, Future Development and Settlement, David Schrunk, Burton Sharpe, Bonnie L. Cooper, Madhu Thangavelu, Springer Praxis, Second Edition, 2007. “Robotics Component Verification on ISS ROKVISS - Preliminary Results for Telepresence,” C. Preusche, D. Reintsema, K. Landzettel, G. Hirzinger, 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 9-15 October, 2006, pages 4595-4601. “Space Robotics—DLR’s Telerobotic Concepts, Lightweight Arms and Articulated Hands,” G. Hirzinger, B. Brunner, K. Landzettel, N. Sporer, J. Butterfaß, M. Schedl, Autonomous Robots, 14(2-3):127-145, 2003.

“[T]he energy cost of going to the Moon is less than a hundred dollars in terms of kilowatt hours of electricity [per human passenger]. The fact that the Apollo round tickets cost about two billion dollars per passenger is a measure of the chemically-fueled rocket’s inefficiency.” From: “2001: The Coming Age of Hydrogen Power,” A. C. Clarke, Infinite Energy Magazine, Issue 22, 1998. The problem is figuring out how to do that.

We have various proposals to reduce launch costs today. One startup, the Space Island Group, has a clever way to reduce costs even if we use today’s launch technology: namely, instead of jettisoning the main fuel tanks once in orbit, outfit those tanks as space habitats. They also propose launching to low-earth orbit, then boosting to high-earth orbit (geostationary orbit) using specialized ion-drive tugs that would remain in orbit. PowerSat Corporation has similar plans. They also plan to split up their powersat into hundreds of micropowersats then gang them together in a phased array. Other companies in this domain include Space Energy, Inc., and Solaren, Inc. NASA is presently studying a plan by Masten Space Systems that argues for smaller but more robust rockets to put fuel stations in orbit and thus reduce costs and risks of later flights. “Depot-Centric Human Spaceflight: Strengthening American Industry, Creating a Robust Beyond-LEO Exploration Program, and Enabling the Commercial Development of Space,” J. Goff, S. Traugott, A. Oesterle, unpublished manuscript, 2009.

There are other, more far-out, ideas: Perhaps we could build cheap and reliable suborbital hypersonic scramjets or rocketplanes. We might also use nukes in orbit-changing spacecraft. Or, one day, we might replace rockets with superconducting mass drivers and free-electron launch lasers. We might even figure out how to build a space elevator. Costs would also lower if we already had moon colonists and got them to build satellite parts. Or if we already had an orbital power satellite. (Its power could reduce the cost of lunar mining and manufacture so the next one would be cheaper.)

For a survey of powersat technology, see: Laying the Foundation for Space Solar Power: An Assessment of NASA’s Space Solar Power Investment Strategy, Committee for the Assessment of NASA’s Space Solar Power Investment Strategy, United States National Research Council, National Academies Press, 2001. Much of scramjet research is classified, so it’s hard to say anything definitive. Here’s a report giving a good overview of what little is known publically: “A Comparison of Propulsion Concepts for SSTO Reusable Launchers,” R. Varvill, A. Bond, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 56(3/4):108-117, 2003. Mass drivers and launch lasers are even more speculative: “Preliminary Feasibility Assessment for Earth-To-Space Electromagnetic (Railgun) Launchers,” E. E. Rice, L. A. Miller, R. W. Earhart, NASA Report Number CR-167886, United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1982. For something a lot more speculative, but even bigger-picture, see: The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps, Marshall T. Savage, Little, Brown, 1994, pages 103-123. The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System, Bradley C. Edwards and Eric A. Westling, BC Edwards, 2003.

In the more immediate future though, the private company, SpaceX, became suborbital on March 21st, 2007. Its rocket then achieved orbit on September 28th, 2008. However, its rocket is not the first privately owned orbital rocket; it’s the first private liquid-fueled rocket to achieve orbit. Orbital Sciences Corporation was the first company to orbit its own (sold-fuel) rocket (in 1990). The private company, Blue Origin, is also developing its own rocket (but for suborbital flight).

We have other possible energy options, too. In the nearer term, we might find more efficient ways to mine oil from shale or oil sands, or from methane clathrates on the ocean floor. Then there’s bioreactors that extract energy from waste. We can also tailor life-forms for use in such bioreactors using artificial evolution. We’ve already evolved bacteria to extract heavy metals and sulfur and nitrogen compounds from coal or oil. “Biochemical technology for the detoxification of geothermal brines and the recovery of trace metals,” E. T. Premuzic, M. S. Lin, H. Lian, in: Heavy Metals in the Environment, Volume 2, R.-D. Wilken, U. Förstner, and A. Knöchel (editors), CEP Consultants Ltd., 1995, pages 321-324. We might, for example, grow hydrothermal bacteria in their normal nutrient bath mixed with small amounts of oil. Then, in stages, grow the survivors with ever higher proportions of oil, until they eat only oil. Then we add coal in the same staged way. We might end with bacteria that can eat coal at high temperatures and pressures.

A similar scheme might make bacteria that could leech oil from shalesands. That might lower the mining price for oil sands and shale oil enough to compete with liquid oil. Or it might even be used to convert our planet’s vast coal reserves into oil. Other research efforts to make genetically modified bacteria (or wholly synthetic cells) that make biofuels (like ethanol) are already underway. We can also make oil—it just costs more than digging it out of the ground. We can thermally depolymerize biomass into light crudes, water, and minerals. We can even grow plants to get fuels like ethanol and biodiesel. We can burn waste to make syngas (which is mostly carbon monoxide and hydrogen), then make diesel fuel from that. A new company, Synthetic Genomics, has gotten funding from ExxonMobil on the hundred-million dollar scale to investigate making biofuels directly from genetically engineered algae. We can also simply burn biomass to make electricity. Plasma processing can convert municipal solid waste (or farm wastes like corn stover or rice straw) into syngas. Then we can steam-reform the syngas to make nearly pure hydrogen.

Hydrogen might be a good byproduct because we could use it to fuel cars and trucks. It’s also clean-burning and can be handled safely. But making it via electrolysis is currently three times more expensive than gasoline, and ten times more expensive than natural gas. Also, converting all our gas stations and cars and trucks and motorbikes to use hydrogen would be costly. Rich countries have a huge investment in cars and trucks powered by petroleum (whether gasoline or diesel). If they do it slowly enough to avoid severe economic disruption, and if they only have today’s science and technology to do it with, it’ll take decades for them to move from gasoline to hydrogen. On the other hand, hydrogen might be an easier choice for industrializing countries like China and India and Brazil. They don’t yet have as many cars per person. Also, new and relatively cheap pebble-bed nuclear reactors make both hydrogen and electricity. So such countries may convert to hydrogen sooner than rich ones.

Making cheap hydrogen might also be useful if we ever decide to do something about climate change. We’ve just recently learned that, unlike animals, a plant’s metabolism is almost solely governed by its nitrogen supply. If we could change that, we could change a lot of things. “Universal scaling of respiratory metabolism, size and nitrogen in plants,” P. B. Reich, M. G. Tjoelker, J.-L. Machado, J. Oleksyn, Nature, 439(7075):457-461, 2006. “Dark respiration rate increases with plant size in saplings of three temperate tree species despite decreasing tissue nitrogen and nonstructural carbohydrates,” J. L. Machado, P. B. Reich, Tree Physiology, 26(7):915-923, 2006.

Henry IV, William Shakespeare, Part I, Act III, Scene I.

In 1884 in the United States, a laborer got about $1 for a day’s work of ten or more hours. A highly skilled artisan might get $2. A well-paid clerk might get $3. In 2008, the United United States minimum hourly wage was $6.55. In 2009, it was $7.25. (In 1938 it was $0.25.) “Federal Minimum Wage Rates under the Fair Labor Standards Act,” United States Department of Labor, 2010.

Over the 15 years from 1995 to 2008, the cost of a pound of aluminum has mostly bounced between 50 cents and $1 U.S. From 2006 to 2007 it was a bit over $1 but never more than $1.50. As of January, 2007, it cost about $1.16 a pound. As of November, 2008, it cost about $1 a pound.

Aluminum makes up 8.2 percent of the earth’s crust. It’s the most abundant metal, and the third most abundant element (after oxygen and silicon), on earth.

Worldwide, from 1884 to today, our yearly aluminum supply rose from around 200 metric tons to around 22 million. About five million of that is recycled. So our species as a whole now has at least 100,000 times as much aluminum as we did before. And we have it at about 1,000th the price. We now make more aluminum than any other metal, save iron. It’s now so plentiful and cheap that we make throw-away cans and tin-foil with it.

That price drop comes through better infrastructure and knowledge. We now know more about the cosmos than we did in 1884. We also now have more tools than in 1884. We have more trained people, and they’re more highly trained. We also have more and bigger and faster and cheaper mines, railways, ships, smelters, and the like. Education, exploration, mining, shipping, and processing costs—they’ve all have fallen for a good chunk of our species. Lastly, though, the price of aluminum has fallen because of our new energy supplies.

Carbon Tracker predicts global demand for fossil fuels to peak in 2023 posing a significant risk to the financial system as trillions of dollars’ worth of oil, coal and gas assets could become worthless. [...]

The dual challenge of an accelerated transition to a decarbonized world without jeopardizing profitability seems insurmountable. As argued above, a key challenge is to attract the capital required to transition a vast, 100,000 TWH industry, which spends $2 trillion per annum. Smaller quantities of capital do not move the needle in this mix. Larger quantities of capital are not going to be available unless they can earn a competitive return. Any decarbonization strategy should be based on firm economic foundations.” From: “The Energy Transition and Oil Companies’ Hard Choices,” R. West, B. Fattouh, Energy Insight: 50, The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, July 2019, pages 1, 3, 4.

See also: Oil Insurance Limited (OIL), a mutual insurance company spread among several major international oil companies, which claims to have over $3 trillion U.S. in assets under insurance.

The Tempest, William Shakespeare, Act V, Scene I.

If we compare the chief trumpeter of the new era (Bacon) with Marlowe’s Faustus, the similarity is striking. You will read in some critics that Faustus has a thirst for knowledge. In reality, he hardly mentions it. It is not truth he wants from the devils, but gold and guns and girls. ‘All things that move between the quiet poles shall be at his command’ and ‘a sound magician is a mighty god’. In the same spirit Bacon condemns those who value knowledge as an end in itself: this, for him, is to use as a mistress for pleasure what ought to be a spouse for fruit. The true object is to extend Man’s power to the performance of all things possible. He rejects magic because it does not work; but his goal is that of the magician.”

The Abolition of Man: Or Reflections on Education With Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools, C. S. Lewis, Macmillian, 1947, page 88.

On the choice of date: Two Saxon Chronicles Parallel with Supplementary Extracts from the Others, A Revised Text, Volume II, Charles Plummer, John Earle, Oxford University Press, 1952, page 62.

“On the seventh of the ides of June [7th June], they reached the church of Lindisfarne, and there they miserably ravaged and pillaged everything; they trod the holy things under their polluted feet, they dug down the altars, and plundered all the treasures of the church. Some of the brethren they slew, some they carried off with them in chains, the greater number they stripped naked, insulted, and cast out of doors, and some they drowned in the sea. Yet this was not unavenged; for God speedily judged them for the injuries which they had inflicted upon St. Cuthbert. In the following year, when they were plundering the port of king Ecgfrid, that is, Jarrow, and the monastery which is situated at the mouth of the river Don, their leader was put to a cruel death; and shortly afterwards their ships were shattered and destroyed by a furious tempest; some of themselves were drowned in the sea, while such of them as succeeded in reaching the land alive speedily perished by the swords of the inhabitants. Although the church of Lindisfarne had been thus ravaged and despoiled of its ecclesiastical ornaments, the episcopal see still continued therein; and as many of the monks as had succeeded in escaping from the hands of the barbarians still continued for a long time to reside near the body of the blessed Cuthbert.”

The Church Historians of England, Volume III, Part II, Historical Works of Simeon of Durham, translated by Joseph Stevenson, Seeleys, 1855, page 652.

“The news of this calamity filled all the nations of the Saxons with shame and sorrow. Lindisfarne had long been to them an object of peculiar respect; and the Northumbrians hesitated not to pronounce it the most venerable of the British churches. Alcuin received the account at the court of Charlemagne, and evinced, by his tears, the sincerity of his grief. ‘The man,’ he exclaimed, ‘who can think of this calamity without being struck with terror, who does not in consequence begin to amend his ways, and who does not cry to God in behalf of his country, has a heart not of flesh but of stone.’ It reminded him of an extraordinary phenomenon, of which he had been an eye-witness during his last visit to England. ‘See,’ he writes to Ethelred, king of Northumbria, ‘the church of St. Cuthbert is sprinkled with the blood of its priests, and robbed of all its ornaments: that place, the most venerable of all places in Britain, has been given in prey to the Gentiles; and where Christianity first took root among us, after the departure of St. Paulinus from York, there hath occurred the first of the calamities which awaited us. What else was portended by that rain of blood which we saw in Lent, at a time when the sky was calm and cloudless, fall from the lofty roof of the northern aisle of the church of St. Peter in York, the capital of the kingdom? Did it not denote that carnage would come upon us, and come from the north?’ He wrote to the monks of Lindisfarne, who had escaped from the swords of the Danes, and asked how it came that St. Cuthbert, and the saints, whose remains were interred within their church, had not preserved it from pollution. Nothing happened by chance. If it was not the first of a long train of evils destined for the whole nation, it must have been meant by God for the punishment of the inhabitants of the island. If then there was any thing sinful in their conduct, let them hasten to correct it. [...]

It was, however, his persuasion that the destruction of Lindisfarne was but ‘the beginning of sorrows:’ that the Danes were destined to act the same part in England, which the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons had formerly performed in Britain.”

The History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church; Containing an Account of its Origin, Government, Doctrines, Worship, Revenues, and Clerical and Monastic Institutions, Volume II, John Lingard, C. Dolman, 1845, pages 221-223.

“Over-cowardly laws and shameful tributes are common among us, understand it who can; and many misfortunes befall this nation over and again. For long now nothing has prospered, within or without, but there has been devastation and persecution in every part, over and again. And for long now the English have been entirely without victory and too much cowed because of the wrath of God, and the pirates so strong with God’s consent, that in battle often one will put to flight ten, and sometimes less sometimes more, all because of our sins. And often ten or twelve, one after the other, will disgracefully insult the thegn’s wife, and sometimes his daughter, or near kinswoman, while he who considered himself proud and powerful and brave enough before that happened, looks on.” Angle-Saxon Prose, Michael Swanton (editor and translator), Everyman, 1993, pages 181-182.

“Base laws and scandalous extortions are common among us, and many mishaps happen to this nation time after time because of the wrath of God, let him acknowledge it who will. This nation has not been successful for a long time either here or abroad, but there has been devastation and hatred in pretty well every district again and again; and now for a long time the English have been utterly defeated and much disheartened because of God’s wrath. And the Vikings have been so powerful with God’s consent that often in battle one of them puts 10 to flight, sometimes more sometimes less, all because of our sins. And often 10 or 12, one after the other, offer disgraceful insult to the wife of a thane, or sometimes his daughter, or close kinswoman, while he looks on—one who considered himself important and powerful and brave enough before that happened.” Vikings: Fear and Faith, Paul Cavill, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001, pages 254-255.

For an annotated version of the original Old English version, see: Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, Dorothy Whitelock (editor), University of Exeter Press, 1977, page 59.

“Charlemagne is notable for his brutality and severity toward those who opposed him. The most obvious example of such brutality is the famous episode at Verden, where Charlemagne responded to the latest Saxon rebellion by having 4500 Saxons beheaded in one day.” Charlemagne’s Practice of Empire, Jennifer R. Davis, Cambridge University Press, 2015, page 157.

“These campaigns of Charlemagne were very bloody. [...] With his large kingdom and well-organized army, Charlemagne was able to inflict much more violence, seize more booty, and demand greater tributes than the Vikings could ever dream of.” The Age of the Vikings, Anders Winroth, Princeton University Press, 2014, pages 57-58.

“Never was there a war more prolonged nor more cruel than this, nor one that required greater efforts on the part of the Frankish peoples. [...] war was declared, and was fought for thirty years continuously with the greatest fierceness on, both sides, but with heavier loss to the Saxons than the Franks.” Early Lives of Charlemagne, Eginhard & the Monk of St. Gall, translated and edited by A. J. Grant, Chatto & Windus, 1922, pages 16-17.

“The nature of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers remains disputed, with arguments in favour and against the existence of warfare before the development of sedentary societies. Here we report on a case of inter-group violence towards a group of hunter-gatherers from Nataruk, west of Lake Turkana, which during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene period extended about 30 km beyond its present-day shore. Ten of the twelve articulated skeletons found at Nataruk show evidence of having died violently at the edge of a lagoon, into which some of the bodies fell. The remains from Nataruk are unique, preserved by the particular conditions of the lagoon with no evidence of deliberate burial. They offer a rare glimpse into the life and death of past foraging people, and evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.” From: “Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya,” M. Mirazón Lahr, F. Rivera, R. K. Power, A. Mounier, B. Copsey, F. Crivellaro, J. E. Edung, J. M. Maillo Fernandez, C. Kiarie, J. Lawrence, A. Leakey, E. Mbua, H. Miller, A. Muigai, D. M. Mukhongo, A. Van Baelen, R. Wood, J.-L. Schwenninger, R. Grün, H. Achyuthan, A. Wilshaw, R. A. Foley, Nature, 529(7586):394-398 2016.

Had this happened in only one place on the planet, it could be attributed to accidents of history plus cross-fertilization of tropes over time. However at the beginning of the Columbian exchange: “What took place in the early 1500s was truly exceptional, something that had never happened before and never will again. Two cultural experiments, running in isolation for 15,000 years or more, at last came face to face. Amazingly, after all that time, each could recognize the other’s institutions. When Cortés landed in Mexico he found roads, canals, cities, palaces, schools, law courts, markets, irrigation works, kings, priests, temples, peasants, artisans, armies, astronomers, merchants, sports, theatre, art, music, and books. High civilization, differing in detail but alike in essentials, had evolved independently on both sides of the earth.” A Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright, House of Anansi Press, 2004.

For a view from anthroplogy, see: “The emergence of status inequality in intermediate scale societies: A demographic and socio-economic history of the Keatley Creek site, British Columbia,” A. M. Prentiss, N. Lyons, L. E. Harris, M. R. P. Burns, T. M. Godin, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 26(2):299-327, 2007.

For a view from political science, see: Prosperity and Violence: The Political Economy of Development, Robert H. Bates, W. W. Norton, 2001.

For a view from economics, see: Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships, Mancur Olson, Basic Books, 2000.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, / Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; / There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, / And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day / I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; / While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, / I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

“The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, Collier Books, 1989.

Of the semantically obvious choices, this word seemed the most euphonious. The possibilities involving Greek roots for ‘self-changing’ or ‘self-evolving’ sound bad. (For example, one possibility for ‘self-evolutionary’ might be ‘autoexelixic.’ However, ‘autoallagic,’ to mean ‘self-changing,’ might be a reasonable possibility.) Another problem was how to keep the distinction between ‘self-assembling’ and ‘self-evolving’ (and later concepts in the book like ‘self-maintaining’) clear to the reader. An ecogenetic network is a self-assembling one, but not necessarily a self-evolving one. It relies on a fixed set of parts that have already evolved and it’s merely ‘choosing’ among various random assortments of them to see which ones ‘fit together.’ (In short, it self-evolves as a network, but its parts themselves don’t need to evolve.)

Botanists and ecologists mostly don’t use the word ‘ecogenesis.’ They do however have several related concepts, principally ‘ecological succession,’ ‘seral succession,’ ‘community assembly,’ ‘pedogenesis,’ and ‘demutation.’ There are also various biome-specific cases, like xerosere, lithosere, and so on. These were either too specific, too technical, or too colorless for a popular science book.

Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice, Vicky M. Temperton, Richard J. Hobbs, Tim Nuttle, and Stefan Halle (editors), Island Press, 2004. A Theory of Forest Dynamics: The Ecological Implications of Forest Succession Models, Herman H. Shugart, Blackburn Press, 2003. Ecological Assembly Rules: Perspectives, Advances, Retreats, Evan Weiher and Paul Keddy (editors), Cambridge University Press, 2001. Plant Succession: Theory and Prediction, David C. Glenn-Lewin, Robert K. Peet, and Thomas T. Veblen (editors), Springer, 1992. “A study of the ecology of pioneer lichens, mosses, and algae on recent Hawaiian lava flows,” T. A. Jackson, Pacific Science, 25(1):22-32, 1971.

The idea of succession is old in some ways, young in others. Early forms of it trace back to Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle. “Ecology today: Beyonds the Bounds of Science,” Nature and Resources, 35(2):38-50, 1999. Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century, Clarence J. Glacken, University of California Press, 1976, pages 129-130.

“Castelas he let wyrcean, / 7 earme men swiðe swencean. / Se cyng wæs swa swiðe stearc, / 7 benam of his underþeoddan manig marc / goldes 7 ma hundred punda seolfres.”

[He had castles built / and poor men terribly oppressed. / The king was very severe, / and he took from his underlings many marks / of gold and hundreds of pounds of silver. ]

Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language, Seth Lerer, Columbia University Press, 2007, page 43.

About a century later, three nobodies—one of them a gardener’s slave and another a barber—resolved to kill somebody important—a temple official. After the murder, they told Nin-dada, the victim’s wife, but she kept silent. Later, the facts came out and all four went on trial. In today’s terms, everyone agreed that Nin-dada was an accessory, but was she also an accomplice? Argument followed, then the verdict: All four were guilty. All four were killed. It was the law. The Ancient Mesopotamian City, Marc Van de Mieroop, Oxford University Press, 1999, page 122. History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History, Samuel Noah Kramer, University of Pennsylvania Press, Third Edition, 1981, pages 56-59.

[The Vita Lebuini antiqua had this to say: Regem antiqui Saxones non habebant, sed per pagos satrapas constitutos; morisque erat, ut semel in anno generale consilium agerent in media Saxonia iuxta fluvium Wisuram ad locum qui dicitur Marklo. Solebant ibi unam in omnes satrapæ convenire ex pagis, ex pagis quoque singulis duodecim electi nobiles totidemque liberi totidemque lati. Renovabant ibi leges, praecipuas causas adiudicabant et, quid per annum essent acturi sive in bello sive in pace, communi consilio statuebant.]

“In Hucbald’s ‘Life of St. Lebuinus,’ written between 918 and 976, we have some curious details of the Saxons. He also tells us they were divided into three classes: edlingi (nobiles), frilingi (ingenuiles), andlassi (serviles). This information he probably derived from Nithard. He tells us further that each pagus was governed by its own chief. At a certain time in each year there were elected from these pagi, and also from the three orders, twelve men who assembled together at a place near the Weser, called Marklo (which is identified by the editor with Markenah in the district of Hoya near the Heiligen loh, i.e., the sacred wood) and Adelshorn. There they discussed the public weal according to the prescribed rules. One of these councils, as I have said, was attended by Lebuinus (Pertz, ii, 361 and 362.)” From: “The Ethnology of Germany: Part IV, The Saxons of Nether Saxony, Section II,” H. H. Howarth, The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 9:406-436, 1880.

See also: Formation and Resolution of Ideological Contrast in the Early History of Scandinavia, Carl Edlund Anderson, doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 1999, chapter 2. “The Missionaries: The First Contact between Paganism and Christianity,” M. De Reu, in: The Pagan Middle Ages, Ludovicus Milis (editor), Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 1998, pages 13-38, especially pages 17-20. “The Early History of the Saxons as a Field for the Study of German Social Origins,” J. W. Thompson, American Journal of Sociology, 31(5):601-616, 1926.

Being barred from participation in kviðir had serious repercussions. It meant that a woman, even when acting as the head of a household, had fewer formal rights than hired workmen. Even men who owned no land could serve on a panel: the requirements for a male to participate in kviðir were a minimum age of twelve years and an ability to earn his own keep. Probably women were also barred from serving as witnesses in court, because almost all the discussions in Grágás concerning the eligibility of witnesses turn on descriptions of freemen (karlar). Women were not allowed to participate personally in prosecutions for manslaughter (vígsök), yet when wronged a woman could legally claim the right to prosecution. The sources are in general agreement that if a woman was an aggrieved party and owned a right of prosecution, she was to put her claim into the hands of a man. Women could also pursue their desires for vengeance by pushing their male kinfolk into action or by restraining them. The same was true in the case of a defence. Whatever the initial purpose of such regulations, they distanced women from a good deal of violence as prosecutions moved through stages of threat and sometimes force. Shielding women meant removing them completely from armed political life, and in Grágás women are barred from carrying weapons.”

Viking Age Iceland, Jesse Byock, Penguin, 2001, pages 316-317.

Northern Europe’s trade was low, too. For one thing, the Catholic Church, threatened by Islam’s expansion, had banned contact with Muslims. That had different outcomes for different parts of Europe. Merchants in Venice and Genoa simply ignored the ban. Other parts of southern Europe only half-ignored it. Merchants there still traded with Muslims, but then paid up to a quarter of their profits to the Church to buy penance for their sin. Southeastern Europeans (mostly the Byzantines, the last survivors of the Roman empire) traded in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. They ignored Rome—just as Rome ignored them. Northern Europeans though were too far from either the Mediterranean or the Black Sea. Besides, they didn’t have much to trade that anyone wanted—except slaves and furs. Instead of trade, they had Vikings.

As climate warmed in the 800s and 900s (the Medieval Warm Period), Norse longships had appeared in the newly ice-free north seas. They sailed south to harry coasts and rivers in today’s Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, and Lithuania. They both traded and raided. In some cases, they even settled. In England, for example, they pushed the Saxons into the south and west. Centuries before, the Saxons had conquered their way into England the same way. The Norse were just another instance of the same ecogenetic process. Nor were the Saxons strangers to slavery either. Like the Norse, they were too poor to have jails, so they enslaved each other for some crimes—incest, for instance. Or they enslaved for debt, or after wars among themselves or with the Celts (who had invaded centuries before them). Or they did it just for fun.

“It is shaming to talk about what has occurred far too widely, and terrible to know what far too many people do who practise the crime: these people club together and buy a woman for themselves out of the common fund, and one after the other, practise disgusting sin with that one woman, taking turns like dogs, disregarding the filth. And then for the right price they sell God’s creature, the purchase which he bought so dearly, out of the country into the hands of enemies. We also know well enough where the crime has been committed that a father sold his son for a price into the hands of strangers, and a son his mother, and a brother his brother.” Vikings: Fear and Faith, Paul Cavill, HarperCollinsPublishers, 2001, page 254. At the time, Bristol was a major slave port. Dublin was the largest slave market in western Europe.

The Norse also colonized Iceland by 870, then Greenland by 986, then pushed all the way to ‘Vinland’ by 1002, five centuries before Columbus. They were traders as well as raiders. In fact, often they raided one place on the coast and sold the proceeds further down the same coast.

Writing in 922, an Arab diplomat tells us of other Scandinavians, perhaps Swedish traders (but they might also have been Slavs), on the banks of the Volga in what would one day become Russia: “They arrive from their territory and moor their boats by the Ātil (a large river), building on its banks large wooden houses. They gather in the one house in their tens and twenties, sometimes more, sometimes less. Each of them has a couch on which he sits. They are accompanied by beautiful slave girls for trading. One man will have intercourse with his slave-girl while his companion looks on. Sometimes a group of them comes together to do this, each in front of the other. Sometimes indeed the merchant will come in to buy a slave-girl from one of them and he will chance upon him having intercourse with her, but [he] will not leave her alone until he has satisfied his urge.” From: “Ibn Faḍlān and the Rūsiyyah,” J. E. Montgomery. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, 3(1):1-25, 2000.

Malmesbury also wrote: “When he [Godwin] was a young man he had Canute’s sister to wife, by whom he had a son, who in his early youth, while proudly curveting on a horse which his grandfather had given him, was carried into the Thames, and perished in the stream; his mother, too, paid the penalty of her cruelty; being killed by a stroke of lightning. For it is reported, that she was in the habit of purchasing companies of slaves in England, and sending them into Denmark; more especially girls, whose beauty and age rendered them more valuable, that she might accumulate money by this horrid traffic. ” Chronicle of the Kings of England, From the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen, 1065: Book II, William of Malmesbury, translated by J. A. Giles, Henry G. Bohn, 1847, page 222.

Of course, the Catholic Church had a problem with that. But the problem wasn’t slavery. Churchmen owned slaves just like anyone else with two shillings to rub together. The problem wasn’t Christian slaves, either. By the eleventh century, much of Europe was Christian. The problem was selling Christian slaves to non-Christians overseas. Two centuries later, Thomas Aquinas debated whether male slaves could become clerics (nope), whether their kids were slaves (yep), and so on. He argued that “offspring follow the womb.” So slave mother, slave child, even if the father were free.

“Of the Impediment of the Condition of Slavery,” Supplement, Question 39, Article 3, Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas, Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Benziger Bros. Edition, 1947.

Writing in 1273, Aquinas had much to say about slavery. See, for example, Question 52, 57, and 65. Some apologists have chosen to muddy Aquinas’ relatively clear pronouncements on slavery by claiming that he didn’t mean slavery as the Greeks did. Naturally that must be so, but to Aquinas slaves were still chattel. They weren’t merely servants who were only a little unfree. For example: “Adultery, however, and inducing a slave to leave his master are properly injuries against the person; yet the latter, since a slave is his master’s chattel, is referred to [as] theft.” Supplement, Question 67, Article 3. That’s pretty explicit.

Further, Cordoba was linked by trade and post to other great centers of learning. For example, in 1004 the library at Cairo, Dar al-Hikma, was public and was said to house 1.6 million books. The Story of Libraries: From the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age, Fred Lerner, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2001, pages 71-72. The Medieval Library, James W. Thompson, Hafner, Reprint Edition, 1957, pages 348-350.

As a general rule, Muslim treatment of colonized Christians was less harsh than Christian treatment of colonized Muslims, but that doesn’t make either treatment even close to mild. Muslim tolerance certainly broke down in the 1100s and 1200s. The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam, Bat Ye’or and David Maisel, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Revised Edition, 1985.

The text narrative is partly made-up (especially his early trading activity) since we don’t know much about his early life, but the details and the settings are real. Words for occupations present special problems. For example, the text uses ‘earthling’ (yrðlicg) over the more usual gebúr (from which descends ‘boor’) as the more colorful word. (In any case, a gebúr was likely richer than Godric’s parents were, but they might have been either cottars or geneats, or any gradation in between; we really don’t know.)

Here are the Old English names and today’s English cognates used in this section: Engla-lond - England; earthling - farmer; thane - baron; thorp - hamlet; widuwe - widow; madm - palfrey, that is, a placid horse; webbestre - web-maker, that is, weaver; isenwyrhta - iron-worker, that is, blacksmith; gleeman - minstrel and storyteller; scop - poet and storyteller; chapman - merchant; gemot - law court.

Here is an extract from Reginald of Durham’s writings on Godric:

“[I]n his beginnings, he was wont to wander with small wares around the villages and farmsteads of his own neighborhood; but, in process of time, he gradually associated himself by compact with city merchants. Hence, within a brief space of time, the youth who had trudged for many weary hours from village to village, from farm to farm, did so profit by his increase of age and wisdom as to travel with associates of his own age through towns and boroughs, fortresses and cities, to fairs and to all the various booths of the market-place, in pursuit of his public chaffer. [...]

At first, he lived as a chapman for four years in Lincolnshire, going on foot and carrying the smallest wares; then he travelled abroad, first to St. Andrews in Scotland and then for the first time to Rome. On his return, having formed a familiar friendship with certain other young men who were eager for merchandise, he began to launch upon bolder courses, and to coast frequently by sea to the foreign lands that lay around him. Thus, sailing often to and fro between Scotland and Britain, he traded in many divers wares and, amid these occupations, learned much worldly wisdom. [...]

[A]t length his great labours and cares bore much fruit of worldly gain. For he laboured not only as a merchant but also as a shipman... to Denmark and Flanders and Scotland; in all which lands he found certain rare, and therefore more precious, wares, which he carried to other parts wherein he knew them to be least familiar, and coveted by the inhabitants beyond the price of gold itself; wherefore he exchanged these wares for others coveted by men of other lands; and thus he chaffered [haggled] most freely and assiduously. Hence he made great profit in all his bargains, and gathered much wealth in the sweat of his brow; for he sold dear in one place the wares which he had bought elsewhere at a small price.

Then he purchased the half of a merchant-ship with certain of his partners in the trade; and again by his prudence he bought the fourth part of another ship. At length, by his skill in navigation, wherein he excelled all his fellows, he earned promotion to the post of steersman.” From: “A Merchant Adventurer,” in: Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation, G. G. Coulton (editor and translator), Cambridge University Press, 1918, pages 415-420. Also see: Medieval Panorama: The English Scene from Conquest to Reformation, G. G. Coulton, Cambridge University Press, 1938, pages 317-320.

See also: “The Benedictines, the Cistercians and the acquisition of a hermitage in twelfth-century Durham,” T. Licence, Journal of Medieval History, 29(4):315-329, 2003. “Durham Priory and its Hermits in the Twelfth Century,” V. Tudor, in: Anglo-Norman Durham, David Rollason, Margaret Harvey, and Michael Prestwich (editors), Boydell & Brewer, 1998, pages 67-79. St Cuthbert and the Normans: The Church of Durham, 1071-1153, William M. Aird, Boydell & Brewer, 1998. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307, M. T. Clanchy, Wiley-Blackwell, Second Edition, 1993, pages 238-240. “Literate and Illiterate; Hearing and Seeing: England 1066-1307,” M. T. Clanchy, in: Literacy and Social Development in the West: A Reader, Harvey J. Graff (editor), Cambridge University Press, 1981, pages 14-45. The Hermits, Charles Kingsley, Macmillan, 1913, pages 309-328. Roger of Wendover’s Flowers of History, Comprising the History of England from the Descent of the Saxons to A.D. 1235. Formerly Ascribed to Matthew Paris, Volume II, translated by J. A. Giles, Henry G. Bohn, 1849.

Godric also had a younger brother and sister. “Pater sancti hujus viri dictus est Ailwardus, mater vero Edwenna, fortuna quidem et divitiis tenues, sed justitia et virtutibus abundantes. Qui de Nordfolca nati sunt, et in villa quæ dicitur Wallepol, diutissime conversati. Recti et innocentes, et coram Deo simpliciter ambulantes. Hi cum sobolem non haberent, devotis precibus adorabant, ut prolem ad Dei cultum idoneam generarent. Concepit igitur mulier, et peperit filium, qui dictus ex patrini sui appellatione Godricus, quod interpretatur, ‘Bonum Regnum’ sive ‘Dei Regnum.’ Deinde post aliquot annos nati sunt eis filius et filia, quorum alter Willielmus, altera Burgwenna est appellata.” Libellus de Vita et Miraculis S. Godrici, Heremitæ de Finchale, Reginaldo Monacho Dunelmensi (Reginald of Durham), Joseph Stevenson (editor), Surtees Society, S. & J. Bentley, Wilson, and Fley, 1847, page 24.

On the other hand, buyers can sometimes have the upper hand as well. For example, when a multinational goes looking for a city to build a shopping center in, many cities want the increased development, so the corporation can cherry-pick to find the best deal. Publishers versus authors, commodity brokers versus farmers, insurance companies versus homeowners, multinationals versus cities, rich nations versus poor ones, often the usual simplifying neoclassical economics assumptions that there is perfect symmetry, perfect competition, and perfect knowledge on all sides is false.

Of course, economists know all that, but lacking more detailed yet still mathematically tractable models, neoclassical economics seems to be the best we can do at present.

“Commerce, as we have said before, is the increasing of capital by buying goods and attempting to sell them at a price higher than their cost. This is done either by waiting for a rise in the market price; or by transporting the goods to another place where they are more keenly demanded and therefore fetch a higher price; or, lastly, by selling them on a long-term credit basis. Commercial profit is small, relatively to the capital invested, but if the capital is large, even a low rate of profit will produce a large total gain.

In order to achieve this increase in capital, it is necessary to have enough initial capital to pay in cash the sellers from whom one buys goods; it is also necessary to sell for cash, as honesty is not widespread among people. This dishonesty leads on the one hand to fraud and the adulteration of goods, and on the other to delays in payment which diminish profits because capital remains idle during the interval. It also induces buyers to repudiate their debts, a practice which is very injurious to the merchant’s capital unless he can produce documentary evidence or the testimony of eyewitness. Nor are magistrates of much help in such cases, because they necessarily judge on evident proofs.

As a result of all this, the trader can only secure his meager profits by dint of much effort and toil, or indeed he may well lose not only profits but capital as well. Hence, if he is known to be bold in entering law suits, careful in keeping accounts, stubborn in defending his point of view, firm in his attitude towards magistrates, he stands a good chance of getting his due. Should he not have these qualities, his only chance is to secure the support of a highly placed protector who will awe his debtors into paying him in the first case, and by compulsion in the second. Should a person, however, be lacking in boldness and the spirit of enterprise and at the same time have no protector to back him up, he had better avoid trade altogether, as he risks losing his capital and becoming the prey of other merchants. The fact of the matter is that most people, especially the mob and the trading classes, covet the goods of others; and but for the restraint imposed by the magistrates all goods would have been taken away from their owners [...]

The manners of tradesmen are inferior to those of rulers, and far removed from manliness and uprightness. We have already stated that traders must buy and sell and seek profits. This necessitates flattery, and evasiveness, litigation and disputation, all of which are characteristic of this profession. [...]

As for Trade, although it be a natural means of livelihood, yet most of the methods it employs are tricks aimed at making a profit by securing the difference between the buying and selling prices, and by appropriating the surplus. This is why [religious] Law allows the use of such methods, which, although they come under the heading of gambling, yet do not constitute the taking without return of other people’s goods.”

An Arab Philosophy of History: Selections from the Prolegomena of Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406), Charles Issawi (editor and translator), John Murray, 1950, Darwin Press, 1987, pages 68-70. See also: World History in Documents: A Comparative Reader, Peter Stearns (editor), New York University Press, 2008, Chapter 12.

We all need help, just as Virgil appeals to his Muses, saying: Non omnia possumus omnes [facere]. [We can’t all all things do.] [Or: We can’t all do everything.] [Or, to transliterate: Not all we can all things [do].] Eclogues, Book VIII, line 63.

A more comprehensive, but less likely, figure than seven miles a day might be 12 miles (about 20 kilometers), since 25 miles (about 40 kilometers) is about as far as a fit person can walk in a day, but that assumes no stopover at the destination and no heavy luggage. Also, high speed used to be about 90 miles (about 140 kilometers) a day—and that was only for the few and expensive couriers—the king’s, or those of a rich banking family like the Fuggers or the Medicis—traveling fairly short distances on safe and well-maintained roads in good weather with fit horses and changing horses on each leg of their journey. Pony Express riders in the United States in 1860-1861 averaged about 75 miles (120 kilometers) a day. Although in the 1200s, with numerous horses and riders, Genghis Khan’s messages often covered 180 miles (290 kilometers) a day across the steppes of Central Asia, and by the time of his grandson, Khubilai Khan, messages could cover 300 miles (480 kilometers) per day in emergencies. The Travels of Marco Polo, translated by William Marsden, edited by Thomas Wright, Orion Press, 1958.

However, it wasn’t until the 1500s and the enormous inflation and price differentials brought about by Europe’s conquest of the Americas that Europe began to develop a more sophisticated price theory. Diego de Covarrubias y Leiva, soon to be Archbishop of Santo Domingo, put it into words in 1554: “The value of an article does not depend on its essential nature but on the estimation of men, even if that estimation be foolish. Thus in the Indies, wheat is dearer than in Spain because men esteem it more highly, though the nature of the wheat is the same in both places.” The School of Salamanca: Readings in Spanish Monetary Theory 1544-1605, Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, Clarendon Press, 1952, page 48.

Homer’s presentation of trading is decidedly negative, but then he, most likely, was orating before audiences, many of whom were Greek traders, so this required walking something of a fine line. With but one exception, the poem looks down on the Phoenicians as ‘greedy’ and ‘deceptive’ and ‘untrustworthy,’ but then, in this era, the Greeks were upstarts, competing with them. The Raft of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Imagination of Homer’s Odyssey, Carol Dougherty, Oxford University Press, 2001, Chapter 5, especially pages 117-121.

See also: Warriors Into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece, David W. Tandy, University of California Press, 1997, Chapter 3, especially pages 72-75.

The time period coincides with the Viking incursions into the rest of Europe. So perhaps the Vikings were marauding then because of northern Europe’s warming climate. Maybe that warming kept the north seas ice-free all year round, but it also changed northern Europe’s farming.

However, recent work suggests that the Little Ice Age may be a statistical artifact of the smoothing effect of taking a moving average of a random process. “Change Points and Temporal Dependence in Reconstructions of Annual Temperature: Did Europe Experience a Little Ice Age?” M. Kelly, C. Ó. Gráda, Annals of Applied Statistics, 8(3):1372-1394, 2014. “The Waning of the Little Ice Age,” M. Kelly, C. Ó. Gráda, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 44(2):301-325, 2013.

With Europe’s new books, weather, currency, tools, food, numbers—and safety—machinery grew. Europe began to put the old Roman waterwheel to new uses—running furnaces and forges, beating textile fibers, fulling cloth, making beer and wine and glass. It even had a few windmills already in use (in Normandy and England). Towns grew. So did trade. Fat new ships plied fat new trade routes. New roads and bridges appeared. And in rich monasteries like Canterbury, huge new Gothic cathedrals soared. Europe began to phase change into industry. But it wasn’t industry based on the steam engine—that was five centuries into the future. It was based on the waterwheel.

Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies, HarperCollins, 1996. The Maze of Ingenuity: Ideas and Idealism in the Development of Technology, Arnold Pacey, Second Edition, The MIT press, 1992. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, Jean Gimpel, Penguin, 1976.

For example, according to the following main source (see Table 1, page 7), petrol consumption in Greater London in 2000 was 1,505,000 tonnes (that is, metric tons, and 1 gallon = ~0.002791 metric tons, so that’s about 539,233,249.731279 gallons per year, or about ~1,477,351.37 gallons per day).

City Limits: A Resource Flow and Ecological Footprint Analysis of Greater London, Best Foot Forward Limited, 2002.

For explanations about why so many figures are missing or proxied, and for warnings about using the above booklet as a basis for policy, see: London’s Ecological Footprint: A review, Greater London Authority, June 2003.

See also data from other reports that gave such data without citation. Monthly Digest of Statistics, Office of National Statistics, July 2009. Britain from Above, Ian Harrison and Andrew Marr, (a BBC documentary that aired in August, 2008), Pavilion, 2008. Focus on London 2007, Office of National Statistics, 2007. The Urban Environment, Twenty-Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, The Stationery Office, 2007. Drought in London, July 2006, Health and Public Services Committee, London Assembly, 2006. The London Plan: Spatial Development Strategy for Greater London, Greater London Authority, 2004. Access to Primary Care, A Joint London Assembly and Mayor of London Scrutiny Report, The Access to Primary Care Advisory Committee, 2003. Planning for London’s Growth, Greater London Authority, 2002. 1992-2002 Annual Abstract of Statistics, Bank of England, 2002.

For lack of London-specific data in some areas, the text proxies it based on total British figures (for example, for the number of British Telecom phone calls per hour, or the cash flow per day, or the M0 of the Bank of England) then divides that by the ratio of London’s population to Britain’s total population. That is almost surely a serious underestimate of the actual figures since London is richer and denser and more business-oriented than most of the rest of Britain.

Finally, the figures are for a spread of dates over about a decade, roughly from 1997 to 2008.

“Flows of capital, labour, technology and information have supported the growth of world trade from US$579 billion in 1980 to US$6.272 trillion in 2004, an increase of 11 times. Trade in goods has become an increasing share of the GDPs of national economies, rising from 32.5 per cent in 1990 to 40 per cent in 2001.... the location of infrastructure investment is an important determinant in the quality of housing, education and other services. A study of infrastructure investment in Buenos Aires from 1991 to 1997 concluded that 11.5 per cent of the population received 68 per cent of investment, leading to the observation that the city is, in fact, five cities, each with different levels and quality of infrastructure and public services.” State of the World’s Cities 2004/5, Globalization and Urban Culture, UN-Habitat (The United Nations Human Settlement Programme), 2004.

Of course, no city can get arbitrarily rich. Suppose a crazy billionaire comes to a city to start a company and decides to pay every new hire a million dollars a month. What would happen? The cost of high-end housing would jump to about half a million dollars a month. The cost of exotic food, of, um, entertainment, of expensive transport would jump (or imports of them would jump), and so on. Rents for everything would jump. The city as a whole would get richer, but the cost of living there would also rise. We know this because that’s just what has happened time after time, whenever there was a gold rush, silver strike, oil boom, or anything like that, anywhere and anywhen. The crazy billionaire would just be yet another gold mine.

Urbanization data is imprecise because the definition of ‘urban’ varies from place to place. However, in 2010 in the Americas and the Caribbean, about 80 percent of us were urban. In Oceania and Europe, about 70 percent of us were. In Asia and Africa, about 40 percent, and rising, of us were. (More precisely: Africa - 40 percent; Asia - 42.2 percent; Oceania - 70.2 percent; Europe - 72.8 percent; Latin America and the Caribbean - 79.6; Northern America - 82.1 percent.)

State of World Population 2011: People and Possibilities in a World of 7 Billion, United Nations Population Fund, 2011, pages 2-3. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2009 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2010.

Nor is that because we spawned more in cities than in the countryside. We’re fleeing the countryside. From 1950 to 2009, our numbers rose 2.7-fold while our urban numbers rose 4.7-fold. Since 1960, over 40 percent of our urban growth has not been because of rising urban birth rates but via rural flight to urban areas. “People Who Move: New Reproductive Health Focus,” R. Gardner, R. Blackburn, Population Reports, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Population Information Program, 24(3):1-27, 1996. “Fertility and Family Planning in African Cities: The Impact of Female Migration,” M. Brockerhoff, Journal of Biosocial Science, 27(3):347-358, 1995.

Kenya area - 580,367 square kilometres (224,081 square miles). Kenya - 1999 - 28,686,607. The Kenya population figures for 1999 are from: Kenya Census 2009, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 2010. “Kenya: Provinces, Counties, Cities, Towns, Urban Centers — Population Statistics in Maps and Charts.” Citypopulation.de.

Population of Mongolia and Ulaanbaatar: Mongolia - 2009 - 2,671 (thousands). Overall urban - 61.5 percent. And 57.7 percent were in Ulaanbaatar alone. Ulaanbaatar - 2009 - 966 (thousands) (38.1 percent). Mongolia area - 1,564,110 square kilometres (603,910 square miles). World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2008, Table A.1, page 33, Table A.2, page 26, Table A.16, page 42.

Since the figures are guesstimates, for contrasting views, see also: Size of eleventh-century Baghdad: World Cities: -3000 to 2000, George Modelski, Faros, 2003. Size of seventeenth-century Edo (today’s Tokyo): The Origins of Japanese Trade Supremacy: Development and Technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War, Christopher Howe, Hurst, 1996, page 55. Size of eighth-century Chang’an (today’s Xi’an): Encyclopedia of Asian History, Volume I, Ainslee T. Embree, Robin J. Lewis, Richard W. Bulliet, Edward L. Farmer, Marius B. Jansen, David S. Lelyveld, and David K. Wyatt (editors), Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988, page 320.

Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region home to about 120 million in 2008: State of the World’s Cities 2008/2009: Harmonious Cities, UN-Habitat (The United Nations Human Settlement Programme), 2008.

Like everyone, Einstein, while a genius, had a life, an education, and collaborators. For instance, without Hermann Minkowski, he would have had trouble developing the math behind his general theory of relativity. Without Max Planck and Neils Bohr, he couldn’t have been as productive in quantum theory, without Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen he wouldn’t have been as productive on quantum information theory and possible wormholes, and so on. Then there were all the people before him who created the fields he drew on, like Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Mach, and Lorentz. Subtle is the Lord: The science and the life of Albert Einstein, Abraham Pais, Oxford University Press, 2005.

“Similar increases apply to almost every socioeconomic quantity, from innovation rates and rhythms of human behavior to incidence of crime and infectious diseases. They express a continuous and systematic acceleration of socioeconomic processes with increasing numbers of people, so that larger cities produce and spend wealth faster, create new ideas more frequently and suffer from greater incidence of crime all approximately to the same degree.” From: “Urban Scaling and Its Deviations: Revealing the Structure of Wealth, Innovation and Crime across Cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, D. Strumsky, G. B. West, PLoS ONE, 5(11):e13541, 2010.

See also: “The Self Similarity of Human Social Organization and Dynamics in Cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, G. B. West, and “Innovation Cycles and Urban Dynamics,” D. Pumain, F. Paulus, C. Vacchiani-Marcuzzo, in: Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change, David Lane, Sander Ernst Van Der Leeuw, Denise Pumain, and Geoffrey West (editors), Springer, 2009, pages 221-236 and 237-262. “The Size, Scale, and Shape of Cities,” M. Batty, Science, 319(5864):769-771, 2008. “Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, D. Helbing, C. Kühnert, G. B. West, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(17):7301-7306, 2007. “Urban Land Area and Population Growth: A New Scaling Relationship for Metropolitan Expansion,” J. D. Marshall, Urban Studies, 44(10):1889-1904, 2007.

See also: Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, Edward Glaeser, Penguin, 2011. Cities Transformed: Demographic Change and its Implications in the Developing World, National Research Council, National Academies Press, 2003.

The distribution of the firm sizes also follows Zipf’s law. “Zipf Distribution of U.S. Firm Sizes,” Science, 293(5536):1818-1820, 2001.

National incomes also obey a power law: “Power Law Scaling in the World Income Distribution,” C. Di Guilmi, E. Gaffeo, M. Gallegati, Economics Bulletin, 15(6):1-7, 2003. In the paper, ‘middle-income’ means countries with GDP between the 30th and the 85th percentiles. That is, all countries but the very richest (which mostly means North America, Japan, and Europe) and very poorest (which mostly means African countries).

There’s a related scaling result, called Kleiber’s law, when it comes to living organisms, but it was recently shown, after almost 80 years, to be in doubt. It predicted a power law with an exponent of about 3/4 for homeotherms (like mammals and birds) but the exponent may be closer to 2/3rds. This has led to a fair amount of feather-ruffling among theorists. But whatever the real exponent, it’s still a power law. “Optimal Form of Branching Supply and Collection Networks,” P. S. Dodds, Physical Review Letters, 104(4):048702, 2010.

For a more general result (perhaps applicable to anything with a metabolism, which might be said to include nations, cities, firms, and such), see: “The Self Similarity of Human Social Organization and Dynamics in Cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, G. B. West, in: Complexity Perspectives in Innovation and Social Change, David Lane, Sander Ernst Van Der Leeuw, Denise Pumain, and Geoffrey West (editors), Springer, 2009, pages 221-236. “Sizing Up Allometric Scaling Theory,” V. M. Savage, E. J. Deeds, W. Fontana, PLoS Computational Biology, 4(9):e1000171, 2008. “Growth, innovation, and the pace of life in cities,” L. M. A. Bettencourt, J. Lobo, D. Helbing, C. Kühnert, G. B. West, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(17):7301-7306, 2007.

The key conjecture is the following from the original paper: “We conjecture that organisms have been selected to maximize fitness by maximizing metabolic capacity, namely, the rate at which energy and material resources are taken up from the environment and allocated to some combination of survival and reproduction. This is equivalent to maximizing the scaling of whole-organism metabolic rate, B. It follows that B is limited by the geometry and scaling behavior of the total effective surface area, a, across which nutrients and energy are exchanged with the external or internal environment. Examples include the total leaf area of plants, the area of absorptive gut or capillary surface area of animals, and the total area of mitochondrial inner membranes within cells.” From: “The Fourth Dimension of Life: Fractal Geometry and Allometric Scaling of Organisms,” G. B. West, J. H. Brown, B. J. Enquist, Science, 284(5420):1677-1679, 1999.

But before rushing off into la-la land, scientists need to be cautious. Ecology as a whole might be moving toward a unifying theory, the so-called metabolic theory of ecology. The idea is to try to establish that metabolism is to ecology roughly as genetics is to evolution. This has potential, but also potential pitfalls. “Testing the metabolic theory of ecology,” C. A. Price, J. S. Weitz, V. M. Savage, J. Stegen, A. Clarke, D. A. Coomes, P. S. Dodds, R. S. Etienne, A. J. Kerkhoff, K. McCulloh, K. J. Niklas, H. Olff, N. G. Swenson, J. Chave, Ecology Letters, 15(12):1465-1474, 2012. “Testing the Metabolic Theory of Ecology: Allometric Scaling Exponents in Mammals,” R. P. Duncan, D. M. Forsyth, J. Hone, Ecology, 88(2):324-333, 2007. “Allometric scaling laws of metabolism,” J. K. Leal da Silva, G. J. M. Garcia, L. A. Barbosa, Physics of Life Reviews, 3(4):229-261, 2006. “The origin of allometric scaling laws in biology from genomes to ecosystems: towards a quantitative unifying theory of biological structure and organization,” G. B. West, J. H. Brown, Journal of Experimental Biology, 208(9):1575-1592, 2005. “Ecology’s Big, Hot Idea,” J. Whitfield, PLoS Biology, 2(12):e440, 2004. “A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology,” G. B. West, J. H. Brown, B. J. Enquist, Science, 276(5309):122-126, 1997.

Lawyers and judges also matter. So does road congestion and external trade. Smog, schools, jobs, all matter too. Many other factors—rivers, available land area, the cost and tensile strength of steel and concrete, and so on—all matter. And they all interact. Plus, we can always argue about definitions and the various purely political ways that a city can grow (for instance, by annexation). But despite all our urban planning, our mayors, our city councils, our earnest debates, our cities grow more like unruly ecosystems than like anything planned. The same is true of our other corporate bodies—our neighborhoods, universities, countries, regions, firms, institutions, governments, markets. They all grow or shrink ecogenetically. As new tools or new lives enter them, they act like ecosystems with new species invading.

Although the overall percentage of land being used by cities and industry is tiny compared to farm use, cities grow where we first settled, which originally meant the most arable land. So although cities consume far less land than farms, they still cover a significant fraction of arable farmland. How much exactly is unknown. “Assessing the Impact of Urban Sprawl on Soil Resources in the United States Using Nighttime ‘City Lights’ Satellite Images and Digital Soils Maps,” M. L. Imhoff, W. T. Lawrence, D. Stutzer, C. Elvidge, Perspectives on the Land-Use History of North America: a Context for Understanding our Changing Environment, T. D. Sisk (editor), United States Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division, Biological Science Report USGS/BRD/BSR 1998-0003, Revised 1999.

In Britain, however, paving covers only a small proportion of the land. “More than 6.8% of the UK’s land area is now classified as urban” (a definition of ‘urban’ that includes rural development and roads). The UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis of the Key Findings UK National Ecosystem Assessment, 2011, page 75.

Unintended consequences from temporarily freezing rents, or the more serious use of complete rent control, is well-known in urban planning (for example, the case of New York and of California). But more generally, Jay Forrester, who started the field of system dynamics (and who also invented the first flight simulator in 1944), below reports on a model of urban housing that showed several counter-intuitive results, all of them completely sensible when the real variables and feedback loops are understood. But most of us either don’t see them or don’t understand them, or perhaps don’t wish to understand them 9for policitical or self-aggrandizing reasons).

He notes that “It is my basic theme that the human mind is not adapted to interpreting how social systems behave. Our social systems belong to the class called multi-loop nonlinear feedback systems. In the long history of evolution it has not been necessary for man to understand these systems until very recent historical times. Evolutionary processes have not given us the mental skill needed to properly interpret the dynamic behavior of the systems of which we have now become a part. [...]

People would never attempt to send a space ship to the moon without first testing the equipment by constructing prototype models and by computer simulation of the anticipated space trajectories. No company would put a new kind of household appliance or electronic computer into production without first making laboratory tests. Such models and laboratory tests do not guarantee against failure, but they do identify many weaknesses which can then be corrected before they cause full-scale disasters. [...]

Our social systems are far more complex and harder to understand than our technological systems. Why, then, do we not use the same approach of making models of social systems and conducting laboratory experiments on those models before we try new laws and government programs in real life? The answer is often stated that our knowledge of social systems is insufficient for constructing useful models. But what justification can there be for the apparent assumption that we do not know enough to construct models but believe we do know enough to directly design new social systems by passing laws and starting new social programs? I am suggesting that we now do know enough to make useful models of social systems. Conversely, we do not know enough to design the most effective social systems directly without first going through a model-building experimental phase. [...]

The mental model is fuzzy. It is incomplete. It is imprecisely stated. Furthermore, within one individual, a mental model changes with time and even during the flow of a single conversation. The human mind assembles a few relationships to fit the context of a discussion. As the subject shifts so does the model. When only a single topic is being discussed, each participant in a conversation employs a different mental model to interpret the subject. Fundamental assumptions differ but are never brought into the open. Goals are different and are left unstated. It is little wonder that compromise takes so long. And it is not surprising that consensus leads to laws and programs that fail in their objectives or produce new difficulties greater than those that have been relieved.”

“Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems,” J. W. Forrester, Technology Review, 73(3):53-68, 1971. See also: “System Dynamics and the Lessons of 35 Years,” J. W. Forrester, in: A Systems-Based Approach to Policy Making, Kenyon B. De Greene (editor), Springer (originally Kluwer), 1993, pages 199-240.

For another example, a German city once decided to do something about the problem of noise and air pollution in its downtown shopping area. The mayor and city councillors reduced speed limits and added speedbumps to ensure compliance. Citizens applauded. But drivers spent more time negotiating downtown, so noise and air pollution increase. Aggravated by the new problems, shoppers started going to suburban malls. Downtown businesses went bankrupt. City taxes plummeted. And, thanks to the new speedbumps, noise and air pollution remained downtown. The original problem had grown worse. The Logic of Failure: Why Things Go Wrong and What We Can Do To Make Them Right, Dietrich Dörner, translated by Rita and Robert Kimber, Henry Holt and Company, 1996.

See also: Wicked Problems - Social Messes: Decision Support Modelling With Morphological Analysis, Tom Ritchey, Springer, 2011. How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities, John Cassidy, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Donella H. Meadows, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Random House, 2007. Why Most things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics, Paul Ormerod, Pantheon Books, 2005. Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems, Jeff Conklin, Wiley, 2005. Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World, John D. Sterman, McGraw-Hill, 2000. System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life, Robert Jervis, Princeton University Press, 1997. Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences, Edward Tenner, Knopf, 1996.

For Braess’ Paradox, and other failures of otherwise seemingly intuitively obvious network traffic congestion reduction in general, see: “The negation of the Braess paradox as demand increases: The wisdom of crowds in transportation networks,” A. Nagurney, Europhysics Letters, 91(4):48002, 2010. “How Bad Is Selfish Routing?” T. Roughgarden, E. Tardos, Journal of the ACM, 49(2):236-259, 2002.

Trying to make a supply network behave linearly is as hard as controlling a shower’s temperature if the hot water faucet responded not in seconds, but in minutes, and with irregular delays. Choosing to call any such network ‘efficient’ merely because no one is in charge—or, choosing to call it ‘inefficient’ simply because no one can be in charge—has more to do with political affiliation than reality. It’s equal to thinking that we can have traffic, yet somehow banish traffic jams. Good luck with that.

The term ‘non-linear’ originates with a mathematician, Stanislaw Ulam, circa 1950. He’s reported to have said that using the term ‘non-linear science’ was like calling the bulk of zoology ‘the study of non-elephants.’ “Experimental Mathematics: The Role of Computation in Nonlinear Science,” D. Campbell, D. Farmer, J. Crutchfield, E. Jen, Communications of the ACM, 28(4):374-384, 1985.

When we think about the world around us, we often assume ceteris paribus, Latin for ‘all else being the same.’ In reality, though, it’s cetera desunt (‘all else is missing’). In non-linear networks, ceteris is never paribus. Ecologists have long had to face this chasm separating what we think will happen and what actually happens.

This is in fact what happened on Friday, August 13th, 1982. The United States Federal Reserve then called the heads of many large foreign banks, pleading with them to honor large United States banks, even though those were all insolvent, thanks to their years of unadvised (by the Fed) lending to several Latin American countries, each with high inflation and unstable governments. In brief, it was a bubble, and each bank was getting while the getting was good. Bloated with petrodollars from the oil price hikes of the 1970s, they had treated each Fed warning as a yellow traffic light—namely: better speed up to get to the profit to beat the other banks, who were surely speeding up as well.

The blowup started with Mexico about to default that Friday, but Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela were nearly as bad (and would each fail, just later; Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina together came to be called ‘the MBA problem’). Citibank and Bank of America were in hock for around $2.5 billion each. Manufacturers Hanover and Chase Manhattan were in for about $1.5 billion. Morgan Guaranty was also in deep. The next five big banks were also in a bad way. In all, the top 10 United States banks were in deep trouble. Seven of the top eight money center banks were insolvent. Also, perhaps a thousand banks had outstanding loans of over $1 million U.S. just to Mexico alone. Of the smaller banks, each one wanted to avoid further lending and just write off the bad debt. But if any bank did that it would be a Prisoner’s Dilemma problem because they were all linked—since they had all lent to the same failing Latin American countries.

If any bank, even a small one, pulled out, the others would notice, and would pull out too, which would collapse the whole system. Also, if the Fed publically mentioned that there was a problem, or if any bank suspended lending, its depositors would notice, then begin a bank run, which would draw down the bank, and, short of a massive capital infusion, that would rapidly collapse all the banks. Further, there was no law to handle this situation, so the Fed couldn’t legally force the banks to do what it wanted them to do, so it used enticement and coercion.

Crisis was averted because this was all kept quiet while various bridging loans, with the big one amounting to $5 billion U.S. collected across a consortium of 526 banks, many of them international, papered over the holes.

In essence, this all amounted to the Fed getting foreign banks to keep lines of credit open to United States banks so that those banks could keep lending to Mexico, so that Mexico could keep paying interest on its loans to United States banks to keep the pretense going that all was well, while the banks repaired their balance sheets another way (principally by the Fed keeping interest rates artifically high even after inflation was vanquished at home, so that banks could make money on domestic loans over the next decade or so).

In brief: the Fed (and the IMF and the BIS) arranged for United States banks to keep afloat by indirectly paying themselves via roundtrip paths through Mexico, to thus give themselves enough time to gain money another way so that they could finally shed the bad loans publically (via Brady Bonds). This had the effect of keeping Mexico afloat (and later on the other Latin American countries as they each toppled and had to be kept afloat the same way).

However resolving all this behind the scenes took over a decade and, likely, lead to the first real spread of the belief among financiers that they could make big mistakes and be bailed out—once the mistakes were big enough, or interlinked enough, so that they became systemic (a term first coined by William Cline). That then leads to the moral hazard problem. Secondly, it led to the belief that big banks were treated far differently than small banks, something that was demonstrably true. Likely that encouraged capital concentration and the rise of a few very large banks.

While politicians come and go, and officials come and go, financiers mostly don’t—or at least, their knowledge gets passed on down the generations because it’s vital to their firm’s survival. So while rulers might say one thing (and maybe even think it), bankers know something else. They form one stigmergic layer of our non-linear financial network, thus giving it a memory.

This was the first real instance where regulators and central bankers were made aware of the notion of systemic risk (since 1929). But that lesson was forgotten—at least by the regulators, but probably not by the bankers. It could be argued that what happened in 1997-1998, and then again in 2007-2008, were reruns, except bigger, on bigger stages, with bigger players—and bigger consequences. It happened yet again, in an even more disguised form, in Europe in 2010-2015 (and ongoing as of 2017), in the Greek ‘bailout’—which was really a bailout of big French and German banks (Deutsche Bank, Finanz Bank, Commerzbank, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, and others), engineered by the IMF, the ECB (European Central Bank), and the European Commission, and ultimately paid for by French, German, Spanish, Portugese, Irish, Italian, Greek, and other EU taxpayers, under the guise of ‘saving’ the failing Greek economy, which owed € 195 billion. As it is, the original government bond speculators who benefited aren’t paying, the original Greek oligarchs who benefited from the flodd of inflowing money aren’t paying, and now, neither are the big French and German banks who made all those bad loans.

Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment, Yanis Varoufakis, Bodley Head, 2017. Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence, William L. Silber, Bloomsbury Press, 2012, pages 218-227. Balance Sheet Recession: Japan’s Struggle with Uncharted Economics and its Global Implications, Richard C. Koo, Wiley, 2003, pages 126-131. Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund, 1979-1989, James M. Boughton, International Monetary Fund, 2001, Chapter 7, pages 281-318. For Each, the Strength of All: A History of Banking in the State of New York, J. T. W. Hubbard, New York University Press, 1995, Chapter 13, pages 251-270. Governing the Global Economy: International Finance and the State, Ethan B. Kapstein, Harvard University Press, 1994, Chapter 4, pages 81-102; see also pages 74-80 for the petrodollar setup. Changing Fortunes: The World’s Money and the Threat to American Leadership, Paul Volcker and Toyoo Gyohten, Times Books, 1992, pages 198-201. Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, William Greider, Simon & Schuster, 1987, pages 517-521. Debt Shock: The Full Story of the World Credit Crisis, Darrell Delamaide, Anchor Press, 1985. “External Debt and Macroeconomic Performance in Latin America and East Asia,” J. D. Sachs, see also pages 74-80 for the petrodollar setup. Changing Fortunes: The World’s Money and the Threat to American Leadership, Paul Volcker and Toyoo Gyohten, Times Books, 1992, pages 198-201. Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country, William Greider, Simon & Schuster, 1987, pages 517-521. Debt Shock: The Full Story of the World Credit Crisis, Darrell Delamaide, Anchor Press, 1985. “External Debt and Macroeconomic Performance in Latin America and East Asia,” J. D. Sachs, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 16(2):523-573, 1985. International Debt: Systemic Risk and Policy Response, William R. Cline, Institute for International Economics, 1984. “External debt: system vulnerability and development,” W. R. Cline, Columbia Journal of World Business, 17(1):4-14, 1982.

“As a prelude to the overall review of the debt crisis and the debt strategy in later chapters, this chapter takes an in-depth look at the handling of the crisis in Mexico. Although Mexico was not the first indebted economy to erupt, nor the largest, nor the one with the most serious economic or financial problems, the 1982 Mexican crisis was the one that alerted the IMF and the world to the possibility of a systemic collapse: a crisis that could spread to many other countries and threaten the stability of the international financial system. [...]

By the next morning—Tuesday, September 7—there was indeed a panic in the interbank market. International banks were refusing to roll over lines of credit to Mexican banks. Unless calm could somehow be restored, the Mexican banks would have no choice but to default, and the whole interbank market could collapse overnight with incalculable consequences for financial markets. Throughout this Black Tuesday, Volcker, Leutwiler, Sam Y. Cross of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Brian Quinn of the Bank of England all worked the telephones to persuade banks to maintain the level of interbank credits. A substantial portion of the BIS loan that had just been approved was parceled out to repay portions of the outstanding claims, and the banks—knowing they could not get paid that day in any case—agreed to preserve the rest. By nightfall, the banking system had squeaked by without a default—and without a systemic collapse. [...]

The pressure put on the banks by the [IMF] Managing Director [on Tuesday November 16] was unprecedented, and it sent shock waves through the banking community. When the shock was absorbed, however, it became clear that cooperation was in everyone’s interest. The fundamental advantage to the banks as a group was that the package would enable them to get a net reflow of dollars from Mexico. As de Larosiére had indicated, the Mexican public sector would owe about $10 billion in interest payments during 1983. Without a fully financed adjustment program, the chances were virtually nil that Mexico would be able to make those payments. De Larosiére’s arithmetic implied that Mexico would pay approximately $5 billion in interest to banks in 1983, while the remainder would be rolled over into new principle. Thus, by raising exposure by $5 billion, the banks would receive a similar amount in net reflows that they otherwise could not get. Furthermore, if the Managing Director had been prepared to follow standard practice and take the program to the Board without any prior commitment regarding private financing, the Advisory Committee would have had a far tougher job—perhaps an impossible task—raising the $5 billion because of the free-rider problem they would have faced. Each individual bank that was small enough not to threaten the agreement by itself had an interest in trying to get its money back as rapidly as possible. Only if those banks could be convinced that withdrawal was impossible could the cost to each bank in terms of increased exposure be kept to a reasonable level.[...]

The primary explanation for the difficulty in reaching a globally optimal solution without outside intervention is that there was a sharp split in interests within the banking community. While the 25 largest creditors would provide for just over $2 billion of the $5 billion required by raising their exposure by the specified 7 percent, the next $2 billion would take another 75 banks, and the final $1 billion would require pulling in more than 400 additional banks. Furthermore, as a general rule, the banks with smaller exposure (and thus smaller required commitments) were not just smaller banks; they also had smaller exposure relative to their own size and thus would have been better positioned to cut their losses and run if the prospects of program success were judged to be poor. One goal of the concerted-lending package was to raise the stakes for those small banks by making success depend on their participation. Every bank with significant exposure would face a linkage between its decision to participate and the likelihood of program success; the free-rider problem was thereby greatly diminished.” Silent revolution: the International Monetary Fund, 1979-1989, James M. Boughton, International Monetary Fund, 2001, pages 281, 301-302, 307-308, 312.

For example, what might happen were an earthquake-prone city, like Istanbul or Mexico City, to require that all its buildings be made earthquake-proof? Sounds like a good idea, but if it were actually done, the city might simply die, because although most quake deaths are due to collapsed buildings, and we could reinforce or rebuild all our buildings, few of us could afford to. All of us would like to live or work under a roof that won’t one day fall in, but such a building would take time to build and cost a huge amount. Meanwhile, what about food, power, heat, clothes, transport...? Also, redoing all our buildings would be a massive undertaking, which would take time, and for all that time, construction costs would skyrocket. So what about new buildings—especially schools and hospitals—never mind bridges, roads, dams...? No single fear, not even the fear of death—unless it’s obvious and imminent—is easy to plan for because we don’t often see very much or very far, plus we’re inveterate risk-takers because we’re always faced with finite resources and infinite demands.

Many of us don’t like uncertainty and will do nearly anything to remove it as a possibility. Reasoning and Decision Making, P. N. Johnson-Laird and Eldat Shafir (editors), Blackwell, 1994. Minimal Rationality, Christopher Cherniak, The MIT Press, 1986. Decision-Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment, Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann, Free Press, 1977.

In the stock market it’s called ‘The Greater Fool Theory,’ and it goes something like this: ‘I may be a fool, but since I’m induced to buy this stock now, there should be greater fools out there I can sell it to later.’ For some of the extremes this style of reasoning can drive us to see: When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management, Roger Lowenstein, Random House, 2001. Inventing Money: The story of Long-Term Capital Management and the legends behind it, Nicholas Dunbar, John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

Scientists fall for such mental shortcuts, too. Should We Risk It? Exploring Environmental, Health and Technology Problem Solving, Kammen and Hassenzahl, Princeton University Press, 1999. Uncertainty: A Guide to Dealing with Uncertainty in Quantitative Risk and Policy Analysis, M. Granger Morgan and Max Henrion, Cambridge University Press, 1990. “Assessing uncertainty in physical constants,” M. Henrion, B. Fischoff, American Journal of Physics, 54(9):791-797, 1986.

In essence, the text gives a simplified version of Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis. The essence of it is that the problem is systemic (see William Cline), not individual. Can ‘It’ Happen Again? Essays on Instability and Finance, Hyman P. Minsky, M. E. Sharpe, 1982.

Detractors might argue that the hypothesis is an unholy cross of Austrian economics with Keynesian economics. But the basic idea is very old. See, for example: This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, Princeton University Press, 2009. The Land that Never Was: Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in History, David Sinclair, Da Capo Press, 2004. Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Charles P. Kindleberger, Wiley, Fourth Edition, 2001. Devil Take the Hindmost A History of Financial Speculation, Edward Chancellor, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay, 1841, Harmony Book, Reprint Edition, 1980.

The same idea (of the mix of strategies changing simply because organisms in the food web get used to, then begin to depend on the stability of the current mix of strategies) is common in ecosystem thinking. “In Quest of a Theory of Adaptive Change,” C. S. Holling, L. Gunderson, D. Ludwig, in: Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, L. H. Gunderson and C. S. Holling (editors), Island Press, 2002, pages 3-24. The idea is also familiar in game theory, and more recently in adaptive algorithms for complex systems: “Evolutionary Stable Strategies: A review of basic theory,” W. G. S. Hines, Theoretical Population Biology, 31(2):195-272, 1987.

It should come as no surprise then that the financial system exhibits a Moore’s Law of its own—from 1929 to 2009 the total market capitalization of the US stock market has doubled every decade. The total trading volume of stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average doubled every 7.5 years during this period, but in the most recent decade, the pace has accelerated: now the doubling occurs every 2.9 years, growing almost as fast as the semiconductor industry. But the financial industry differs from the semiconductor industry in at least one important respect: human behavior plays a more significant role in finance. As the great physicist Richard Feynman once said, ‘Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings.’ While financial technology undoubtedly benefifits from Moore’s Law, it must also contend with Murphy’s Law, ‘whatever can go wrong will go wrong,’ as well as its technology-specific corollary, ‘whatever can go wrong will go wrong faster and bigger when computers are involved.’ [...]”

The key moment was 14:42:44 (Eastern Standard Time) on May 6th, 2010.

“[...] a rapid automated sale of 75,000 E-mini S&P 500 June 2010 stock index futures contracts (worth about $4.1 billion) over an extremely short time period created a large order imbalance that overwhelmed the small risk-bearing capacity of financial intermediaries—that is, the high-frequency traders and market makers. After buying the E-mini for about 10 minutes, high frequency traders reached their critical inventory levels and began to quickly and aggressively unwind their long inventory at a key moment when liquidity was sparse, adding to the downward pressure. High frequency traders rapidly passed contracts back and forth, contributing to the ‘hot potato’ effect that drove up trading volume, exacerbating the volatility.

Meanwhile, cross-market arbitrage trading algorithms rapidly propagated price declines in the E-mini futures market to the markets for stock index exchange-traded funds like the Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts S&P 500, individual stocks, and listed stock options. According to the interviews conducted by the SEC staff, cross-market arbitrage firms ‘purchased the E-Mini and contemporaneously sold Standard & Poor’s Depository Receipts S&P 500, baskets of individual securities, or other equity index products.’ As a result, a liquidity event in the futures market triggered by an automated selling program cascaded into a systemic event for the entire U.S. financial market system.

As the periods during which short-term liquidity providers are willing to hold risky inventory shrink to minutes if not seconds, Flash-Crash-type events—extreme short-term volatility combined with a rapid spike in trading volume—can easily be generated by algorithmic trading strategies seeking to quickly exploit temporarily favorable market conditions.”

High-frequency trading has gone on to play a role in the crackups behind the Facebook IPO, the collapse of Knight Capital Group, Inc., spoofing and layering by the Hold Brothers On-Line Investment Services, and the New York Stock Exchange fine.

In 2007, the International Monetary Fund estimated that GDP (PPP) in Canada was $1,265,838, while in South Korea it was $1,200,879, making them 13th and 14th in the world. The United States Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook estimated Canada at $1,266,000 and South Korea at $1,201,000, again making them 13th and 14th in world ranking. The World Bank reversed that order, but its estimates were about the same: South Korea at $1,199,270 and Canada at $1,178,205.

However, per-person, South Korea wasn’t as rich as Canada. In 2007, its population was 48.6 million whereas Canada’s was 32.89 million. South Korea is a big exporter of cars and computers. Its per-person income was about that of Israel’s. And like Israel, it has military and geopolitical significance, and thus investment, that Ghana lacks. So by 2007, Ghana’s per person income was over 17 times smaller than South Korea’s.

See also: “Japan and the Asian Economies: A ‘Miracle’ in Transition,” T. Ito, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 27(2):205-272, 1996. The East Asian Miracle, The World Bank, Oxford University Press, 1993. America and the Japanese Miracle, Aaron Forsberg, University of North Carolina Press, 2000. The Making of Modern Japan, Marius Jansen, Belknap, 2000. Eastern Phoenix: Japan Since 1945, Mikiso Hane, Westview Press, 1996.

South Korea versus the Philippines: Lectures on Economic Growth, Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Harvard University Press, 2002, especially Chapter 3. Ghana versus Malaysia: “An Economic Development of Two Countries: Ghana and Malaysia,” B. Asare, A. Wong, West Africa Review, 5(1), 2004. And of course, South Korea versus North Korea.

The idea that ‘culture’ is mostly all that counts is both old and widely accepted. For example: “If we learn anything from the history of economic development it is that culture makes all the difference.” Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, David S. Landes, W. W. Norton, 1998, page 516. See also: Conquests and Cultures: An International History, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, 1998, especially pages 86, 97, and 166.

On the other hand, a few scholars, like Andre Gunder Frank, (in ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age, University of California Press, 1998) see a more chaotic picture—however, they, too, ascribe basically everything to ‘culture’ and ideology, specifically with respect to Europe. So, one side, the more dominant one in Anglo-American academia, essentially says that Europeans are the best. The other side, a much smaller iconoclastic side of the same Anglo-American academia, says that Europeans are the worst. Both assume that ‘culture’ and ideology are the main things that matter.

That seems wrong. For a summary of why that’s so, at least in the case of South Korea and Ghana, see: Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World, Human Development Report, 2004, United Nations Development Programme, 2004, especially pages 18-19 and 38-44 in Chapters 1 and 2. See also: Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, Ha-Joon Chang, Bloomsbury Press, 2007, especially Chapter 9.

For other examples of what’s wrong with the ‘culture counts’ argument, consider the following quote: “Scholars often used to offer cultural explanations for economic growth, and even today it is common to hear that China and Japan are booming because of the intuitive capitalist spirit or ingrained industriousness of the Chinese and Japanese peoples. But explanations based on immutable culture have been discredited, because the enthusiasts could not get their story straight. Confucianism used to be seen as an obstacle to economic growth, because it looked down on commerce; now it is praised as a great boon to growth. Chinese are now seen as industrious; just a decade ago, at least within Chinese factories, they were ridiculed for spending all their time on tea breaks and taking naps. Tamils are an exceptionally enterprising and hard-working people in Sri Lanka, but if this is ingrained in Tamil culture, then what happened to the Tamils in southern India?

Japan is a good example of the problems with explanations based on immutable culture. The Japanese are renowned today for their high savings rates, for their discipline and commitment to hard work and high quality. But a century ago, Japan’s savings rates were far lower than in the West. Likewise, foreigners used to be firmly agreed on the laziness and incompetence of Japanese workers. In 1881, a foreigner wrote in a Yokohama newspaper: “The Japanese are a happy race, and being content with little, are not likely to achieve much.” As late as 1915, an Australian expert told the Japanese government: “My impression as to your cheap labor was soon disillusioned when I saw your people at work. No doubt they are lowly paid, but the return is equally so; to see your men at work made me feel that you are a very satisfied, easygoing race who reckon time is no object. When I spoke to some managers they informed me that it was impossible to change the habits of national heritage.” ”

Thunder from the East, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, pages 131-132.

See also: The Lever of Riches: Technology, Creativity, and Economic Progress, Joel Mokyr, Oxford University Press, 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance, Douglass North, Cambridge University Press, 1990. How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World, Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell, Jr., Basic Books, 1982.

Here is how Britain saw, or more accurately sneered down on, the United States in 1820: “Such is the land of Jonathan—and thus has it been governed. In his honest endeavours to better his situation, and in his manly purpose of resisting injury and insult, we most cordially sympathize. We hope he will always continue to watch and suspect his government as he now does—remembering, that it is the constant tendency of those entrusted with power, to conceive that they enjoy it by their own merits, and for their own use, and not by delegation, and for the benefit of others. Thus far we are the friends and admirers of Jonathan. But he must not grow vain and ambitious; or allow himself to be dazzled by that galaxy of epithets by which his orators and newspaper scribblers endeavour to persuade their supporters that they are the greatest, the most refined, the most enlightened, and most moral people upon earth. The effect of this is unspeakably ludicrous on this side of the Atlantic—and, even on the other, we shall imagine, must be rather humiliating to the reasonable part of the population. The Americans are a brave, industrious and acute people; but they have hitherto given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the heroic, either in their morality or character. They are but a recent offset indeed from England; and should make it their chief boast, for many generations to come, that they are sprung from the same race with Bacon and Shakspeare and Newton. Considering their numbers, indeed, and the favourable circumstances in which they have been placed, they have yet done marvellously little to assert the honour of such a descent, or to show that their English blood has been exalted or refined by their republican training and institutions. Their Franklins and Washingtons, and all the other sages and heroes of their Revolution, were born and bred subjects of the King of England,—and not among the freest or most valued of his subjects. And since the period of their separation, a far greater proportion of their statesmen and artists and political writers have been foreigners, than ever occurred before in the history of any civilized and educated people. During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the Sciences, for the Arts, for Literature, or even for the statesman-like studied of Politics or Political Economy. Confining ourselves to our own country, and to the period that has elapsed since they had an independent existence, we would ask. Where are their Foxes, their Burkes, their Sheridans, their Windhams, their Homers, their Wilberforces?—where their Arkwrights, their Watts, their Davys?—their Robertsons, Blairs, Smiths, Stewarts, Paleys, and Malthuses?—their Porsons, Parrs, Bumeys, or Bloomfields?—their Scotts, Rogers’s, Campbells, Byrons, Moores, or Crabbes?—their Siddons’s, Kembles, Keans, or O’Neils?—their Wilkies, Lawrences, Chantrys?—or their parallels to the hundred other names that have spread themselves over the world from our little island in the course of the last thirty years, and blest or delighted mankind by their works, inventions, or examples? In so far as we know, there is no such parallel to be produced from the whole annals of this self-adulating race. In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? What have they done in the mathematics? Who drinks out of American glasses? or eats from American plates? or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?” From: “America,” The works of the Rev. Sydney Smith, Sydney Smith, Longman, Brown, Greene, and Longmans, 1850, pages 283-284,

The problem with the word ‘culture’ is that it is too vague. There are hundreds of definitions of the word ‘culture’ going back to at least the 1750s. Culture: A critical review of concepts and definitions, A. L Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, Vintage, 1952. Boyd and Richerson give one popular recent meaning that is in the style of both Harrison and Landes above. “Culture is information capable of affecting individuals’ behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission.” Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution, Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd, University Of Chicago Press, 2004, page 5.

But such attempts to ignore artifacts and other aspects of material life seem unnecessarily restrictive. Ogburn gives an older and more encompassing definition that includes material things.

“A group of new-born infants on an island uninhabited by man would be without a social heritage, although, like the lower animals, they would be born into a natural environment. The social heritage is therefore not coextensive with environment. The environment of man may be said to consist of two parts: natural environment, including air, heat, land, water, soil, moisture, vegetation and minerals; and the social heritage, consisting of buildings, technological equipment, social organization, language, the arts, philosophies, science, religions, morals and customs.

The social heritage is very similar in meaning to the word, culture, as used by sociologists and anthropologists. Culture has been defined by Tylor as ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.’ In this definition of culture the use of material objects is not particularly emphasized, and there is a tendency to think of culture as somewhat removed from material objects. However, the use of material things is a very important part of the culture of any people. A special term, material culture, is frequently used, giving particular emphasis to the material features of culture. The word, culture, properly includes, as does the term, social heritage, both the material culture and also such parts of culture as knowledge, belief, morals, law, and custom.”

Social Change with respect to Culture and Original Nature, William Fielding Ogburn, B. W. Huebsch, Inc., 1922, pages 3-4.

Similarly, Turkey joined the European Union in 2005. To fit in, it had to change much of its red tape on banking, investment, and trade. As it did so from the 1990s to 2005, foreign investment quintupled. Greece and Portugal have had similar experiences, although they, like Italy, have had more recent upsets. Ditto for Spain and Ireland. (They have more recently been all joined together into the ‘PIIGS,’ especially since the collapse of Greece.) The change in foreign direct investment in Turkey to 2005 is from: “Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation,” L. Alfaro, S. Kalemli-Ozcan, V. Volosovych, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2):347-368, 2008.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico entered free trade agreements in 1994 that have so far been more economically mixed than experience in the European Union. The agreements in question are the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) signed in 1989 and the North American free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1994. Briefly, the combined North American economy has doubled in a decade, however it’s still not clear how much of that is a result of NAFTA and how much is better technology. Also, as of 2004, there were many points of friction between the three countries. It does seem to have benefited Mexico, though. NAFTA’s Impact On North America: The First Decade, Sidney Weintraub (editor), Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2004. NAFTA Revisited: Achievements and Challenges, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, Paul L. E. Grieco, and Yee Wong, Institute for International Economics, 2005.

The missing factor may may well include something to do with female options, whether rich or poor—although rich females started to change before poor females, so wealth does matter. There are probably several other relevant variables: for example, the rise of the wage-earning woman coupled with the decline of the three-generation family alone may have put pressure that led to fertility decline. Of course, there are many confounds. For example, even when aristocratic family size was low, that didn’t mean that all aristocrats had fewer children than average; it merely meant that aristocratic women did. Aristocratic males may still have procreated a great deal and produced a lot of illegitimate children, who weren’t counted. The Black Death may also have played a part.

For some exploratory references on the issue of aristocratic family size, see: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Gregory Clark, Princeton University Press, 2007. The Household and the Making of History: A Subversive View of the Western Past, Mary S. Hartman, Cambridge University Press, 2004. Fertility, Class and Gender in Britain, 1860-1940, Simon Szreter, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pages 45-50. Fertility Control, Stephen L. Corson, Richard J. Derman, and Louise B. Tyrer (editors), Taylor & Francis, Second Edition, 1994, pages 396-398.

It’s a consequence of stigmergy (what we’ve built, especially if large, strongly influences what we can next build.). Mathematically speaking, though, it’s more strictly any non-ergodic stochastic process. That is, any process whose asymptotic distribution is at least partly a consequence of its history. Increasing Returns and Path Dependency in the Economy, W. Brian Arthur, University of Michigan Press, 1994.

Arthur’s models have been challenged, particularly for VHS versus Betamax and for the Dvorak versus the QWERTY keyboards. That challenge in turn led to further argument. “Path dependence, Its Critics and the Quest for ‘Historical Economics,’ P. A. David, in: Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas: Past and Present, P. Garrouste and S. Ioannidis (editors), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2001, pages 15-40. “Path Dependence, Lock-in, and History,” S. J. Liebowitz, S. E. Margolis, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 11(1):205-226, 1995. “Defending the Concept of Network Externalities: A Discussion of Liebowitz and Margolis,” P. Regibeau, Research in Law and Economics, 17:33-39, 1995.

In economics, the argument revolves around whether path dependence (stigmergy, in the text) can force fixable free market errors. That is, whether the history of an innovation can lock a free market into choices that are economically inefficient even when more efficient choices exist. In general, that seems unlikely (in a free market). However, that’s not the point being made in the text. It argues that whether or not our choices are economically efficient, stigmergy does affect which options we choose, can choose, or are forced to choose.

“[Walter] Heller has his own definition of his breed: An economist is a man who, when he finds something works in practice, wonders if it works in theory.” From: “Take an economist, any economist...,” E. B. Furgurson, Seattle Daily Times, July 4th, 1979.

For a brief overview of the piped water initiative from the innovation diffusion point of view, see: Diffusion of Innovations, Everett M. Rogers, Free Press, Fifth Edition, 2003, pages 107-116. For more recent ethnographic background on Delta problems, see also: Agrarian Transformation in Egypt: Conflict Dynamics and the Politics of Power from a Micro Perspective, Caroline Laetitia Tingay, doctoral thesis, Freie Universität Berlin, 2005.

“[L]ife expectancy at birth, only thirty-nine years in 1952, had climbed to fifty-nine years for men and sixty years for women by 1989. The crude death rate, which was 23.9 in 1952, had declined to 10.3 by 1990. Its main component, the infant mortality rate, declined more dramatically in the same period, from 193 infant deaths per 1,000 live births to 85 per 1,000. Nevertheless, major disparities remained in the mortality rates of cities and villages as well as in those of Upper and Lower Egypt. Although mortality and morbidity data were adequate for establishing general trends, they were not reliable for precise measurements. Egypt’s official infant mortality rate, for example, was probably understated because parents tended not to report infants who died in the first few weeks of life. Corrected estimates of the infant mortality rate for 1990 ranged as high as 113 per 1,000 live births.

Although mortality rates have declined since 1952, the main causes of death (respiratory ailments and diseases of the digestive tract) have remained unchanged for much of the twentieth century. Death rates for infants and children ages one to five dropped, but children remained the largest contributors to the mortality rate. Nearly seventeen infants and four children under five years of age died for each death of an individual between age five and thirty-four. Children younger than five years of age accounted for about half of all mortality—one of the world’s highest rates. During the 1980s, diarrhea and associated dehydration accounted for 67 percent of the deaths among infants and children.”

Egypt: A Country Study, Helen Chapin Metz (editor), Fifth Edition, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1991, page 148.

Pneumonia and diarrhoea mortality disproportionately affect the youngest children: around 80 per cent of deaths associated with pneumonia and approximately 70 per cent of deaths associated with diarrhoea occur during the first two years of life.

Pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths are dropping — but not quickly enough.

There has already been substantial progress to reduce pneumonia- and diarrhoea-related mortality since 2000: deaths from these two diseases declined by nearly half between 2000 and 2015, from 2.9 million deaths to the current 1.4 million. Diarrhoea deaths have dropped more significantly since 2000, falling from 1.2 million to 526,000 in 2015 — a decline of 57 per cent. Deaths due to pneumonia declined at a slower rate during this period, falling from 1.7 million in 2000 to 920,000 in 2015. Indeed, pneumonia mortality rates have declined at a significantly slower rate than those of other common childhood diseases, such as malaria, measles and HIV.”

One is too many: Ending child deaths from pneumonia and diarrhoea, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), November 2016, pages 5 and 7.

“Diarrhoeal deaths among children under-five have more than halved from 1.5 million in 1990 to 622 000 in 2012. Inadequate WASH accounts for 361 000 of these deaths, or over 1000 child deaths per day. [...] The burden of diarrhoea attributable to inadequate WASH is estimated on the basis of the total diarrhoeal disease burden. The number of diarrhoeal deaths has dropped dramatically over recent decades from around 2.5-2.9 million deaths in 1990 to 1.5 million in 2012. Mortality from diarrhoea in children under-five has also decreased during the same period.” Preventing diarrhoea through better water, sanitation and hygiene: Exposures and impacts in low- and middle-income countries, World Health Organization, 2014, pages ix and 1.

“Even though the percentage of the world’s population with access to improved water supply rose from 78 to 82 per cent between 1990 and 2000, and the percentage with access to improved sanitation rose from 51 to 61 per cent during this same period, contaminated water remains the greatest single cause of human sickness and death on a global scale.” Global Environment Outlook, GEO-4, United Nations Environment Programme, 2007, page 151.

“Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea—4,900 deaths each day or an under-five population equivalent in size to that for London and New York combined. Together, unclean water and poor sanitation are the world’s second biggest killer of children. Deaths from diarrhoea in 2004 were some six times greater than the average annual deaths in armed conflict for the 1990s.” Human Development Report, 2006, United Nations Development Programme, 2007, page 6.

“10.7 million children every year do not live to see their fifth birthday.” Human Development Report, 2005, United Nations Development Programme, 2006, page 3.

Statistical Yearbook — Population Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), Issue No 110, 2019. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, 2018, Table III.4, page 70. Literacy Statistics Metadata Information Table, UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), 2019.

In Egypt in 2006, 29.3 percent of us couldn’t read and 57.6 percent were rural. The National Report On Literacy and Adult Education, Arab Republic of Egypt, 2008, pages 7 and 10. Even those figures may be inflated thanks to corruption, since a literacy certificate is so valuable for jobs. In 1970, illiteracy was even higher, at 68.6 percent.

Also, note that ‘operational closure’ is more than ‘catalytic closure’ (that is, that a reaction network makes all its own catalysts). That’s already guaranteed if the given reaction network has collective autocatalysis (which is called ‘synergy’ in the text). Operational closure means that the reaction network is closed not just with respect to its catalysts but also their reactants (biochemists call those the reaction’s substrates)—that is, the ‘resources’—that the collectively autocatalytic (‘synergetic’ in the text) reactions need. So it regenerates its own catalysts (it has catalytic closure) and it regenerates the molecules that those catalysts act on.

Note, however, that what exactly it ‘regenerates’ has to be considered carefully. It would be inefficient for a reaction network to regenerate resources already plentifully supplied by its surroundings. For example, termites don’t generate or fetch air; that’s treated as a given. Also, ‘regenerate’ has to be taken quite broadly. The fungus needed for the fungus farms in a termite colony, for instance, isn’t generated from nothing; it’s grown from old batches. Similarly, in a cell, if small non-catalyst helpers, like vitamins or cofactors or whatever, can come from the surroundings, they aren’t ‘regenerated.’ The point is that if the network is operationally closed, it has access to everything it needs to keep working. Such things may come from the surroundings, but if they don’t, it regenerates them. Energy, however, always comes from outside.

Note, too, that the loose way that the text (initially) defines operational closure differs from the definition given by Varela, which is more concerned with a system’s autonomy. However, both definitions are motivated by the same underlying idea of closure in mathematics (and especially in topology).

See the Preface and Introduction to: Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems: Proceedings of the First European Conference on Artificial Life, Francisco J. Varela and Paul Bourgine (editors), The MIT Press, 1992. “Organism: A Meshwork of Selfless Selves,” F. J. Varela, in: Organism and the Origins of Self, Alfred I. Tauber (editor), Kluwer, 1991, pages 79-107. See also: “Closure, causal,” M. Mossio, in: Encyclopedia of Systems Biology, Werner Dubitzky, Olaf Wolkenhauer, Kwang-Hyun Cho, and Hiroki Yokota (editors), Springer, 2013, pages 415-418. There the conceptual core is traced back to Kant in his 1790 Critique of Judgment. But for a more detailed formulation, at least for molecular networks, see: “Autopoiesis 40 years later. A Review and a Reformulation,” P. Razeto-Barry, Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, 42(6):543-567, 2012.

De Soto also points out how it’s much the same in many of our other poor countries. To get the legal permits to build a house on state-owned land in Peru takes almost seven years. It takes 207 steps spread over 52 government offices. To get legal title to that land then takes a further 728 steps. Buying a house in the Philippines can take 168 steps spread over 53 public and private associations and agencies. It can take 13 to 25 years. Leasing state-owned land in Haiti takes 65 steps. It takes about two years to lease a plot for five years. To then buy that land takes a further 111 steps. And 12 more years. Mexico, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina are similar.

It’s not only the red-tape. It’s also the opacity. Investors don’t know where to go, or who to ask. In a number of mining-dependent countries, rather than the government offering parcels of land in open auction, prospective investors are expected to provide the government with specific land coordinates. The geological survey offices know where the ore lies, but they just can’t be bothered to help the investors along. Though the countries’ livelihoods depend significantly on such entrepreneurs coming in, given the nature of doing business it is hardly surprising that this much-needed investment stays away.”

Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa, Dambisa Moyo, Macmillan, 2009, page 100.

However, there is a problem with that quote since, based on the World Bank reference the author cites for the figures, only the stated figure for South Korea (17 days) is for the number of days to get a business license. The other figures given are for how long it takes to get a construction permit, not the number of days to get a business license. For more details on that and on other countries, see: Doing Business 2009: Comparing Regulations in 181 Economies, World Bank, 2008, page 16 and other pages for specific entries for each country.

However, Plutarch attributes a similar thought to a contemporary, Anacharsis: “[W]ritten laws, which in all respects resemble spider’s webs, and would, like them, only entangle the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful easily broke through them.” Lives of Romulus, Lycurgus, Solon ... and Others, translated by John and William Langhorne, Wm. L. Allison Company, 1889, page 71. The text follows Diogenes and gives it to Solon as he’s widely acclaimed as a law-maker, even though he himself left no writings.

Whoever said it, the saying became proverbial. For example, millennia later, Jonathan Swift wrote: “Laws are like Cobwebs, which may catch small Flies, but let Wasps and Hornets break through.” In “A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind,” Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, Jonathan Swift, John Morphew, 1711, page 257.

“As of September 30, 2013, the SEC’s workforce included 4,138 employees, of which about two-thirds were located at the SEC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. and one-third were at the SEC’s 11 regional offices. In FY 2013, about 72 percent of the agency’s workforce consisted of attorneys, accountants, economists, and compliance examiners. The remaining 28 percent of the employees occupied other professional and administrative positions.” Audit of the Representation of Minorities and Women in the SEC’s Workforce, United States Securities and Exchange Commission, 2014, page 2. “The SEC has responsibility for overseeing more than 25,000 market participants, including over 11,000 investment advisers, almost 10,000 mutual funds, 4,450 broker-dealers, 450 transfer agents, and 18 securities exchanges, as well as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB), the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The SEC also has responsibility for reviewing the disclosures and financial statements of approximately 9,000 reporting companies, and has new or expanded responsibilities over the derivatives markets, an additional 2,500 exempt reporting advisers to hedge fund and other private funds, more than 1,000 municipal advisors, 10 registered credit rating agencies, and 7 registered clearing agencies.” Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, Annual Report, United States Securities and Exchange Commission, 2014, page 5.

“[...] though the governments of the developed countries acting together do have the ‘power’ to control market behavior, it is doubtful that they have or will have the competence to do so. To use John Heimann’s analogy, there is not much point setting bloodhounds to track greyhounds. The governments cannot design a new architecture, but given the certainty that the private sector’s risk-control models will fail at some point, they can demand earth-quake bracing.” From: “Risk Reduction in the New Financial Architecture: Realities and Fallacies in International Financial Reform,” M. Mayer, Working Paper No. 56, Jerome Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, 1999, page a47.

In 2001, of our more than 110 million kids out of school, nearly two-thirds were girls. “Girls are expected to be primarily or exclusively domestic workers in many cultures, so household work at young ages is regarded as natural for them. Such domestic work is also often seen as more valuable than any perceived returns from education, especially when parents calculate how, and for which of their children, they can pay school costs and fees. In addition, many schools are threatening places for girls, where they are at risk of sexual harassment from classmates and teachers and sidelined by prejudice and poor curricula. Solely by virtue of their gender, therefore, many girls are kept from school or drop out, ending up in exploitative labour. Of the more than 110 million children out of school, nearly two thirds are girls. Commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking in children for prostitution have also burgeoned, with at least 1 million children a year, most of them girls, entrapped in a network stretching from South-East Asia and the former Soviet bloc to Latin America.” Beyond Child Labor: Affirming Rights, United Nations Children’s Fund, 2001, pages 2-3.

Yet only the Western nations and small enclaves of wealthy people in developing and former communist nations have the capacity to represent assets and potential and, therefore, the ability to produce and use capital efficiently. Capitalism is viewed outside the West with increasing hostility, as an apartheid regime most cannot enter. There is a growing sense, even among some elites, that if they have to depend solely and forever on the kindness of outside capital, they will never be productive players in the global capitalist game. They are increasingly frustrated at not being masters of their own fate. Since they have embarked on globalization without providing their own people with the means to produce capital, they are beginning to look less like the United States than like mercantilist Latin America with its disarray of extralegal activity. Ten years ago, few would have compared the former Soviet bloc nations to Latin America. But today they look astonishingly similar: strong underground economies, glaring inequality, pervasive mafias, political instability, capital flight, and flagrant disregard for law.

That is why outside the West advocates of capitalism are intellectually on the retreat. Ascendant just a decade ago, they are now increasingly viewed as apologists for the miseries and injustices that still affect the majority of people.”

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, Hernando de Soto, Basic Books, 2000, pages 208-209.

Our institutional tools are machines whose main parts are us, but our incentives inside those machines vary depending on what our surrounding network is. Changing that network isn’t easy because it benefits all of its most powerful parts. It doesn’t seem to much matter what languages we speak, what faiths we have, what beliefs we espouse: rich land, poor land, all that might change is the levers of power.

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, Harvard University Press, 2006. Poverty Traps, Samuel Bowles, Steven N. Durlauf, and Karla Hoff (editors), Princeton University Press, 2006. Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe: A World of Difference, Alberto Alesina and Edward L. Glaeser, Oxford University Press, 2004. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich, Owl Books, New Edition, 2002. Framework for Understanding Poverty, Ruby Payne, Aha Process, Inc., Revised Edition, 2001.

In economics this is related to the idea of ‘comparative advantage.’ Even if one person, group, or country were to make everything more efficiently than some other person, group, or country (that is, have ‘absolute advantage,’ it would still gain economically by specializing in whatever it was best at making then trading with other nations for everything else). The absolute cost of production doesn’t matter because of opportunity cost. By choosing to make one thing, you’re also choosing not to make another thing. Everything has an opportunity cost, so it’s best to specialize then trade for everything else. The idea goes back to the Irish economist Robert Torrens, but was much expanded upon two years later by the English economist, David Ricardo. Comparative Advantage in International Trade: A Historical Perspective, Andrea Maneschi, Edward Elgar, 1998, pages 54-55. On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, David Ricardo, John Murray, 1817.

For general analysis of the economic costs of farm subsidies in the United States, see the following United States Congressional Budget Office Reports: “The Effects of Liberalizing World Agricultural Trade: A Review of Modeling Studies,” June 2006. “The Effects of Liberalizing World Agricultural Trade: A Survey,” December 2005. “Policies That Distort World Agricultural Trade: Prevalence and Magnitude,” August 2005

Floor statement of Senator John McCain on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, October 25th 2001:

“Mr. President, I would like to discuss for a few moments the fundamental problem with this appropriations bill and then talk a little bit about the pork that is again prevalent and on the increase in this appropriations bill.

First of all, I want to talk about Federal subsidies, where they go, who should be receiving them, the largess of the Federal Government taxpayers’ money under the present setup, how we are going to work subsidies, and how the money is distributed.

Earlier this year, the General Accounting Office released a report that details some very critical information on the disturbing trends of federal farm assistance. The GAO reports that over 80 percent of farm payments have been made to large- and medium-sized farms, while small farms have received less than 20 percent of the payments.

In 1999, large farms, which represent about 7 percent of all farms nationwide with gross agricultural sales of $250,000, received about 45 percent of federal payments. These payments average about $64,737.

Seventeen percent of farms that are medium-sized with gross sales between $50,000 and $250,000, received 45 percent of all payments. Payments average $21,943.”

Congressional Record, Volume 147, Part 15, October 25, 2001 to November 2, 2001, United States Congress, 107th Congress, First Session, United States Government Printing Office, Jan 1, 2006, page 20757.

“World trade in textiles and clothing was also highly distorted by the Multi-Fiber Arrangement [....] The Uruguay Round phased out the MFA over a 10-year period, eliminating all quantitative restrictions on trade in textiles and clothing. (Some high tariffs remain in place.) This was a fairly dramatic liberalization— remember, most estimates suggested that protection of clothing imposed a larger cost on U.S. consumers than all other protectionist measures combined. It is worth noting, however, that the formula used in phasing out the MFA was heavily ‘backloaded’: Much of the liberalization was postponed until 2003 and 2004, with the final end of the quotas not taking place until January 1, 2005.

Sure enough, the end of the MFA brought a surge in clothing exports from China. For example, in January 2005, China shipped 27 million pairs of cotton trousers to the United States, up from 1.9 million a year earlier. And there was a fierce political reaction from clothing producers in the United States and Europe. While new restrictions were imposed on Chinese clothing exports, these restrictions were phased out over time; world trade in clothing has, in fact, been largely liberalized.”

International Economics: Theory & Policy, 11th Edition, Paul R. Krugman, Maurice Obstfeld, and Marc J. Melitz, Pearson Education, 2018, page 293. TNCs and the removal of textiles and clothing quotas, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2005.

For comparison, our richest countries (the OECD countries), gave $103.94 thousand million in ODA (Official Development Assistance, that is, foreign aid) in 2006. OECD in Figures, 2007 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2007.

For instance, in 2003, every cow in Europe got about $2 U.S. a day in subsidy—that was twice as much as half of us in Africa earned that same day.

The estimate of $250 million lost by West African farmers each because of protected cotton alone is from an address by Mark Malloch Brown, who was then the head of the United Nations Development Programme, His address was given at the launch of the Human Development Report 2003, to the Second Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union, in Maputo, Mozambique, July 10th, 2003.

A year before, he noted that “Every cow in Europe today is subsidised two dollars a day. That is twice as much as the per capita income of a half of Africa. It is the extraordinary distortion of global trade, where the West spends $360 billion a year on protecting its agriculture with a network of subsidies and tariffs that costs developing countries about US$50 billion in potential lost agricultural exports.”

“More than 10 million people in Central and West Africa depend on cotton production for their livelihoods and food security. For many countries in the region, cotton exports provide the main source of foreign exchange revenues and rural employment. In 2001, cotton accounted for more than 50 percent of the total agricultural exports and 2.5-6.7 percent of the GDP of Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Togo.

Working small plots of 1-2 hectares and relying on manual labour, farmers in West Africa rank among the lowest-cost producers of cotton in the world. Since the mid-1990s, however, they have been battered by a collapse in cotton prices and by competition with cotton exports from the United States. Production costs in the United States are three times higher than those in West Africa. But United States cotton farmers also benefit from US$3-4 billion per year in direct support — more than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso, where 2 million people depend on cotton production.

Between 1998 and 2001, as cotton prices slumped to record lows, cotton production in the United States grew by more than 40 percent and the volume of exports doubled.

[...] a study by FAO suggests that eliminating all domestic support — not only support notified to the WTO — would increase world cotton prices by 5-11 percent, and would prompt an expansion in African exports of at least 9 percent and possibly as much as 38 percent.” The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2004, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 2004, page 25.

“The scale of government support to America’s 25,000 cotton farmers is staggering, reflecting the political influence of corporate farm lobbies in key states. Every acre of cotton farmland in the US attracts a subsidy of $230, or around five times the transfer for cereals. In 2001/02 farmers reaped a bumper harvest of subsidies amounting to $3.9bn — double the level in 1992. This increase in subsidies is a breach of the ‘Peace Clause’ in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, opening the door to the Brazilian complaint.

To put this figure in perspective, America’s cotton farmers receive:

•more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso — a country in which more than two million people depend on cotton production. Over half of these farmers live below the poverty line. Poverty levels among recipients of cotton subsidies in the US are zero.

•three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.

In 2001, sub-Saharan exporters lost $302m as a direct consequence of US cotton subsidies. Two-thirds of this loss ($191m) was sustained by eight countries in West Africa, with Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire the worst affected. The cumulative loss suffered by this same group of countries over the three-year period 1999-2001, taking into account the price decrease for each year, was $334m. Outside this group, countries such as Zambia, Nigeria, and Tanzania have also suffered serious losses.

The small size of several West African economies and their high levels of dependence on cotton inevitably magnify the adverse effects of US subsidies. For several countries, US policy has generated what can only be described as a major economic shock.”

Cultivating Poverty: The Impact of US Cotton Subsidies on Africa, Oxfam Briefing Paper #30, Oxfam, 2002, page 2, 17.

Japan has a complex system in place to block as much foreign rice as possible. The markups mostly come from import duties, and can reach as high as 1,000 percent, depending on the rice variety. National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, 2005 The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), United States Government, 2005, page 314.

Even without subsidies, New Zealand has a farming advantage compared to its trading partners. Take, for example, its main one, Britain. Both countries have about the same land area. Yet, per person, New Zealand has eight times more farm land than Britain does. Its population is 15 times smaller and it produces nine time more food than it can eat. It’s thus cheaper to raise a lamb in New Zealand, slaughter it, freeze it, then ship it 11,000 miles from Auckland to Felixstowe than it is to raise a lamb in Devon. We would all lose if Britain subsidized sheep rearing. (Although it still does, a little.) Similarly, it’s cheaper for Britain, not New Zealand, to finance the Danish, Italian, French, or Taiwanese ship that carries that frozen lamb. We would all lose if New Zealand subsidized banking. (Today, of its 19 banks, none are subsidized.)

Call this period the ‘Pax Americana,’ perhaps followed by another period, more global period after 1991 and the end of the Cold War as China became an industrial exporting power and the ‘workshop of the world.’ It isn’t so much the change, especially for a large economy like the United States, but its speed. For example, from 1999 to 2011, manufacturing jobs in the United States fell by a third. That shift in the locus of manufacturing displaced around 2.5 million jobs in the United States (other jobs were created, but over two million people were disrupted from the late 1990s to 2007). That resulted from a massive labor migration in China, after its creation of SEZ’s (Special Economic Zones). “The massive increase in China’s industrial labor force—resulting from the decollectivization of agriculture, the closing of inefficient state-owned enterprises, and the migration of 250 million workers from farms to cities—has made China the default location for all types of labor-intensive production.” From: “The China Shock: Learning from Labor-Market Adjustment to Large Changes in Trade,” D. H. Autor, D. Dorn, G. Hanson, The Annual Review of Economics, 8(1):205-240, 2016. “The Hyperglobalization of Trade and Its Future,” A. Subramanian, M. Kessler, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Working Paper WP 13-6, 2013. As the economist Paul Romer, now chief economist of the World Bank, has often said: “Everyone wants progress; nobody wants change.”

Many factors may have contributed to this remarkable expansion of trade but the fact that it coincided with a significant reduction in trade barriers is inescapable. Trade barriers include all costs of getting a good to the final consumer other than the cost of producing the good itself: transportation costs (both freight costs and time costs), policy barriers (tariffs and non-tariff barriers) and internal trade and transaction costs (including domestic information costs, contract enforcement costs, legal and regulatory costs, local distribution, customs clearance procedures, administrative red tape, etc.).”

World Trade Report 2013: Factors shaping the future of world trade, World Trade Organization, 2013, page 55.

But the following paper states that in 1910 Germany was still only 48.8 percent urban. “Although the process of urbanization began around the middle of the century it reached completion essentially between 1871 and 1910. It brought about a shift in the population which doubled the proportion of city dwellers. In 1871 23.7 per cent of the population lived in communities of over 5000 inhabitants; by 1910 this figure had risen to 48.8, whilst the share of the rural population, including those living in country market towns, fell from 75 to 50 per cent of the population.” From: “The Process of Urbanization in Germany at the Height of the Industrialization Period,” W. Köllman, Journal of Contemporary History, 4(3):59-76, 1969.

That figure also seems to be what Seymour implies in his 1916 book: “In 1871 less than a quarter of the German people resided in the towns; at the end of the century, the town population comprised nearly half of the whole.” The Diplomatic Background of the War 1870 to 1914, Charles Seymour, Yale University Press, 1916, page 64.

Dawson gives even lower figures of 23.7 percent in 1871 and 42.26 percent in 1900. These seem to be the most accurate of all. The Evolution of Modern Germany, William Harbutt Dawson, T. Fisher Unwin, 1908, page 39.

“[T]owards the middle of last century, Great Britain was the merchant, manufacturer, shipper, banker, and engineer of the world and ruled supreme in the realm of business. Two-thirds of the world’s shipping flew the British flag, two-thirds of the coal produced in the world was British; Great Britain had more miles of railway than the whole Continent, and produced more cotton goods and more iron than all the countries of the world together. Her coal mines were considered inexhaustible, and the coal possessed by other nations was believed to be of such inferior quality as to be almost useless for manufacturing purposes. Great Britain had therefore practically the manufacturing monopoly of the world, and the great German economist Friedrich List wrote with perfect truth in his Zollvereinsblatt: ’England is a world in itself, a world which is superior to the whole rest of the world in power and wealth.’

Our economists and many of our merchants thought that our economic position was so overwhelmingly strong and so unassailable that it would be impossible for other nations either to compete with us in neutral markets or to protect their own manufactures against the invasion of our industries by protective tariffs. They believed that Great Britain’s industrial power was stronger than all tariff walls. During the reign of these intoxicating ideas of Great Britain’s irresistible economic power Cobden proclaimed that ‘Great Britain was and always would be the workshop of the world;’ Great Britain threw away her fiscal weapons of defence, opened her doors wide to all nations, and introduced free trade.

While Great Britain was the undisputed mistress of the world’s trade, industry, finance, and shipping Germany was a poor agricultural country. She had been impoverished by her constant wars; she had neither colonies nor good coal, nor shipping, nor even a rich soil or a climate favourable to agriculture. She was divided into a number of petty States which were jealous of one another and which hampered one another’s progress. Communications in the interior were bad, and her internal trade was obstructed and undeveloped. Besides she was burdened by militarism and she possessed but one good harbour. According to the forecast of the British free traders Germany was predestined always to remain a poor agricultural country, exactly as Great Britain was predestined always to remain a rich industrial nation.”

From: “The Fiscal Policy of Germany,” O. Eltzbacher, The Nineteenth Century and After, 54(318):181-196, august 1903, Note: In 1905 Eltzbacher published a book that expanded on much the same subject, titled: Modern Germany: Her Political and Economic Problems, Her Policy, Her Ambitions, and the Causes of Her Success, Smith, Elder, & Co., 1905. The above quote was included in Chapter 12. He later changed his named to J. Ellis Barker and published a second edition in 1907. The above material was then in Chapter 21.

Although note that Reuleaux, having set off a firestorm in Germany, on his way home in 1876 he wrote (in his tenth letter) that “[T]he enemies have written themselves into quite a rage. The English press could not resist adding slightly to the translation, to increase their instinctively awakened triumphalism, by telling their English readers that I called German products ‘cheap and nasty.’ ”

Her diplomatists have negotiated innumerable commercial treaties. The population of her cities has been increasing in a manner not unworthy of England in the Thirties and Forties. Like England, too, she is draining her rural districts for the massing of her children in huge factory towns. Her yards (as well as those of England) too, are ringing with the sound of hammers upon ships being builded for the transport of German merchandise. Her agents and travellers swarm through Russia, and wherever else there is a chance of trade on any terms—are even supplying the foreigner with German goods at a loss, that they may achieve their purpose in the end. In a word, an industrial development, unparalleled, save in England a century ago, is now her portion. A gigantic commercial State is arising to menace our prosperity, and contend with us for the trade of the world.” Made in Germany, Ernest Edwin Williams, William Heinemann, 1896, pages 9-10.

[2] “Whether the resubjugation of entire provinces by the Imperial Government may be regarded as a blessing or a curse to the populations concerned, it is difficult to decide. For them it is unhappily a mere choice between being at the mercy of unscrupulous adventurers, elated with a series of successes, and rendered ferocious by a life of rapine, but utterly unprepared to introduce any serious system of reform; or being restored to a rule which, although worn out and feeble, has the advantage of an old-established organization, and can prove, by its general policy at any rate, that it has the welfare of the governed seriously at heart. On the whole, setting aside the wholesale cruelty which has unhappily too often distinguished such governmental triumphs on the part of the Chinese, and to which, indeed, the unlucky people seem liable whichever party may happen to gain the ascendency, the preferable conclusion would seem to be that resubmission to native authority is perhaps the mildest fate that can be desired for those subjects of China whose country has unfortunately been the scene of civil war. But an entirely different result may be looked for when foreign dominion—that is to say, European—has taken the place of Chinese. In the case of England, there can be little fear but that, in spite of the notable mistakes which have at times marked her colonial administration of Asiatic peoples, the primary object to which she has always set herself has been the welfare of the governed, and the development of the resources of the country which they occupy. And even as regards Russia, however irresponsible her system of government, selfish and unscrupulous her foreign policy, and corrupt her executive, may be regarded from an English point of view, still there can be little question that her assumption of authority over any tract of Asian territory must be considered preferable in the interests of philanthropy and general expediency to its restoration to an intrinsically weak and unpractical Government like that of the Chinese.

Assuming that the above proposition is a reasonable one, it follows as a fair inference, that the sooner China or any part of it is brought under the sway of some strong and progressive Power the better. And really, looking at the matter from a purely philanthropic and utilitarian point of view, that is about the best fate that can befall its inhabitants, as well in their own interest as in that of the world at large. Many things conspire to show that the days of the ruling dynasty are numbered; and who can say, when the catastrophe does come, whether the huge but crumbling fabric will ever be reconstructed? or, if so, whose will be the head and hand that will accomplish the task? The probability is that the empire will, in spite of the marvellous homogeneity which characterizes its people, at once lose its cohesion, and break up into a number of petty chiefdoms; and one may well imagine the grievous and protracted misery that must follow upon such a dissolution. It would be ridiculous, nay wicked, to suggest that this contingency might be anticipated, and an endeavour made to avert it by the timely absorption of a portion or of the whole of the Chinese territory. But we are entitled to express the hope that the course of mundane affairs may so shape itself as that such a calamity may be indefinitely delayed; or, if it be inevitable, that it may fall to the lot of some nation to take up the reins which shall have the will as well as the power to use the opportunity to the best advantage of the millions concerned.”

“The Future of China,” W. H. Medhurst, The Contemporary Review, September, 1879, Volume XXXVI, pages 1-12. Medhurst (1796-1857), a proponent of gunboat diplomacy, had been the Chinese secretary to the British superintendent of trade in China and had retired two years before, in 1877, then been knighted. See also: Perceptions of China and the Chinese People in the British Periodical and Newspaper Press, 1860-1900, William M. Stegemeyer, Masters thesis, Paper 4575, Portland State University, 1992.

[3] Citing the Japan Herald 9 April 1881: “Whilst by no means of opinion that the natural resources of Japan, whether mineral or agricultural, are particularly or noticeably great, or that its population is especially hardworking or prudent, nevertheless it has the promise of a moderate future before it. Without expecting too much from its Government—for a government is seldom found to differ widely from the people whose affairs it administers—a condition of moderate affluence and tolerable content is before it. Wealthy we do not at all think it will ever become: the advantages conferred by nature, with the exception of climate, and the love of indolence and pleasure of the people themselves, forbid it. The Japanese are a happy race, and being content with little, are not likely to achieve much.” Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development, (Retitling of: Western Enterprise in Indonesia and Malaya: A Study in Economic Development,) G. C. Allen and Audrey G. Donnithorne, Routledge, 1954, reprinted 2003, 2013, page 225. See also: The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Penguin, 2005, page 316. Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, David S. Landes, W. W. Norton, 1998, page 350.

For a much more comprehensive analysis, see Dawson, who was British, but who was educated in Germany. In a 1908 book, he noted that:

“[I]ndustrial Germany is largely the child of industrial England. We have created the rival of whose competition we now complain. Some time ago the Cologne Gazette reminded its readers that ‘It was Englishmen who in Germany first took in hand the construction of railways, gas works, tramways, and machine shops; who supplied to these enterprises the ample resources of British capital; and who thus acted as the pioneers of German material development.’ This is a generalisation which it would be possible to illustrate in all sorts of ways.

[In] 1838... Mr. Richard Cobden... foretold the day when the weapons which English enterprise and example were then placing in German hands would be turned against ourselves with fatal effect....

The process which to Cobden seventy years ago appeared so sinister was continued far into last century. Englishmen, their enterprise, intelligence, and capital were welcome so long as they were needed. Those were the days of Germany’s apprenticeship, and never was learner more patient and industrious. Directly the apprentice was out of his time, however, he began business on his own account, and his master was free to go, and go he did. We all know the rest. From manufacturing for their own use the Germans soon proceeded to supply other nations, and England lost control of markets in which it had for generations held an almost undisputed position....

But this plodding and persistent endeavour of the Germans to come to the front has been supported by a skilful and even masterly application of means to ends. While the average Englishman has been accustomed to regard commerce as a purely rule-of-thumb matter, the German has followed it as a science and an art, and in reality all the methods and measures which he has adopted in competing with his older rivals for the trade of the world may be reduced to one principle, characteristic of the Germans in so many ways, the application of a trained intelligence to the practical affairs of life.

Broadly speaking, where the German outrivals his competitors it will be found that his success is due to one or other of three reasons (1) the cheaper price of his goods, (2) their superior or at least more serviceable character, and (3) the more efficient arrangements which he makes for reaching and attracting purchasers.”

The Evolution of Modern Germany, William Harbutt Dawson, T. Fisher Unwin, 1908, pages 75-79.

See also: The Diplomatic Background of the War 1870 to 1914, Charles Seymour, Yale University Press, 1916, Chapter 4.

As with many British historians at the start of the 1900s prior to World War I, Dawson’s general Germanophilia contrasted with Barker’s general Germanophobia. Dawson was highly respected. See: “William Harbutt Dawson: The Career and Politics of an Historian of Germany,” S. Berger, The English Historical Review, 116(465):76-113, 2001.

Science in method has been, perhaps, the greatest reason for Germany’s ability to produce goods more cheaply than her rivals. The development of mechanical labor-saving devices progressed further there than in any other country; and the Germans’ skill in the coordination of the various processes of production has also enabled them to cut their costs. Their application of the natural sciences, especially chemistry, was another factor making for economy in manufacturing methods. Every new discovery was at once investigated by the German manufacturers in the hope that it would lead to some improvement ia the technical details of production and thus allow them to undersell their competitors.”

The Diplomatic Background of the War 1870 to 1914, Charles Seymour, Yale University Press, 1916, pages 69-71.

According to the report, before division, cities in what would become East Germany developed in parallel with those in what would become West Germany. Then came westward flight from 1949 to 1961 (Berlin Wall built). Then in the 1960’s and 1970’s came guest workers into West Germany. Then, on reunification, came westward flight.

However, the report doesn’t concern itself with the Marshall Plan, nor with the repayment of war reparations to Soviet Russia and Poland, which was mostly borne by East Germany. Also: although East Germany was poorer, it was also more equal (in income).

It is estimated that by the year 1976, 23 percent of Arab engineers, 50 percent of Arab doctors, and 15 percent of Arab BSc holders had emigrated. Roughly 25 percent of 300,000 first degree graduates from Arab universities in 1995/96 emigrated. Between 1998 and 2000 more than 15,000 Arab doctors migrated.

Apart from the sheer scale of emigration and its growth over time, looking into the motives of emigrants reveals obstacles to building Arab knowledge societies that are perhaps more serious than the brain drain itself. Surveys of highly qualified Arabs living abroad indicate that their principal reasons for leaving relate to the absence of a positive societal environment and facilities that would allow them to play their role in the knowledge system and in the development of their countries. Ideally this role should be performed under conditions that permit individual fulfilment and a decent standard of living. The denial of livable conditions to a host of highly qualified Arabs drastically undermines any attempt to create knowledge societies in Arab countries. Their emigration perpetuates weaknesses in both the production of knowledge and the demand for it, since the activities and pursuits of such highly qualified personnel would have significantly increased both supply and demand had they remained in their countries.” Arab Human Development Report 2003: Building a Knowledge Society, United Nations Development Programme, 2003, pages 144-145.

Neoclassical economic theory traces back to John Stuart Mill, with additions from Alfred Marshall, then many more recent thinkers; it amounts to assuming perfect knowledge and perfect competition. A variant, Hecksher-Ohlin theory, brings factor endowment more to the fore. Neoclassical economics believes in equilibium. That’s right in the long run, just as thermodynamics is right in the long run—entropy always wins, so everything must even out and die, eventually—but wrong in the short run. All lands compete for skills, machines, brains, money, and trade. Who wins what when?

Lucas compared the United States and India in 1988 and showed that, if the neoclassical model were correct, the marginal product of capital in India should be about 58 times that of the United States. So all capital should flow from the United States to India. But it doesn’t. “Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?” R. E. Lucas, Jr., American Economic Review, 80(2):92-96, 1990. In the 1950s, Nurkse had earlier observed that capital had flowed from 1860 to 1910 not because of neoclassical economic theory but because of special conditions, namely Europe was seeding and exploiting its transplants (including Russia), and that was unlikely to happen in future. “International Investment To-Day in the Light of Nineteenth-Century Experience,” R. Nurkse, Economic Journal, 64(256):744-758, 1954.

In the 2010s, this has grown into even more of a puzzle as oil prices have collapsed. The fastest growing economies tend to be those with the slowest growing productivity of labor and capital. Others have high savings rates. China is an example. Foreign investment flows in there even though the country has lots of money already saved to itself power industry. “Developments in the early 21st century made the international pattern of capital flows look even more paradoxical than before. Not only was capital failing to flow from rich to poor countries in appreciable amounts; it was actually flowing uphill, from poor to rich, and on a huge scale. Behind this pattern lay a number of specific developments: Asset booms in rich countries spurred consumption and housing investment, for example, causing big current account deficits, while rapid growth in rich countries and especially China boosted commodity prices, allowing more relatively poor exporters of raw materials to run surpluses. This pattern has abated recently as advanced economies and China have slowed and commodity prices have fallen. In the 2010s, non-oil producing developing countries as a group began to run deficits again, even as rich countries moved into surplus and oil exporters, facing a collapse in oil prices starting in 2014, moved sharply from surplus to deficit. The recent deficits of non-oil producing developing countries have, however, been small compared to the size of the world economy.” International Economics: Theory & Policy, 11th Edition, Paul R. Krugman, Maurice Obstfeld, and Marc J. Melitz, Pearson Education, 2018, page 756. “Capital flows to developing countries: The allocation puzzle,” P.-O. Gourinchas, O. Jeanne, Review of Economic Studies, 80(4):1484-1515, 2013. “The paradox of capital,” E. Prasad, R. Rajan, A. Subramanian, Finance and Development, 44(1):16-19, 2007.

“Has the Lucas Paradox been fully explained?” C. Azémara, R. Desbordes, Economics Letters, 121(2):183-187, 2013. “What drives international financial flows? Politics, institutions and other determinants,” E. Papaioannou, Journal of Development Economics, 88(2):269-281, 2009. “International Investment Patterns,” P. R. Lane, G. M. Milesi-Ferretti, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(3):538-549, 2008. “Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation,” L. Alfaro, S. Kalemli-Ozcan, V. Volosovych, The Review of Economics and Statistics, 90(2):347-368, 2008. “Banking on Democracy: The Political Economy of International Private Bank Lending in Emerging Markets,” J. Rodríguez, J. Santiso, International Political Science Review, 29(2):215-246, 2008. “International Capital Flows, Financial Stability and Growth,” G. L. Kaminsky, DESA Working Paper No. 10, ST/ESA/2005/DWP/10, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA), December 2005. “Channels from Globalization to Inequality: Productivity World versus Factor World,” W. Easterly, in: Brookings Trade Forum 2004: Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality, Susan M. Collins and Carol Graham (editors), Brookings Institution Press, 2004, pages 39-71. “Winners and Losers Over Two Centuries of Globalization,” J. Williamson, NBER Working Paper No. 9161, 2002.

In the 1800s, newly rich Britain, then France, then Germany, and elsewhere, went looking for poor lands to invest in—so money flowed to the United States, Russia, Turkey, also Canada, Australia, Argentina, and elsewhere, to build railroads and steel mills and factories and such. Growth of the International Economy 1820-2000: An Introductory Text, A. G. Kenwood and A. L. Lougheed, Routledge, Fourth Edition, 1999, Chapter 2, pages 26-44.

“The past 130 years have seen at least four major surges in private capital flows to emerging markets. The first, from about 1870 to the outbreak of World War I, was a boom in bond finance, largely to labor-scarce and resource-abundant economies of recent European settlement. The second was the post-World War I recovery, lasting until the Great Depression, of bond lending to finance public sector deficits. The third was the surge in international bank lending to developing country governments from the 1973 oil price shock until the 1982 Mexican crisis. The most recent surge was the 1990s boom in private-to-private portfolio flows and foreign direct investment in emerging market economies. All four episodes were accompanied by solid growth in world trade and investment, were punctuated by currency and financial instability in the capital receiving countries, and eventually ended in global political or economic crisis. [...]

Capital surges to emerging markets have typically been part of a larger, periodic process of rapid expansion of the global economy. They occur when the worldwide diffusion of technological changes improves communications and transport, growth is buoyant, world trade is expanding, financial innovation is rapid, and the political climate is supportive.” Global Development Finance, 2000, Analysis and Summary Tables, The World Bank, 2000, page 119.

The United States emphasizes different policies, but is otherwise similar. “The two countries also differ in their reliance on border measures, including tariffs and tariff-rate quotas, to provide support for domestic agriculture. Although both maintain tariffs, the European Union’s are higher, on average, and there are a greater number of tariffs over 100 percent. The European Union also makes heavier use of export subsidies across a wider range of commodities.

Overall, while both countries provide moderately high support to their agricultural sectors relative to other developed countries, the European Union maintains a higher overall support level, has higher budget outlays for agricultural support, and provides more support that is coupled or partially coupled to production than the United States.”

“U.S. and EU Farm Policy—How Similar?” M. A. Normile, A. B. W. Effland, C. E. Young, in: U.S.-EU Food and Agriculture Comparisons, Mary Anne Normile and Susan Leetmaa (editors), United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Agriculture and Trade Reports, Outlook No. (WRS-0404), 2004, pages 14-27, especially pages 19 and 21.

Since 2000, and due to bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, tariffs have been declining. But that has failed to open markets as much as expected. Also, as tariffs have fallen, non-tariff barriers have risen. “Non-Tariff Measures to Trade: Economic and Policy Issues for Developing Countries,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2013.

However, at least in terms of tariffs, Lankes notes that: “Developing countries themselves have high tariffs that limit trade among them. The average tariff in developing countries is 14 percent, and in the least developed countries, 17.9 percent, compared with 5.2 percent in the industrial countries.” From: “Market Access for Developing Countries,” H. P. Lankes, Finance and Development, International Monetary Fund, 39(3):8-13, 2002.

Similarly, the World Bank states that: “Developing countries themselves are part of the problem. Although South-South trade is a much smaller share of total trade, average tariffs in manufactures are three times higher for trade among developing countries than for exports to high-income countries. Taken together and because of high protection for labor-intensive products around the globe, the world’s poor face tariffs that are, on average, roughly twice as high as those imposed on the nonpoor.” Global Economic Prospects 2002: Making Trade Work for the World’s Poor, The World Bank, 2002, page 37.

However, for a good argument that protectionism was widely used in the past among today’s rich nations, see: Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective, Ha-Joon Chang, Anthem Press, 2002.

Will these countries continue to grow until they cross the threshold to developed countries? History suggests that growth cannot be taken for granted. Many countries grew impressively over long periods only to stagnate. For example, between 1950 and 1980 Brazil’s per capita economic growth was almost 5 percent a year—similar to recent growth in Botswana, Singapore and Thailand—but its economy collapsed in the 1980s and has only recently started to recover. Argentina’s collapse was even more dramatic, from a per capita GDP in 1913 that exceeded the European average, to one in 2007 that was just a fifth of Western Europe’s.

These cases illustrate how hard it is to cross the great income divide. Of the 108 countries with incomes below $7,000 per capita in 1970, only 4 moved up to the World Bank’s high-income classification in 2010. Three are small island economies (Antigua and Barbuda, Equatorial Guinea and Malta), one with abundant oil. The fourth—South Korea—remains an important exception. Estonia and Slovakia did not exist as independent countries in 1970, but both achieved growth that moved them up into the high-income group.”

Human Development Report, 2010, United Nations Development Programme, 2010, page 42.

“China faces growing gender imbalance,” BBC News, January 11th, 2010. World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2007. “The Contribution of Population Health and Demographic Change to Economic Growth in China and India,” D. E. Bloom, D. Canning, L. Hu, Y. Liu, A. Mahal, W. Yip, PGDA Working Paper Number 2807, Program on the Global Demography of Aging, 2007. “China’s Growth to 2030: The Roles of Demographic Change and Investment Premia,” R. Tyers, J. Golley, PGDA Working Paper Number 1206, Program on the Global Demography of Aging, 2006. “China’s Growth to 2030: Demographic Change and the Labour Supply Constraint,” J. Golley, R. Tyers, PGDA Working Paper Number 1106, Program on the Global Demography of Aging, 2006.