Technological Status; J. Campbell

Perhaps the Grade A #1 prime example is one which is now gen erally considered the perfect sym bol of non-technology - the epito nlization of the failure to develop technology. The peasant-farmer, plodding along behind his horse-drawn plow as he sweats to till his fields, does Mr. Campbell's editorial is reprinted here by permission from ANALOG Science Fiction Science Fact. Copyright 1968 by the Conde Nast Publications, Inc. seem, to us, about as untechnical as you can get. Yet in that pasto ral scene is a technical break through that properly ranks slight ly behind harnessing fire, and per haps a bit ahead of the wheel. (After all, all the native American civilizations got along without the wheel!) It might be described in modern terms as "a solid-state power-han dling device for coupling a heavy duty power source to heavy trac tive loads." Or, more simply, as the device that freed human slaves from service as draft animals.

One of the reasons the Romans and Greeks needed so many slaves was that there was no known way of harnessing animals to heavy 113 114 THE FREEMAN February draft loads. Man, because of his bipedal posture and his hands, could have a harness slipped over his chest and shoulders, and by leaning into it, exert all his strength in pulling the load. It was literally true that a man could exert more pull than a 1,500 pound horse. A horse's sloping chest, and lack of shoulders or grasping hands, made it impossible to tie him to a load except by putting a rope around his neck. Do that, and as soon as he pulls, he's choked by the rope at his throat; he can pull only lightly before his wind is cut off and he has to stop. True, some powerful horses can exert enough pull to move a relatively light chariot at a good speed that way but as a coupling device it's ex ceedingly inefficient. The horse couldn't pull a plow, or a heavy dray.

Oxen, equipped by nature with some well-anchored horns, could do considerably better - but it was extremely tiring on even an ox's heavy neck muscles to hold his head down against the backward pull of the load. Rapid, Heavy Transport The horse collar, invented some where, sometime during the Mid dle Ages in Europe, was Man's first really successful device for harnessing powerful animal muscles to do the heavy hauling work that was needed. It made possible hea vy transport - even on the hor rible mud ruts they called roads. It vastly increased the amount of agricultural land that could be prepared and used during a single growing season; there was far more food available for men and motive power. Where before, horses and other animals had transported goods primarily as pack animals, transportation was expanded, quite suddenly, as great ly as it was a few centuries later with the invention of the steam powered railroad.

Naturally, with the potential of heavy, relatively rapid transporta tion available, the sedan chair went out of use as the coach came in, and pack-trains were replaced by loaded wagons. Inevitably the demand for more roads wide enough - and good enough! - for horse-drawn vehicles came, and the entire economy began speed ing up. The contact with the highly so phisticated and educated society of Islam was undoubtedly a tremen dous factor in the development of the renaissance in the seacoast regions of the Mediterranean, where ,vater transport made trans portation reasonably effective. But it was the horse collar that brought an economic renaissance to most of Europe.

1969 TECHNOLOGICAL STATUS 115 It's not at all easy to recognize technological importance - partic ularly when we're used to it. Cer tainly a horse collar seems a sim ple enough idea .... Most moderns haven't actually seen and handled one, or studied one closely. Take a good look at the structure of a horse's chest and shoulders, and without study ing a horse collar, try devising a form that will fit snugly onto those sloping curves and planes, allow the horse free movement of neck and forelegs, avoid concentrating the load on prominent bony areas, and so distribute it that the horse can exert his full strength without painful chafing. Then make it stay in place without aid of adhesive tapes, glue, or surgical implants! The agricultural technicians of the Middle Ages who developed that gadget were not fools, even if they hadn't ever had a course in mechanical engineering, or force analysis. And they did achieve something that the learned Greeks and the great Roman en gineers did not; they harnessed the most effective power source in the world at the time.

And be it noted that that animal power __ source is still used as the basis for measuring our mechani cal tractive engines - as Watt orig inally defined it in his sales-pro motion literature for his new steam engines. However, two horses can do a lot more plowing than a two-horse power gasoline-engined tractor can; the gas job can't slow down in a tough spot, dig in its hooves, bellydown to the earth, and lunge with half a ton of hard-tensed muscle to drag the plow through. Of course, the tractor is also not capable of self-repair, auto matic routine maintenance, living off the fields it works, self-replica tion, or sense enough not to de stroy itself by ramming itself over a cliff. In addition to operating on locally-available fuels, a horse is approximately twice as efficient as a tractor in conversion of chemi cal to mechanical energy. Current Applications The moral of this little story is not to be applied just to humans visiting alien planets; it applies very cruelly to situations right here on our own crazy, confused world. Backward nations - I will not be euphemistic and call them "underdeveloped" because they've had the same thousands of years to develop that Europe and Amer ica had, and simply didn't do so do not recognize the importance of what could be called "the Horse Collar Revolution."

Those economically depressed nations want, most ardently, to join "the modern world" - Le., to achieve the industrially-developed 116 THE FREEMAN February status of the high-level technologi cal nations. Now there are two kinds of "status"; one is what your neigh bors think you are, and the other is what you actually have' and can do. The first type of status is, of course, far and away the most popular, and the most eager ly sought. One type of individual, if he happens to inherit a f.ew thousand dollars, or hit it lucky in gambling, promptly puts it into fancy new clothes, a down payment on a fancy new car, and a fancy new woman or two, and has himself a whee of a time being admired and respected because man, he's got all the symbols of Status! So in three months the fancy car is repossessed, the fancy wom an moves off, and the fancy clothes prove to have poor durability. Another approach is to spend the little inheritance on getting a small business started - maybe a neighborhood grocery, or a news stand. Doesn't get you much Status, of course, and not much spectacular fun . . . but put to work that way a few thousand can support you for life.

It's just that it is not as much fun, and a few thousand won't do it unless you get in and work just as hard yourself, and that makes the whole idea much less popular. Status Symbols The national equivalent now showing up among the backward nations is that foreign aid - win ning the numbers game, in the international lottery! - is spent on fancy Status projects. Hydroelec tric plants are Status Symbols, man! That means you've got it! Even if you don't have many electric lights or power machines in grass huts and fields plowed by men and women pulling wooden stick plows through the earth. Steel mills are great interna tional Status Symbols, too. Of course, what would really make one of those nations have Status with all its neighbors would be to have something really technical and ultra-fancy, like a few nu clear bombs. Trouble is, nobody, except a few experts, in a few major Western nations, have the wisdom to see that the horse collar is one of the greatest technical developments of human history.

The basic plot in Christopher Anvil's "Royal Road" stemmed from an actual disaster of WW II ; it didn't have the comfortable end ing Anvil's story did. The lesson, bitterly learned then, is being re learned most reluctantly by the backward countries today. The Allies had a tremendous mil itary need for roads and barracks and airfields in an area where 1969 TECHNOLOGICAL STATUS 117 there simply were none. It was a remote area; shipping simply wasn't to he had for sending in earth-moving machinery, bull dozers, power shovels, and so on. So local natives were hired, at high pay, to do the work. The men who set up that opera tion didn't know what a sub sistence-level economy was; they found out that fall and winter. The men they'd hired to work at such fine wages were, of course, the native farmers - who there fore didn't farm that year. In Anvil's story, the thing was planned, and the aftermath was part of the plan; in the real event it wasn't planned that way - it just happened. There was no ship ping to bring in food that winter, just as there had been no shipping to bring in earth-moving ma chinery. It was a horribly grim demonstration of the oft-repeated remark of philosophers that "you can't eat gold." There was a lot of money around - but no crops.

Repeating the Error What's happening again and again in backward countries to day is of the same order. The magnificent new dams and hydro electric plants employ thousands of workers at good wages - and hire them away from food-produc tion in a near-subsistence econ omy. The result is inadequate food production, incipient famine, and a desperate plea for help to feed the sta.rving millions. But they sure have a great Status dam! Oh, they get irrigation water, too - only sometimes the results haven't been any better thought out than the economic disaster of famine was. Many areas of the world have fairly fertile land ly ing on top of extremely saline under-soil - practically salt beds. When rain falls, the fresh water seeps downward, and keeps wash ing the salt back down to the under-soil where it is harmless. But run in irrigation water - the salt from below dissolves, and evaporation from the surface soil pulls the now-saline water up, where it in turn evaporates, and thus rapidly builds up a salt crust on the surface.

It takes several years of non irrigation, and no crops, for natu ral rainfall to wash the salt back down so the land can be used again. But don't you forget - that big irrigation dam and project is an international Status Symbol of high value! If a nation has a primitive sub sistence-level economy, this simply means that its food-and-goods pro duction has economic value just barely sufficient to keep the popu lation from starvation. And that in crop-failure years, there will be 118 THE FREEMAN February famine, and people will die of starvation. In many, many such subsist ence-level areas, if such famines occurred, there was literally noth ing whatever anyone could do to help them. The thing happened repeatedly in India and in China; India, under the British, had rail ways and His Majesty's govern ment did everything humanly pos sible to relieve the starvation. But the food needed to feed 300,000, 000 starving people can't be gath ered from the surrounding areas; they're subsistence-level e'cono mies, too. And the railroads weren't vast, heavy-traffic net works such as Europe and Amer ica had developed; they didn't have enough cars or engines. And shipping from half around the world took so long that even if the transport and grain were freely donated, it wouldn't get there in time to be very helpful.

In China, because of bad roads and no railroads at the time, there were huge areas where the only possible transport was by porters. (M ules can't climb ladders, and some of the routes required lad ders to get up mountain "passes.") Since porters had to start in car rying their own food for the round trip, it was fairly easy to figure what distance of penetration was possible before the porter had con sumed his total load in his own round-trip supply. No food what ever could be shipped into any more distant point. People in those inner areas simply starved to death because help was physically impossible. Breaking the Habit In subsistence-level economy areas today, what sort of help can the industrial nations give? Well, first is the fact that Step #1 is to break down the cultural pattern of the people that holds them at the subsistence level. And at this step, naturally, the people will do all they can to destroy the vile invaders who are seeking to destroy their Way of Life, which is the Good, the True, and the Beautiful and Holy Way.

You can't do it by telling them that they should stop growing those inefficient crops, those crops that produce protein malnutrition, and learn how to raise these new and far more efficient nutritive crops. There are problems involved that aren't economic or technical. The Israeli, for instance, have worked out techniques for grow ing watermelons, wheat, various fruits, and grains on sandy gravel irrigated with salt water. They can make the barren Negev Des ert produce fine crops of excellent food - techniques that can be ap plied anywhere there are sand 1969 TECHNOLOGICAL STATUS 119 dunes, gravel, and sea water, or salt-water springs. It would work fine in huge areas of the Sahara. No vast irrigation dams needed for this project! Unfortunately, the Arabs don't seem enthusiastic about accepting and applying this Jewish tech nique. Even if it were an Arab devel opment, the peoples of the area are tradition-oriented; it would take at least a generation to put over the idea of doing precisely those things which they know are wrong. For every farmer knows that salt water kills plants, and you can't grow plants in sand and stony gravel.

The odd thing is that the salt water irrigation can not be used in "good soil"; it works only in the worst kind of gravel-sand soil. Resistance to Change The proper development of the backward areas requires recogni tion that the people don't 'want to change. They want their results to change - they want to have the fine things other nations have, but not to build them. To pull up from a subsistence level economy, the first step is building better roads, and a more efficient agriculture. Not irriga tion projects, not tractor manufac turing plants and hydroelectric proj ects and establishing an internationally known air line, complete with twenty or so Boeing 707 jets. Man, those are real Status Sym boIs! What's needed is the Horse Col lar Revolution and its results. Draft animals can live off the lo cal fields; they don't require ex changing scarce goods for foreign fuel supplies and replacement parts.

The road network has to be built up slowly; too many farm ers diverted to vast construction projects and you have famine. You need schools - schools that teach agriculture and medicine and veterinary medicine and sim ple local-irrigation techniques and public hygiene and basic nutrition. Not electronics, industrial chem istry, and jet-engine maintenance - not for a generation will that be valid. The few natives who are really cut out for that sort of work can be taught in other na tions, where schools of that order are needed, and already exist. But don't expect them to come home there will be nothing for them to come home to for a generation. But no High Status schools? Sorry - getting out of a sub sistence system can't be achieved on Status - it has to be achieved by Status, the hard-work-and practical-learning kind of real ac complishment. The ancient truth prevails: God 120 THE FREEMAN February helps those who help themselves.

Because even God can't help some one who won't help himself that's what the ancient concept of Free Will implies! Help Is Where You Find It The more developed nations can help effectively only where the na tional leaders have the wisdom to work for real accomplishment, not for high Status projects. And be it noted - that "more de veloped nations" does not mean the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and other West ern nations alone, by any means. One example has been cited; Israel has a technique that could im mensely aid many backward na tions right now. The Philippines have developed a spectacularly productive new breed of rice by careful botanical research; they've done a bang-up job of it, and have a strain that yields three to four times as much food from a given area. It's a breed that could release two out of three rice-farmers in a sub sistence-level nation to work on those needed roads and dams and other projects, without bringing starvation to the country.

The water buffalo is an ex tremely economic animal; it's one beastie that the Western world needs to accept and use as a do mestic animal - and is needed far more widely in the world. The water buffalo yields high-quality milk, high-quality meat, and is an enormously powerful draft animal capable of working under muddy conditions which ruin the feet of most crea tures. Moreover, the critter can yield meat, milk, and power when fed on an incredible diet consisting solely of rice stub ble! The Thais have carried on a careful program of breeding for some decades, and now have breeds of water buffalo that run over a ton in weight. Rather surprisingly, about the only area outside of the Southeast Asia region where water buf faloes are used in any numbers is in Italy, where some 40,000 of them are kept. The familiar Moz zarella Italian cheese - in its orig inal, genuine form - is made from water-buffalo milk.

Only when many thousands, or millions, of agricultural workers can leave the farms for work with out producing the inevitable fam ine - only when the agricultural economy gets above the subsistence level-can any nation become "ad vanced." Argentina isn't an indus trial power - but has a highly de veloped agricultural economy. All of the highly industrialized na tions first became highly success ful agricultural nations. Yet we - and unfortunately the backward nations! - see the horse drawn plow and the farmer as 1969 TECHNOLOGICAL STATUS 121 symbols of ",.low-status, nonindus trial economies. The great trouble is that people don't want to change. It's not iust the peoples in backward countries; the great economic advantages of the water buffalo have been around for centuries, yet only Italy among all the Western na tions has accepted them. Why aren't they being raised in south ern Louisiana, for instance, where there's plenty of land and climate of the type they particularly love?

In Africa, millions of children die of protein malnutrition be cause the natives raise traditional crops that do not provide the es sential amino acids - and can't be induced to change their customs. Indians in Central America suf fered the same type of protein malnutrition; their one and only staple was corn - maize. And corn, like most grains, is deficient in lysine to an extent human be ings can't live on it. Anthropologists and nutrition ists could get nowhere changing their dietary habits; finally, bot anists succeeded in breeding a strain of corn that did contain adequate lysine, so the natives could go on doing as they'd always done - eating corn - and still get the food they needed to live. That is not a solution to the problem. Sure, it keeps the children alive - but it does not achieve the cru .. cially important necessity. Those people will remain forever back .. ward people unless they change.

A change in government does no good, for a government cannot re main in power if the people ac tively hate it. And so long as peo ple insist on not changing their Good, Beautiful, Familiar, and Holy Traditional Way of Life even if it's killing them! - the so cial system will not change. And they'll kill anyone, any govern ment, that seeks to change them, if they possibly can. Only a power fully entrenched and ruthlessly determined dictatorship can im pose on them the basic changes they, the people, must make. If, that is, you insist the change must be made in this generation. Otherwise, you'll have to have patience, and wait while slow, steady, continuing pressures alter the Established Way of Things decade by decade. Agriculture First And the greatest, fastest prog ress will be made in the backward nations which gain least Tech nological· Industrial Status Proj ects - and develop their agricul ture most.

In a rice-eating nation, if one third of the rice-growers, raising high-production strains, using new and more efficient techniques, can 122 THE FREEMAN February sell twice as much rice for only seventy-five per cent of the cost the rice farmer who would not change his traditional ways will be forced out of agriculture. His poor harvest won't be wanted. He'll lose his land, his home, all the things he has lived by and with. Here, the ruthless dictator who forces him to change his way of life is not human - it's economic. It's even more ruthless and relent less. But it, too, has the same compelling message: "You must learn a new way of life - or die I"~ At the same time, of course, the fine surplus of cheap rice means that industrial workers, road and dam builders, all sorts of people in all sorts of newly developing oc cupations, are living much better. The old near-starvation level of rice is gone - there's plenty to eat, at last.

Look, friends - industry didn't produce a high standard of living. A high standard of agriculture forced people to learn a new high standard of living and industry. And that's the only way it will be - unless a completely ruthless, dedicated tyrant oppresses his helpless people into learning the new way of life fast. ~ Beneficiaries of Capitalism THE STANDARD OF LIVING is high in the United States because of capitalism, but not all of our people are capitalists. The wages of a truck driver in our country are much higher than the wages of a coolie with a wheel-barrow in China, mainly because of the truck which the American drives. The truck is the result of capitalism, but the driver benefits as much as anyone else from the truck. Not everyone in our country owns stock in companies that make farm machinery, but everyone of us profits by the fact that wheat is sown, reaped, transported, and milled into flour by equipment produced by capitalism. How much bread would we have and what would it cost if it were not for these products of capitalism? The farm machinery industry has created a number of millionaires, but the return to all of them combined is only a drop in the bucket compared to the benefit conferred upon the consumers of our farm products.

HOWARD E. KERSHNER, Christian Freedom Foundation A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN Webster's1828 Original AT FIRST BLUSH it strikes one as rather strange that the Founda tion for American Christian Edu cation should have chosen to pub lish a facsimile edition of Noah Webster's original AnA merican Dictionary of the English Lan guage. After all, so one says to oneself, the definition of words might take one anywhere, to God, Buddha, or the devil himself. What has a dictionary of 70,000 words, most of them neutral so far as any religion is concerned, to do with Christian education? One's skepticism, strong at the outset, does not survive a careful reading of the remarkable intro ductory essay which Rosalie J. Slater has provided to go with this beautiful reproduction of the text which left Noah Webster's loving hands in 1828. The theory behind Webster's "American Dictionary" was republican theory, for Noah Webster, a good citizen of Feder alist Connecticut, was very much aware that the Founding Fathers had given a rather special New World twist to a whole political vocabulary. The word "congress,"