7: Technological Advance
While the common view of history holds the medieval period in Europe to be one of stagnation, technology was advancing at a very slow pace. It cannot be denied that Europe of 1800 was significantly advanced compared to Europe in 1300, and that even that age had much better technology than the Romans or Greeks. As such, technology was advancing, but at a slower and less dramatic pace.
As examples, the author suggests that the stirrup and harness of horses changed significantly, horseshoes were also unknown in the ancient world, as were windmills, buttons for clothing, spinning wheels, spectacles, printing, porcelain, matches, and the like.
From an economic perspective, we can measure technical advancement as a function of productivity: when we consider the amount of product generated, adjusted per person per acre, the remaining difference in productivity is attributable to technology - man has discovered how to produce more with less effort.
Measuring Technological Advance from Population
The Malthusian mechanism holds a population to be stable at a level at which the land per person produces a subsistence income. Technology increases the productive possibilities - such that the same number of acres produces more output, providing sustenance for a larger population.
(EN: This seems to be based on the premise that the percentage of the population devoted to the production of sustenance goods does not change - that is, when technology improves farming, it doesn't necessarily mean the same number of farmers will produce an additional measure of food, but that some farmers can shift to other professions because the amount of food demanded by society does not change because of its abundance - but I may be getting ahead of the argument.)
The author suggests an equation for technological advancement (EN: I'm skipping the details, as it becomes rather self-absorbed) that suggests the rate of technological advance prior to the industrial revolution had never exceeded 0.05% per year. In essence, from 0 AD through 1750 AD, technology enabled mankind to reap a total of 24% more per acre of land - which is the reason that the world was trapped in the Malthusian era for so long.
The Locus of Technological Advance
The author looks to population densities and finds that in 1800, there are four areas of the world that show a similar pattern: Europe, the middle east, India, and east Asia. These locations mark the places where the technological advances of the Neolithic era (farming, preparing grains for consumption) had the greatest effect
He switched channels to talk about population density in these areas: England was "just moderately densely populated" (no number given) whereas Japan had about 226 people per square mile and some of the central regions of China had an "incredible" 875 per square mile. There is some suggestion that population in rice-growing nations can be denser than those in wheat-growing nations as a function of the space it takes to raise the crop, but even in the wheat regions of Asia (such as the Shantung and Hopei regions of China), population density was more than double that of Europe.
However, it's noted that in many of the Asian nations in which there was high population density, the material living standards were "far behind" those of England, and may have been worse than many other economies of the time, hence density cannot be taken as a reliable indicator of technological progress.
Technological Regression
The author considers some instances in which cultures were believed to have regressed.
- One example is the Australian aboriginal peoples, who are believed to have reached the island of Australia by sea, but who had no seaworthy craft nor any evidence of maritime technology when the British explorers arrived.
- The Tasmanian aboriginals were in even worse shape, having regressed to the level of the early Paleolithic era - they had no tools, not even clothing, and had no idea how to fish. Yet the archeological evidence showed that they once had all of these things.
- In Canada, the evidence also indicates that the Inuit tribe lost much of the technology known to its forebears, who had permanent dwellings stocked with "ingenious and elegant" artifacts.
- This also accents for the difference between the wondrous and advanced China that Marco Polo describes in the 1290s and the primitive and hardscrabble people met by the Jesuits in 1580
The author suggests it is "one of the greatest puzzles in world history" is the reason the world seemed so primitive for such a long time. There was bewildering variety of human civilizations and cultures, with one thing in common: a complete failure to make significant progress.