Why Your Income Results From Guns, Block Printing, and Plough Cultivation

A recent research paper concludes that technologies dating back to 1000 B.C. can be seen as fundamental drivers in creating the wealth of nations today.

"We find that this very old history of technology adoption is surprisingly significant for today's national
development outcomes," the authors state.

This moves the needle back a big bit from the work of many historians and economists, who look more often to the relatively recent industrial revolution and the era of colonialism as prime drivers of the modern economy.

And The Point Is?
The findings suggest that not all credit for national wealth or blame for national poverty can be linked to the actions of politicians and policy makers. The persistence of technology must also be taken into account, and the path to prosperity is clearly a long haul.

The research measures a culture's adoption of technology in communications, agriculture, military, industry, and transportation in three eras: 1000 B.C., 0 A.D., and 1500 A.D. Technologies mentioned in the paper include the wheel, plough cultivation, weapons, block printing, the magnetic compass, and ocean-going ships.

The research paper, Was the Wealth of Nations Determined in 1000 B.C.?, was written by by Diego A. Comin (Harvard Business School), William Easterly (New York University) and Erick Gong (University of California at Berkeley). It was originally released in 2006 and updated last September.