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Smug states

China did have a huge lead in technology. The Aztecs were far more numberous and at least as brave as the conquerors. But both were defeated.

Why?
Because the State was in charge of technological development and restricted peoples' inventiveness.


You wrote:
What the state failed to realise was that the dangerous thing was not the export of their technology. This cannot be totally stopped.
The dangerous thing was that they stopped developing new technology.

Yes, the State controlled the development of new technology, and that's why the mistake occurred. Inventive people were not allowed to work and profit from their efforts.

Let's look at a few examples.

In China, the cannon was used to fight the Manchus, who were not able to conquer until they had captured technicians and put them to work. But then development stopped, and it was the Jesuits who introduced advanced brass cannon.

In Mexico, though this is not so much about technology, the State was so centralized that the capture of Mon/ctezuma paralyzed resistance.

I'll add another example. In ancient Egypt, the people never wanted to leave Egypt. During the period in which they were the strongest, best organized people in the world, they did not create an empire. They would have had to live somewhere else. Because there was a fixed limit to arable land in Egypt, the people were not numerous enough to resist attackers forever.

Here the pharaohs were following the popular will, but they did not take the steps necessary to protect the country long term. They also were more concerned with the good ordering of society than technological advancement.

So we can definitely conclude that technological advance comes from government restraint and encouragement of technology rather than government control.


You also wrote:
Your previous assertion I think is confused maximising filed patents in my view has nothing to do with technological development.

If you can find another way to assure that inventive people can profit from their inventions, go ahead. Until then, patents are doing their job of reserving profits to inventors. Maybe the way they work can be improved, but as far as I can tell the mechanism or something similar is essential.

Many inventors, if not most, want to be fiscally rewarded for their work. If you disagree, I'd argue that you're misjudging human nature. And we know what happens when a strong government authority decides to change human nature: people are persecuted for being themselves. If the twentieth century has taught us anything, it's that people are not as pliable as some utopian (or dystopian) political thinkers want to believe.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 12/29/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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