¶ Invention Sequence (1)
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Index Entry
The $3 billion national capital-worth estimate of 1810 occurred before we knew anything about our present technology. Electromagnetics, about which there was only theoretical knowledge, had not been put into usable operation. We didn’t have a telegraph. There were no steel mills. There was nothing like present-day industry. Public works consisted exclusively of tollways, canals, and wooden ships.
Let us suppose that after the people of the United States of 1810 had learned of the total capital-wealth potential, they said to one another, ‘All right, let’s get together a committee of the most responsible leaders in our society, whose economic judgment we trust, and ask them to determine the most logical and safe way in which to invest our $3 billion national wealth so that our total capital wealth is multiplied and ever more people are taken care of at ever higher living standards.’
If anyone on the committee had said, ‘All right, I’m going to invent a machine to replace those human slaves,’ the others would have said, ‘All right, but how do you do that.’ No answer. ‘Throw him off the committee. He obviously doesn’t know what he is talking about.’ If some other committeeman
