The Mainspring of Human Progress

Chapter 2

THE GREAT MULTIPLIER

THROUGH foresight, imagination, and individual initiative, man develops tools and facilities which expand his efforts and enable him to produce things which would not otherwise be possible. This is an outstanding difference between man and animal, just as it is an outstanding difference between civilization and barbarism.

Progress toward better living would never have been possible, except through the development of tools to extend the uses of human energy – tools that harness the forces of nature as a substitute for muscular effort.

The American Economic Foundation puts it in terms of the mathematical equation MMP = NR + HE x T, which is just a shorthand way of saying that “man’s material progress depends on natural resources plus human energy multiplied by tools.” That’s a neat way to express it, and the formula is worth remembering. But no amount of mathematics can ever tell the real story.

Let’s go back about 500,000 years and look in on one of our Stone Age ancestors. Here, squatting in front of his cave, is a man with a new idea. He’s one of the real pioneer inventors. He’s on the verge of inventing the first tool – or almost the first tool. Clubs have long been used for fighting, and sharp, jagged stones have probably been used for cutting and hacking. But our neolithic genius is going to combine the two ideas by fastening a sharp stone onto the end of a club or a handle, thus increasing the momentum and the force of impact. He’s going to create a new tool – a crude sort of ax.

Without Tools

All he has to work with are the general idea and the raw materials – plus the energy and the will power to do a job. Without any tools, it’s going to take about a week of steady work – except that he won’t be able to work on it steadily. He’ll have to take time out to hunt for his food.

Perhaps he could have persuaded someone else to do that for him, but it’s rather doubtful because, mind you, this was back in the early Stone Age; and it seems reasonable to assume that the general practice of exchanging goods and services came after the invention of tools.

Of course, if he’d been sick and unable to forage for his own food, the others might have understood and helped him; but for a strong, healthy man to waste his time fooling around with sticks and stones was downright lunacy. He should have been out hunting birds’ eggs, or catching luscious grasshoppers, or indulging in a spree down near the river bank where the ground was covered with slightly fermented mulberries.

So, instead of anyone’s bringing him food, it’s more likely that his family and friends just laughed at him. Aided and abetted by the witch doctors, they may have gone so far as to sabotage his early efforts.

The same sort of thing had probably happened to his forerunners. Maybe that’s why the making of an ax had been so long delayed. Surely, the same idea must have occurred to many others before him.

But right now, we are talking about the fellow who has the tenacity to buck the tide of public opinion and get the job done. Of course, after the ax is finished, things will take a different turn. He’ll be able to demonstrate its advantages; and from then on, he can swap the loan of his ax for food, furs, and feathers. Maybe he’ll be able to put in his whole time making more and better axes – and there’s lots of room for improvement.

The first crude ax was nothing to brag about; but it was an important forward-looking step, and it typifies the kind of thinking that sets man completely apart from the animals, the birds, and the bees.

Triple Effect

It takes very little imagination to see how the invention of this crude hand tool led to the development of other tools and to the creation of various other things – rafts, houses, wheels, etc. But the main point is that the introduction of tools marked the beginning of man’s progress in three important directions:

1. More effective use of energy.

2. Specialization of effort.

3. Advances in human co-operation and improvements in living conditions, through the peaceful exchange of goods and services.

Also, the introduction of tools brought into sharper focus the importance of individual property rights. Unless a person has a chance of gaining some direct benefit from his extra efforts, there is not much inducement for him to think ahead and to make the sacrifices necessary to provide the tools of production. And without the tools of production, human beings would sink back into a state of barbarism.

We have moved a long way from the Stone Age, and today almost everyone depends for his welfare – for his very life – upon exchanges of ownership.