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obscure tech blog. Wednesday afternoon, the innovation is for sale in Wal-Mart. This is not the historical norm. It might even be a sign that we’re faced with “innovation inflation” or experiencing an “innovation bubble.” Ideas usually take much longer to reach fruition. “Milk from contented aurochs” may have occurred to Australopithecus 3 million years ago, but nobody had a fresh glass of it until about 8500 B.C. Ancient Greek democracy flourished only from 508 B.C. to 338 B.C in just one small city-state, Athens, and it was interrupted several times by tyrants. There’s been lots of civilization since, but the idea of democracy wasn’t really tried again until 1776. And after 241 years, we’re still working out the kinks. We must, however, give civilization its due. Putting innovative ideas into effect would be even slower if it weren’t for civilization bringing crowds of people together in small spaces. The Latin root of the word “civilization” is civitas , “city.” You can’t have civilization without cities. Watch reruns of Hee Haw for proof. When you have a city crowd, you have a crowd of skills and knowledge. Imagine James Watt inventing the first efficient steam engine without a lot of skills and knowledge readily at hand. He would have had to go to the Harz Mountains in Germany to dig iron ore, travel to Damascus, Syria, to find the best iron smelters, and visit
We're spoiled by living in a world of fast-forward innovation.
Toledo, Spain, for the finished metalwork. Then he’d have to venture out to Mongolia to find little horses to be pit ponies and go to Wales to put the pit ponies to work in coal mines hauling coal to burn to boil water. The Industrial Revolution would never have happened... Watt would have stayed in his native Scotland blowing off steam the old- fashioned way, drinking scotch. Civilization also makes international trade possible. There is one basic requirement for international trade, international nations. You have to have some place to trade with . Just sailing over the horizon like Christopher Columbus, encountering scattered groups of natives, enslaving them, and giving them diseases is not an efficient mode of international trade. It’s best to know what you’re doing. Cornwall has tin. France has wine. Get the two together and you have a wine-filled tin cup. Better than drinking out of your cupped hands. Much better than not drinking at all. Yet even in a simple trade innovation like this, ideas play an important role. The old “mercantilist” concept of trade was that two-way trade was bad. Cornwall should just sell tin to France and not buy wine or all the money would go back to the Frenchmen. Of course, the result of “no two-way trade” is no trade at all. All your goods are made at
American Consequences | 9
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