Saturday, April 5, 2008

Tech for liberty?

I saw Doomsday last night. The level of barbarism is impressive. Elizabeth is on the tube today. The level of barbarism in history is equally impressive. It got me thinking in several different directions.

It seems to me that a brutal autocratic state would be less likely to have revolts or other resistance to it's rule than an autocratic state that was less brutal. If there is a high cost for deviating from societal norms, and it is clearly communicated - say public burning - a subject is less likely to risk the behavior. This should result in less deviance from the mainstream.

A society can live on the edge of it's resources. I don't mean to imply wastefulness, or inefficiency. I am referring to the diminishing returns of both capital and labor. When every bit of arable land is under cultivation, adding another peasant with a hoe won't help enough to feed that peasant. If you hold tech and capital constant, each extra person added to a project returns less results than the person added before - this puts the average return in constant decline. If you keep adding people, you get a situation where the return for that extra person isn't worth the cost of supporting that person. Getting rid of that last person doesn't loose you much production, but everyone splits and extra bowl of gruel that night. Life gets very cheap.


If a society is at the edge of it's resources, a democratic society could collapse. The tyranny of the crowds could easily take over and all hell would break loose. By way of contrast, an autocratic society could kill or imprison those desperate enough to act out, and preserve itself in a technological and social stasis.

Tech and capital increases result in an increasing standard of living - which gives democracy a relative advantage over autocracies.

So... if you want liberty... invest in tech and capital (human capital as well as material capital).

It also occurs to me that an autocratic society would have a vested interest in staying that way - and might actively oppose innovation.

I think the classical view that liberalism begets economic progress is true - but I think it works both ways. Economic progress also begets liberalism.

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