The requisite knowledge and proficiency of ways and means is a product, perhaps a by-product, of the life of the community at large; and it can also be maintained and retained only by the community at large. Whatever may be true for the unsearchable prehistoric phases of the life-history of the race, it appears to be true for the most primitive human groups and phases of which there is available information that the mass of technological knowledge possessed by any community, and necessary to its maintenance and to the maintenance of each of its members or subgroups, is too large a burden for any one individual or any single line of descent to carry. This holds true, of course, all the more rigorously and consistently, the more advanced the "state of the industrial arts" may be. But it seems to hold true with a generality that is fairly startling, that whenever a given cultural community is broken up or suffers a serious diminution of numbers, its technological heritage deteriorates and dwindles, even though it may have been apparently meager enough before. On the other hand, it seems to hold true with a similar uniformity that, when an individual member or a fraction of a community on what we call a lower stage of economic development is drawn away and trained and instructed in the ways of a larger and more efficient technology, and is then thrown back into his home community, such an individual or fraction proves unable to make head against the technological bent of the community at large or even to create a serious diversion. Slight, perhaps transient, and gradually effective technological consequences may result from such an experiment; but they become effective by diffusion and assimilation through the body of the community, not in any marked degree in the way of an exceptional efficiency on the part of the individual or fraction which has been subjected to exceptional training. And inheritance in technological matters runs not in the channels of consanguinity, but in those of tradition and habituation, which are necessarily as wide as the scheme of life of the community. Even in a relatively small and primitive community the mass of detail comprised in its knowledge and practice of ways and means is large,—too large for any one individual or household to become competently expert in it all; and its ramifications are extensive and diverse, at the same time that all these ramifications bear, directly or indirectly, on the life and work of each member of the community. Neither the standard and routine of living nor the daily work of any individual in the community would remain the same after the introduction of an appreciable change, for good or ill, in any branch of the community's equipment of technological expedients. If the community grows larger, to the dimensions of a modern civilised people, and this immaterial equipment grows proportionately great and various, then it will become increasingly difficult to trace the connection between any given change in technological detail and the fortunes of any given obscure member of the community. But it is at least safe to say that an increase in the volume and complexity of the body of technological knowledge and practice does not progressively emancipate the life and work of the individual from its dominion.
The complement of technological knowledge so held, used, and transmitted in the life of the community is, of course, made up out of the experience of individuals. Experience, experimentation, habit, knowledge, initiative, are phenomena of individual life, and it is necessarily from this source that the community's common stock is all derived. The possibility of its growth lies in the feasibility of accumulating knowledge gained by individual experience and initiative, and therefore it lies in the feasibility of one individual's learning from the experience of another. But the initiative and technological enterprise of individuals, such, e.g., as shows itself in inventions and discoveries of more and better ways and means, proceeds on and enlarges the accumulated wisdom of the past. Individual initiative has no chance except on the ground afforded by the common stock, and the achievements of such initiative are of no effect except as accretions to the common stock. And the invention or discovery so achieved always embodies so much of what is already given that the creative contribution of the inventor or discoverer is trivial by comparison.
In any known phase of culture this common stock of intangible, technological equipment is relatively large and complex,—i.e., relatively to the capacity of any individual member to create or to use it; and the history of its growth and use is the history of the development of material civilisation. It is a knowledge of ways and means, and is embodied in the material contrivances and processes by means of which the members of the community make their living. Only by such means does technological efficiency go into effect. These "material contrivances" ("capital goods," material equipment) are such things as tools, vessels, vehicles, raw materials, buildings, ditches, and the like, including the land in use; but they include also, and through the greater part of the early development chiefly, the useful minerals, plants, and animals. To say that these minerals, plants, and animals are useful—in other words, that they are economic goods—means that they have been brought within the sweep of the community's knowledge of ways and means.
In the relatively early stages of primitive culture the useful plants and minerals are, no doubt, made use of in a wild state, as, e.g., fish and timber have continued to be used. Yet in so far as they are useful they are unmistakably to be counted in among the material equipment ("tangible assets") of the community. The case is well illustrated by the relation of the Plains Indians to the buffalo, and by the northwest coast Indians to the salmon, on the one hand, and by the use of a wild flora by such communities as the Coahuilla Indians,[3] the Australian blacks, or the Andamanese, on the other hand.
But with the current of time, experience, and initiative, domesticated (that is to say improved) plants and animals come to take the first place. We have then such "technological expedients" in the first rank as the many species and varieties of domestic animals, and more particularly still the various grains, fruits, root-crops, and the like, virtually all of which were created by man for human use; or perhaps a more scrupulously veracious account would say that they were in the main created by the women, through long ages of workmanlike selection and cultivation. These things, of course, are useful because men have learned their use, and their use, so far as it has been learned, has been learned by protracted and voluminous experience and experimentation, proceeding at each step on the accumulated achievements of the past. Other things, which may in time come to exceed these in usefulness are still useless, economically non-existent, on the early levels of culture, because of what men in that time have not yet learned.
While this immaterial equipment of industry, the intangible assets of the community, have apparently always been relatively very considerable and are always mainly in the keeping of the community at large, the material equipment, the tangible assets, on the other hand, have, in the early stages (say the earlier 90 per cent.) of the life-history of human culture, been relatively slight, and have apparently been held somewhat loosely by individuals or household groups. This material equipment is relatively very slight in the earlier phases of technological development, and the tenure by which it is held is apparently vague and uncertain. At a relatively primitive phase of the development, and under ordinary conditions of climate and surroundings, the possession of the concrete articles ("capital goods") needed to turn the commonplace knowledge of ways and means to account is a matter of slight consequence,—contrary to the view commonly spoken for by the economists of the classical line. Given the commonplace technological knowledge and the commonplace training,—and these are given by common notoriety and the habituation of daily life,—the acquisition, construction, or usufruct of the slender material equipment needed arranges itself almost as a matter of course, more particularly where this material equipment does not include a stock of domestic animals or a plantation of domesticated trees and vegetables. Under given circumstances a relatively primitive technological scheme may involve some large items of material equipment, as the buffalo pens (piskun) of the Blackfoot Indians or the salmon weirs of the river Indians of the northwest coast. Such items of material equipment are then likely to be held and worked collectively, either by the community at large or by subgroups of a considerable size. Under ordinary, more generally prevalent conditions, it appears that even after a relatively great advance has been made in the cultivation of crops the requisite industrial equipment is not a matter of serious concern, particularly so aside from the tilled ground and the cultivated trees, as is indicated by the singularly loose and inconsequential notions of ownership prevalent among peoples occupying such a stage of culture. A primitive stage of communism is not known.
But as the common stock of technological knowledge increases in volume, range, and efficiency, the material equipment whereby this knowledge of ways and means is put into effect grows greater, more considerable relatively to the capacity of the individual. And so soon, or in so far, as the technological development falls into such shape as to require a relatively large unit of material equipment for the effective pursuit of industry, or such as otherwise to make the possession of the requisite material equipment a matter of consequence, so as seriously to handicap the individuals who are without these material means, and to place the current possessors of such equipment at a marked advantage, then the strong arm intervenes, property rights apparently begin to fall into definite shape, the principles of ownership gather force and consistency, and men begin to accumulate capital goods and take measures to make them secure.
An appreciable advance in the industrial arts is commonly followed or accompanied by an increase of population. The difficulty of procuring a livelihood may be no greater after such an increase; it may even be less; but there results a relative curtailment of the available area and raw materials, and commonly also an increased accessibility of the several portions of the community. A wide-reaching control becomes easier. At the same time a larger unit of material equipment is needed for the effective pursuit of industry. As this situation develops, it becomes worth while—this is to say, it becomes feasible—for the individual with the strong arm to engross, or "corner," the usufruct of the commonplace knowledge of ways and means by taking over such of the requisite material as may be relatively scarce and relatively indispensable for procuring a livelihood under the current state of the industrial arts.[4] Circumstances of space and numbers prevent escape from the new technological situation. The commonplace knowledge of ways and means cannot be turned to account, under the new conditions, without a material equipment adapted to the then current state of the industrial arts; and such a suitable material equipment is no longer a slight matter, to be compassed by workmanlike initiative and application. Beati possidentes.
The emphasis of the technological situation, as one might say, may fall now on one line of material items, now on another, according as the exigencies of climate, topography, flora and fauna, density of population, and the like, may decide. So also, under the rule of the same exigencies, the early growth of property rights and of the principles (habits of thought) of ownership may settle on one or another line of material items, according as one or another affords the strategic advantage for engrossing the current technological efficiency of the community.
Should the technological situation, the state of the industrial arts, be such as to throw the strategic emphasis on manual labor, on workmanlike skill and application, and if at the same time the growth of population has made land relatively scarce, or hostile contact with other communities has made it impracticable for members of the community to range freely over outlying tracts, then it would be expected that the growth of ownership should take the direction primarily of slavery, or of some equivalent form of servitude, so effecting a naïve and direct monopolistic control of the current knowledge of ways and means.[5] Whereas if the development has taken such a turn, and the community is so placed as to make the quest of a livelihood a matter of the natural increase of flocks and herds, then it should reasonably be expected that these items of equipment will be the chief and primary subject of property rights. In point of fact, it appears that a pastoral culture commonly involves also some degree of servitude, along with the ownership of flocks and herds.