The Wealth of Nations
The political ads ask, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
The answer, in the case of the Unindicted Co-Conspirator and me, is yes. We've been fortunate, we're both employed, and we haven't suffered any costly crises.
And that's pretty much the story of our lives. And our parent's lives. And their parents. And so on, all the way back as far as we can trace. Life has gotten better, successive generations have lived healthier, wealthier lives.
How is it I stand here looking around at a standard of living that would make kings envious and wealth that would make Croesus blush? Because I didn't build that.
In fact, very few can claim sole credit for building that since we climbed down from the trees. Unlike even our closest ape relations, we don't just share information with each other, we transmit it down the generations.
About twelve thousand years ago, our ancestors (who would be indistinguishable from us if dressed in modern garb) domesticated certain plants and found they could grow more calories with less effort. It no longer took a whole tribe to hunt and gather; now there could be specialization. Metallurgy and pottery and masonry and carpentry and plumbing and animal husbandry and farming and so on followed.
Each generation built on the labor of the previous one. When a better way to do something was found, it was transmitted, first orally and then in writing. Trade between groups began, and the process accelerated. We now benefited not only from our own group's work and the work of our ancestors, but from another group's work and the work of their ancestors.
An entrepreneur in a distant land invents a new metal, harder and stronger than the old. In no time at all, the new knowledge sweeps the known world. Even God himself could not keep up. See the Hebrew Scriptures of Joshua and Judges. God was with Joshua and gave him many victories, but against those tribes with iron chariots God was helpless. Until the Israelites themselves developed iron weapons, that is.
I was born in the middle of the twentieth century. In my lifetime, I have seen satellites, transistors, a transcontinental interstate highway system, nuclear power plants, supersonic aircraft, inexpensive air travel, inexpensive international telecommunications, MRIs and CAT scans and heart transplants and wonder drugs and the Internet and the World Wide Web and the personal computer and the smart phone and the tablet and Fedex and HBO and …
And I didn't build that. But thanks to the multiplication of twelve thousand years of human work and inventiveness, I've built a life that my ancestors would have found astonishing. I "work", if you can call it that, at a desk high above the city, looking out over the South Bay. My work environment is climate-controlled and brightly lit. My workplace is actually just an aluminum slab that weighs less than three pounds. It's hinged and opens like a clamshell. There are buttons on one side and a screen on the other that displays anything I want it to, just by touching buttons and sweeping my fingers across a square space below the keyboard. My work supports researchers and academics building an even richer future.
I drive home at the end of the day in a luxurious vehicle, listening to news and music relayed by satellite. My route is displayed on a constantly updating full-color map embedded in the dashboard. I get home, and put together a quick and inexpensive dinner made up of already boned and skinned chicken from Maryland, vegetables from California, and fruits from South America, all flavored with spices and herbs from around the world. Then I sit down in front of a huge screen to watch a television program that was broadcast 47 years ago, a science fiction show about seeking out new life and new civilizations and boldly going where no man had gone before.
I didn't build it. I don't merely stand on the shoulders of giants, I stand atop a vast pyramid of giants.
There are some who call themselves "preppers" who think that we're teetering on the brink, that our great institutions are all failing, and that their only hope is to move to a redoubt in upstate Idaho, far from the populated areas that will soon dissolve into anarchy and cannibalism. They've laid in supplies so that they can survive the coming apocalypse. They'll grow their own food and pump their own water and maybe find some like-minded folks nearby (just not too nearby) and rebuild civilization. They might be right - my crystal ball is in the shop right now.
But I won’t join them. Resources running low? Energy no longer cheap? Too many people? We've dealt with all these problems before, many times. Are there suddenly no innovators and entrepreneurs among our seven billion people? It only takes a few to enrich us all. Me, I'm placing my bets with 12,000 years of human progress. It hasn't been a straight line sloping upward, to be sure, but you can't ignore the trend.
"In civilized society," wrote Adam Smith, an individual "stands at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons."
He wrote that by candlelight with a quill dipped in ink. He would have loved the laptop computer.
The answer, in the case of the Unindicted Co-Conspirator and me, is yes. We've been fortunate, we're both employed, and we haven't suffered any costly crises.
And that's pretty much the story of our lives. And our parent's lives. And their parents. And so on, all the way back as far as we can trace. Life has gotten better, successive generations have lived healthier, wealthier lives.
How is it I stand here looking around at a standard of living that would make kings envious and wealth that would make Croesus blush? Because I didn't build that.
In fact, very few can claim sole credit for building that since we climbed down from the trees. Unlike even our closest ape relations, we don't just share information with each other, we transmit it down the generations.
About twelve thousand years ago, our ancestors (who would be indistinguishable from us if dressed in modern garb) domesticated certain plants and found they could grow more calories with less effort. It no longer took a whole tribe to hunt and gather; now there could be specialization. Metallurgy and pottery and masonry and carpentry and plumbing and animal husbandry and farming and so on followed.
Each generation built on the labor of the previous one. When a better way to do something was found, it was transmitted, first orally and then in writing. Trade between groups began, and the process accelerated. We now benefited not only from our own group's work and the work of our ancestors, but from another group's work and the work of their ancestors.
An entrepreneur in a distant land invents a new metal, harder and stronger than the old. In no time at all, the new knowledge sweeps the known world. Even God himself could not keep up. See the Hebrew Scriptures of Joshua and Judges. God was with Joshua and gave him many victories, but against those tribes with iron chariots God was helpless. Until the Israelites themselves developed iron weapons, that is.
I was born in the middle of the twentieth century. In my lifetime, I have seen satellites, transistors, a transcontinental interstate highway system, nuclear power plants, supersonic aircraft, inexpensive air travel, inexpensive international telecommunications, MRIs and CAT scans and heart transplants and wonder drugs and the Internet and the World Wide Web and the personal computer and the smart phone and the tablet and Fedex and HBO and …
And I didn't build that. But thanks to the multiplication of twelve thousand years of human work and inventiveness, I've built a life that my ancestors would have found astonishing. I "work", if you can call it that, at a desk high above the city, looking out over the South Bay. My work environment is climate-controlled and brightly lit. My workplace is actually just an aluminum slab that weighs less than three pounds. It's hinged and opens like a clamshell. There are buttons on one side and a screen on the other that displays anything I want it to, just by touching buttons and sweeping my fingers across a square space below the keyboard. My work supports researchers and academics building an even richer future.
I drive home at the end of the day in a luxurious vehicle, listening to news and music relayed by satellite. My route is displayed on a constantly updating full-color map embedded in the dashboard. I get home, and put together a quick and inexpensive dinner made up of already boned and skinned chicken from Maryland, vegetables from California, and fruits from South America, all flavored with spices and herbs from around the world. Then I sit down in front of a huge screen to watch a television program that was broadcast 47 years ago, a science fiction show about seeking out new life and new civilizations and boldly going where no man had gone before.
I didn't build it. I don't merely stand on the shoulders of giants, I stand atop a vast pyramid of giants.
There are some who call themselves "preppers" who think that we're teetering on the brink, that our great institutions are all failing, and that their only hope is to move to a redoubt in upstate Idaho, far from the populated areas that will soon dissolve into anarchy and cannibalism. They've laid in supplies so that they can survive the coming apocalypse. They'll grow their own food and pump their own water and maybe find some like-minded folks nearby (just not too nearby) and rebuild civilization. They might be right - my crystal ball is in the shop right now.
But I won’t join them. Resources running low? Energy no longer cheap? Too many people? We've dealt with all these problems before, many times. Are there suddenly no innovators and entrepreneurs among our seven billion people? It only takes a few to enrich us all. Me, I'm placing my bets with 12,000 years of human progress. It hasn't been a straight line sloping upward, to be sure, but you can't ignore the trend.
"In civilized society," wrote Adam Smith, an individual "stands at all times in need of the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons."
He wrote that by candlelight with a quill dipped in ink. He would have loved the laptop computer.