Enjoyed your essays very much in "Setting the Record Straight", especially "The Center" and "The Centralization Trap" and "Socialism and Capitalism". I binged them in about 2-3 days, was riveting.
“Division of labor” was an important change, but far before written history, which I noted is outside the scope of this piece. It also does not require the “city” per se. If you read the sagas, the greatest Norse technics was in shipbuilding, and upon the settlement of Iceland, in which noblemen would take their households and sworn men with them, the shipbuilding industry was able to immediately resume upon arrival. In fact, every element of technics was able to be performed at a high standard not long after arrival. Obviously, there was significant specialization of labor even within the personal stronghold of a warrior-aristocrat. Might have had one guy who knew how to build ships, another who could make houses, but everybody could work with wood well enough to be subject to specialist direction.
For the same reason that elites need to know each other personally, artisans engaged in high technics also need to know each other personally, in fact even more so, so high technics almost always find a home in a city, which makes control of it important, but this is rather different than “division of labor”. Almost every sword of high quality for a thousand years in Europe was made in Solingen, because advanced technics require apprenticeship in order to propagate.
Enjoyed your essays very much in "Setting the Record Straight", especially "The Center" and "The Centralization Trap" and "Socialism and Capitalism". I binged them in about 2-3 days, was riveting.
"If New York were to be nuked tomorrow, many lawyers, accountants, consultants, and government employees, along with several good men, would die"
Several in the most literal sense...3. Daniel Penny, Bodega Bro, and that Paki who stabbed the ghoul that was robbing him.
With all due respect, you cannot write such a long piece on the City, and never once use the term "division of labour".
“Division of labor” was an important change, but far before written history, which I noted is outside the scope of this piece. It also does not require the “city” per se. If you read the sagas, the greatest Norse technics was in shipbuilding, and upon the settlement of Iceland, in which noblemen would take their households and sworn men with them, the shipbuilding industry was able to immediately resume upon arrival. In fact, every element of technics was able to be performed at a high standard not long after arrival. Obviously, there was significant specialization of labor even within the personal stronghold of a warrior-aristocrat. Might have had one guy who knew how to build ships, another who could make houses, but everybody could work with wood well enough to be subject to specialist direction.
For the same reason that elites need to know each other personally, artisans engaged in high technics also need to know each other personally, in fact even more so, so high technics almost always find a home in a city, which makes control of it important, but this is rather different than “division of labor”. Almost every sword of high quality for a thousand years in Europe was made in Solingen, because advanced technics require apprenticeship in order to propagate.