I heard an interesting quote from Ben Franklin on Bill Moyers NOW program a few minutes ago, which sent me searching because it put the opening passage in one of my favorite books in a different light. The first thing that turned up on Google was this, at http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-scientific-mind-of-ben-franklin:
Had Benjamin Franklin managed to outwit the Grim Reaper, he would have turned three hundred years old in 2006, and would probably have been making plans for another three hundred. Journalist, scientist, diplomat, and vendor of the virtues, Franklin stands in our imagination as the iconic “First American,” the self-made man and proud inventor of the future. His scientific achievements were indeed interesting and impressive — especially his research on electricity and his invention of the lightning rod. But equally interesting, and far more complicated, was Franklin’s idea of science. He was, you might say, our first home-grown Baconian — seeing scientific ingenuity as the greatest delight and truest redeemer of human life.
In 1780, Franklin complained to his friend and fellow natural philosopher Joseph Priestley of the disparity between scientific and moral progress: so badly constructed were most human beings, said Franklin, that Priestley should have killed boys and girls instead of innocent mice in his experiments with mephitic air. How much better than the bratty kids were the results of these experiments. Scientific progress, Franklin commented,
occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon. It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried in a thousand years, the power of man over matter. We may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labor and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of old age, and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard.
Later on, in letters to other friends, Franklin trimmed his timetable by a full nine hundred years, saying that a mere one hundred would see modern science produce discoveries of which he could have “no conception.” And he said again that the “art of physic” would advance so far and so fast that mankind would be able to avoid diseases and live as long as “the Patriarchs in Genesis; to which I suppose we should make little objection.”
In these comments Franklin makes it clear that even the antediluvian standard is not insuperable. Franklin says that it’s impossible to imagine the height to which scientific power will rise, and that height would therefore have to include what we could imagine: the conquest of death as such. If Franklin had lived three hundred years but died just today, we can well imagine him lined up next to Ted Williams in a cryonic tube—although doubtless the careful Franklin would have made sure that his head didn’t get knocked off in the process.
The sections of the remainder of the article include Charity and Faith, Faith and Reason, The Skeptical Baconian, A Science of Petty Things, and The Artful Balance. A few choice paragraphs follow:
and
To make this sensibility more concrete, it is perhaps useful to reflect on what Franklin might think of the most recent public dispute between rationalists and fundamentalist believers: the doctrine and the teaching of “intelligent design.” Franklin often commented that reflection on the good order of the world—the regular motions of the heavens or the beautiful organization of nature’s flora and fauna, for example—could lead reasonable people to conclude that the world was made by an active intelligence. But Franklin concluded that in theological matters we should be careful of what we wish for: the well-ordered world contains some uglier features, such as the miseries suffered daily by human beings, innocent and guilty alike. If the world is so intelligently designed, why does it contain such misery? For Franklin, answering this question leads to some troublesome conclusions about the designer.
At the age of nineteen, Franklin published an essay called, ominously, “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.” He argued that if we think of the world as created by an omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly benevolent God, it must follow that virtue and vice do not exist. Such a God must approve of all the things we do, since after all they spring from his creation. And since God could not approve of vice, otherwise known as sin, our vices are not really vices at all; the idea of sin is an illusion. From this, one can only conclude that the world as we find it, with all of its “vice” and misery, must be the best world that can be, because the thrice-perfect God would not have botched his creation. And if the divine order is the best that can be, then God does nothing to interfere now or in the hereafter with the events of the world as they unfold, including all the terrible things that “bad” people do to “good” ones.
Despite the essay’s sometimes-powerful logic—anyone who believes in intelligent design should have a look—Franklin soon burned most of the copies because he thought their circulation would have an “ill tendency.” If the essay didn’t get him in trouble with orthodox believers, said Franklin, it was sure to corrupt his friends and others. Ultimately, Franklin concluded that while the believers in intelligent design didn’t really understand the implications of what they believed, it wasn’t such a bad thing for them to teach this doctrine, properly misunderstood so as to allow for God’s intervention in this world and the next, to the young.
In the current fight between the partisans of religion and reason, Franklin would likely say, “A plague (or at least a bad cold) on both your houses.” He might argue that intelligent design is nothing but creationism in disguise, not science. But Franklin, who proposed (albeit with his fingers crossed) that prayers be offered before the sessions of the Constitutional Convention, wouldn’t gloat too much at the fate of the hapless Pennsylvania school board that was recently voted out of office for establishing an intelligent design curriculum. As regards the issue of religion and public life, Franklin mistrusted enthusiastic rationalists as much as he did enthusiastic believers. He always worried about political oppression by the clergy and thought that wise policy should keep them as far from politics as possible. But he would not then think it wise to despise and humiliate those who long for the clergy to rule, especially since the despisers are often as bullheaded as those they condemn.
In managing the politics of faith and reason, Franklin, the greatest scientist of his generation, always preferred artful balance. He did not think that the project of science he so loved would be loved by all—especially when that project started stepping hard on the toes of believers. That’s why, if he could have lived for a thousand years, he would not have expected to have been freed from the need to manage the tension between science, technology, and modernity on the one side, and religious faith and enthusiasm on the other. Alas, we don’t have wise Ben Franklin around today—but we’ve got what he wrote and thought, and we do well to turn to it for guidance as we ride on the unstoppable train to the New Atlantis.
Those who know Progress & Poverty know why the quote I heard on NOW struck me. Here are the opening paragraphs of Progress & Poverty:
[01] The present century has been marked by a prodigious increase in wealth-producing power. The utilization of steam and electricity, the introduction of improved processes and laborsaving machinery, the greater subdivision and grander scale of production, the wonderful facilitation of exchanges, have multiplied enormously the effectiveness of labor.
[02] At the beginning of this marvelous era it was natural to expect, and it was expected, that laborsaving inventions would lighten the toil and improve the condition of the laborer; that the enormous increase in the power of producing wealth would make real poverty a thing of the past. Could a man of the last century -- a Franklin or a Priestly -- have seen, in a vision of the future, the steamship taking the place of the sailing vessel, the railroad train of the wagon, the reaping machine of the scythe, the threshing machine of the flail; could he have heard the throb of the engines that in obedience to human will, and for the satisfaction of human desire, exert a power greater than that of all the men and all the beasts of burden of the earth combined; could he have seen the forest tree transformed into finished lumber -- into doors, sashes, blinds, boxes or barrels, with hardly the touch of a human hand; the great workshops where boots and shoes are turned out by the case with less labor than the old-fashioned cobbler could have put on a sole; the factories where, under the eye of a girl, cotton becomes cloth faster than hundreds of stalwart weavers could have turned it out with their hand looms; could he have seen steam hammers shaping mammoth shafts and mighty anchors, and delicate machinery making tiny watches; the diamond drill cutting through the heart of the rocks, and coal oil sparing the whale; could he have realized the enormous saving of labor resulting from improved facilities of exchange and communication -- sheep killed in Australia eaten fresh in England, and the order given by the London banker in the afternoon executed in San Francisco in the morning of the same day; could he have conceived of the hundred thousand improvements which these only suggest, what would he have inferred as to the social condition of mankind?
[03] It would not have seemed like an inference; further than the vision went it would have seemed as though he saw; and his heart would have leaped and his nerves would have thrilled, as one who from a height beholds just ahead of the thirst-stricken caravan the living gleam of rustling woods and the glint of laughing waters. Plainly, in the sight of the imagination, he would have beheld these new forces elevating society from its very foundations, lifting the very poorest above the possibility of want, exempting the very lowest from anxiety for the material needs of life; he would have seen these slaves of the lamp of knowledge taking on themselves the traditional curse, these muscles of iron and sinews of steel making the poorest laborer's life a holiday, in which every high quality and noble impulse could have scope to grow.
Okay. I can't resist. Here are the corresponding paragraphs from Bob Drake's 2006 abridgment of P&P:
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY saw an enormous increase in the ability to produce wealth. Steam and electricity, mechanization, specialization, and new business methods greatly increased the power of labor.
Who could have foreseen the steamship, the railroad, the tractor? Or factories weaving cloth faster than hundreds of weavers? Who could have heard the throb of engines more powerful than all the beasts of burden combined? Or envisioned the immense effort saved by improvements in transportation, communication, and commerce?
Surely, these new powers would elevate society from its foundations, lifting the poorest above worry for the material needs of life. Imagine these new machines relieving human toil, muscles of iron making the poorest worker's life a holiday, giving our nobler impulses room to grow. Given such bountiful material conditions, surely we could anticipate the golden age long dreamed of. How could there be greed when everyone had enough? How could things that arise from poverty -- crime, ignorance, brutality -- exist when poverty had vanished? Such were the dreams born of this wonderful century of progress.
All right. You can see why some of us are so enthusiastic about Bob's careful thought-by-thought updating and abridgment of Henry George's original. Here's the rest of that chapter:
True, there were disappointments. Discovery upon discovery, invention after invention still did not lessen the toil of those who most need relief or bring plenty to the poor. But it seemed there were so many things that could be blamed for this failure that our faith has hardly weakened. Surely we would overcome these difficulties in time.
Yet we must now face facts we cannot mistake. All over the world, we hear complaints of industrial depression: labor condemned to involuntary idleness; capital going to waste; fear and hardship haunting workers. All this dull, deadening pain, this keen, maddening anguish, is summed up in the familiar phrase "hard times."
This situation can hardly be accounted for by local causes. It is common to communities with widely differing circumstances, political institutions, financial systems, population densities, and social organization. There is economic distress under tyrannies, but also where power is in the hands of the people. Distress where protective tariffs hamper trade, but also where trade is nearly free. Distress in countries with paper money, and in countries with gold and silver currencies.
Beneath all this, we can infer a common cause. It is either what we call material progress, or something closely connected with it. What we call an industrial depression is merely an intensification of phenomena that always accompany material progress. They show themselves more clearly and more strongly as progress goes on.
Where do we find the deepest poverty, the hardest struggle for existence, the greatest enforced idleness? Why, wherever material progress is most advanced. That is to say, where population is densest, wealth greatest, and production and exchange most highly developed. In older countries, destitution is found amid the greatest abundance.
Conversely, workers emigrate to newer countries seeking higher wages. Capital also flows there seeking higher interest. They go where material progress is still in earlier stages. The older countries, where material progress has reached its later stages, is where poverty occurs.
Go to a new community where the race of progress is just beginning, where production and exchange are still rude and inefficient. The best house may be only a log cabin; the richest person must work every day. There is not enough wealth to enable any class to live in ease and luxury. No one makes an easy living, or even a very good one -- yet everyone can make a living. While you won't find wealth and all its effects, neither will you find beggars. No one willing and able to work lives in fear of want. Though there is no luxury, there is no poverty.
But just when they start to achieve the conditions civilized communities strive for, poverty takes a darker turn. This occurs as savings in production and exchange are made possible by denser settlement, closer connection with the rest of the world, and labor-saving machinery. It occurs just as wealth consequently increases. (And wealth increases not only in the aggregate, but in proportion to population.)
Now, some will find living better and easier -- but others will find it hard to get a living at all. Beggars and prisons are the mark of progress as surely as elegant mansions, bulging warehouses, and magnificent churches.
Unpleasant as it may be to admit, it is at last becoming evident that progress has no tendency to reduce poverty. The great fact is, poverty, with all its ills, appears whenever progress reaches a certain stage. Poverty is, in some way, produced by progress itself.
Progress simply widens the gulf between rich and poor. It makes the struggle for existence more intense. Wherever these forces are at work, large classes are maintained on charity.
Yes, in certain ways, the poorest now enjoy what the richest could not a century ago. But this does not demonstrate an improvement -- not so long as the ability to obtain the necessities of life has not increased. A beggar in the city may enjoy many things that a backwoods farmer cannot. But the condition of the beggar is not better than that of an independent farmer. What we call progress does not improve the condition of the lowest class in the essentials of healthy, happy human life. In fact, it tends to depress their condition even more.
These new forces do not act on society from underneath. Rather, it is as though an immense wedge is being driven through the middle. Those above it are elevated, but those below are crushed.
Where the poor have long existed, this effect is no longer obvious. When the lowest class can barely live, it is impossible to get any lower: the next step is out of existence altogether. This has been the case for a long time in many parts of Europe. But where new settlements advance to the condition of older ones, we see that material progress not only fails to relieve poverty, it actually produces it.
In the United States, it is obvious that squalor and misery increase as villages grow into cities. Poverty is most apparent in older and richer regions. If poverty is less deep in San Francisco than New York, is it not because it lags behind? Who can doubt that when it reaches the point where New York is now, there will also be ragged children in the streets?
So long as the increased wealth that progress brings goes to building great fortunes and increasing luxury, progress is not real. When the contrast between the haves and have-nots grows ever sharper, progress cannot be permanent. To educate people condemned to poverty only makes them restless. To base a state with glaring social inequalities on political institutions where people are supposed to be equal is to stand a pyramid on its head. Eventually, it will fall.
This relation of poverty to progress is the great question of our time. It is the riddle that the Sphinx* of Fate puts to us. If we do not answer correctly, we will be destroyed.
As important as this question is, we have no answer that accounts for the facts or provides a cure.
Experts break into an anarchy of opinion, and people accept misguided ideas. They are led to believe that there is a necessary conflict between capital and labor; that machinery is an evil; that competition must be restrained; or that it is the duty of government to provide capital or furnish work. Such ideas are fraught with danger, for they allow charlatans and demagogues to control the masses.
But these ideas cannot be successfully challenged until political economy gives some answer to the great question.
Political economy is not a set of dogmas. It is the explanation of a certain set of facts and their mutual relationships. Its deductions follow from premises we all recognize. In fact, we base the reasoning and actions of everyday life on them. These premises can be reduced to an expression as simple and basic as the physical law that says: motion follows the line of least resistance.
Political economy proceeds from the following simple axiom:
The process then consists simply of identification and separation. In this sense it is as exact a science as geometry. Its conclusions, when valid, should be just as apparent.
Now, in political economy we cannot test theories by artificially producing combinations or conditions, as other sciences can. Yet we can apply tests that are no less conclusive. This can be done by comparing societies in which different conditions exist. Or, we can test various theories in our imagination -- by separating, combining, adding, or eliminating forces or factors of known direction.
Properly done, such an investigation should yield a conclusion that will correlate with every other truth. Every effect has a cause; every fact implies a preceding fact.
In the following pages, I will use these methods to discover what law connects poverty with progress. I believe this law will also explain the recurring cycles of industrial and commercial depression, which now seem so unexplainable.
Current political economy cannot explain why poverty persists in the midst of increasing wealth. It teaches only unrelated and disjointed theories. It seems to me, this is not due to any inability of the science. Rather, there must be some false step in its premises, or some overlooked factor in its estimates.
Such mistakes are generally concealed by respect paid to authority. Therefore, I will take nothing for granted. Accepted theories will be tested; established facts will be freshly questioned. I will not shrink from any conclusion, but promise to follow the truth wherever it may lead.
What the outcome proves to be is not our affair. If the conclusions we reach run counter to our prejudices, let us not flinch. If they challenge institutions that have long been regarded as wise and natural, let us not turn back.
You can listen to the rest at http://hgchicago.org/audio, or read it at http://progressandpoverty.org/ or http://henrygeorge.org/
To return to the original topic, you might explore this page: technological progress and the pages linked from it.
Interesting, but usual =)
Posted by: jason kenny | January 16, 2009 at 09:04 AM