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Reflect when inventions threaten livelihoods
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ACCORDING to “The Essential World History”(2012), “ China during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) was still a predominantly agrarian society, with wealth based primarily on the ownership of land. Commercial activities flourished but remained under a high level of government regulation and by no means represented a major proportion of the national income.”
The Ming imperial court wasn’t about to get involved in backing Solyndra-like companies and knew well enough to avoid the predicament of our time: commercialism.
With regard to their constraining technological innovation from the 1500’s, Ming officials would have agreed even more with what US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said in 1970: We must subject the machine — technology — to control and cease despoiling the earth and filling people with goodies merely to make money.
As Karl Marx said, production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
In our own time, the idea that technological innovation should come under the control of an authority would have the public screaming “censorship!”
To give a recent example of just how far things could go if the public were to be allowed to call the shots, recently a South Dakota TV station was bombarded by calls from viewers who were angry when tornado coverage “interfered” with their favorite programs.
In the past, it was all very different in that authority had meaning — lots of meaning.
In 1589, Queen Elizabeth I said, “I have too much love for my poor people who obtain their bread by knitting to give money to forward an invention which will tend to their ruin, by depriving them of employment.”
And when it comes to ancient history, according to “The Lives of the Twelve Caesars” (121 AD), “Someone offering to convey some immense columns into the Capitol at a small expense by a mechanical contrivance, [Vespasian] rewarded him very handsomely for his invention, but would not accept his service, saying, ‘Suffer me to find maintenance for the poor people.’”
Is it now time for the authorities to reassert themselves? Progress might have been alright once, but it has gone on too long.
When it comes to the future, should we consider what was said a millenium ago in China — that the state should succor the working classes and prevent them from being ground into the dust by the rich?
C. Ikehara is a freelance writer from the United States.
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