Economics in 11,000 b.c. was simple. Farmers grew more than enough food for their families, so they gave some of their food to metal-workers. In exchange, metal-workers gave the farmers tools for the farm. But it didn’t take long for things to get complicated. Bandits could take food from the farmers and force the metal-workers to make weapons for them. This forced the farmers and the metal-workers to hire soldiers to protect themselves. In exchange farmers gave the soldiers food and the metal-workers gave them weapons.
But for us, nothing stays the same. We are always looking for new things and (of course) we are always looking for fame. And so, the villages got bigger and bigger, and the farms got better at growing food; and the metal-workers created new tools and new weapons. But it was the soldiers who benefited most. With more and more surplus food, they could support larger and larger armies. And among the soldiers, some ruled over the others, and these rulers became kings and queens of the villages. And though the farmers just had enough food for themselves, the kings and queens, the sultans and viziers, the emperors and their bureaucrats, all controlled the wealth of the kingdom and their word was law (though law itself had not yet been invented).
But for us, nothing stays the same. We are always looking for new things and (of course) we are always looking for fame. And so, the villages got bigger and bigger, and the farms got better at growing food; and the metal-workers created new tools and new weapons. But it was the soldiers who benefited most. With more and more surplus food, they could support larger and larger armies. And among the soldiers, some ruled over the others, and these rulers became kings and queens of the villages. And though the farmers just had enough food for themselves, the kings and queens, the sultans and viziers, the emperors and their bureaucrats, all controlled the wealth of the kingdom and their word was law (though law itself had not yet been invented).
The division between the haves and have-nots has been with us ever since. In a sense, it was both the cause of civilization and the first product of civilization. But the greatest contribution of civilization has been to provide an environment in which new ideas could prosper. And not the least of those new ideas, was the thought that all people are equal, and that all, not just kings and queens, deserve the same opportunity and freedom to pursue their dreams.
But that idea would have to wait. Other ideas were flourishing that increased the power of a civilization. One of the greatest must have been the realization that the sun, the moon, and the stars moved in predictable ways. More importantly, we discovered that the motion of the sun marked the seasons and could tell us when to start sowing and when to start reaping. Can you imagine a more encouraging discovery? It must have seemed as if the universe itself was helping us to succeed. This discovery was so important to us that we devoted enormous time and energy to build gigantic monuments to help us track the position of the sun. These monuments connected our day-to-day farming life with the ethereal mysteries of the cosmos. This was organized religion in 4,000 b.c.
The greatest idea of this time was probably writing. We are all born with an instinct for spoken language—children will spontaneously develop grammar for a pidgin language that lacks it. But the idea of making marks on clay to represent words only occurred to us in a few places in the world. At first, writing was used mostly for record keeping. But in time, writing served as the repository of knowledge. The wisdom of a thousand of year was preserved in the written word, long after authors were dead. Unlike many other inventions and discoveries, writing improved the process of invention and discovery itself.
Author and Credits: George Moromisato