November 27, 2023 • 7 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Tim Harford, author of the bestselling book 50 Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy, shares the stories of three inventions that changed the way we live today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
We search for the Our American Stories podcast go to
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Our Next Storyteller is an economist and best selling author
(00:30):
of Fifty Things That Shaped the Modern Economy. Here is
Tim Harford to tell the story about three of those,
starting with the plow.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
It's a wonderful example of how technology has profound effects
on society. We think about technologies as solving problems. So
with the plow, what's the problem. I want to grow crops.
The soil is not very fertile. I need to break
up the surface of the soils. So I invent the plow.
(01:02):
But of course that's just the beginning. Then all the
social changes begin. So with the case of the plow,
it created a surplus. It created a harvest that you
could store somewhere at the end of the year, which
meant you had an incentive to form up in big gangs.
These days we call them armies, and we go and
(01:23):
take the grain in someone else's barn. It meant that
you could support an elite people who thought, who planned, bureaucrats, accountants, priests.
It meant you could support cities, and with cities, of course,
comes the whole of civilization. So you could really say
this is where the whole thing started, whether you like
(01:44):
it or not, with the plow you say this.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
There was a reason that American farmers were so hungry
for barbed wire. A few years earlier, in eighteen sixty two,
President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Homestead Act.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So that act said, anybody who wants to move to
the west, to the Midwest and to put up a
fence and to farm some land for five years, men, women,
freed slaves, anyone who wants to do that, that land
will be theirs at the end of a few years.
(02:21):
So it seems like a huge opportunity. The only trouble
is when these new settlers get to the Great American Prairie,
they realize there is no wood. Well, certainly there's not
enough wood to spare putting up miles and miles of fences.
And so if they want to claim land, and in
(02:42):
particular to keep off these tough longhorn cattle from trampling
all over the place, they need a source of fencing.
So this is one of those situations sometimes people invent
things and they never know what is going to be
used for. So the classic is the laser. The lasers
invented and it's solution looking for a problem. Complete opposite
(03:03):
with barbed wire, everybody knew what the problem was. It's
how do we make inexpensive fencing that doesn't require a
lot of wood. And there were huge efforts, lots and
lots of patents for different vencing techniques emerge from the
American Midwest at the time, lots of people trying to
solve the problem. The American government issuing reports saying we
(03:24):
need fencing material. And then about ten years later J. F.
Gliddon of de Kalb, Illinois produces this patent for this technology,
and it is the first recognizably modern barbed wire where
you have a little twist. You have two pieces of
wire together, you twist one around the other in order
(03:46):
to keep these barbs secure as that don't slide up
and down the wire. And that's really barbed wire as
we know it even today. And it was immediately a
sensational hit. So within a few years the factory of
Glidden and his associates were producing over two hundred and
fifty thousand miles of barbed wire each year. But as
(04:09):
with the plow, it created winners and it created losers.
It completely reshaped the American landscape. And it was just
one of those things where the President Abraham Lincoln had
granted people property rights, and yet those property rights are
really no good unless there's some practical technology for defending
the property rights, and it was barbed wire.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Let's talk about Google's search.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I was trying to describe to my wife the other day.
I was using a search engine on a newspaper website
and it wasn't working very well, and I was saying, oh,
Google works so well. This search engine's so bad. I
can't google anything. So even when I was trying to
describe the process of searching for something not using Google,
(04:54):
I was still using the verb to Google. So it's
just transformed the way that we access the Internet, that
we access the World Wide Web. I'm old enough to
remember the world before Google and the Internet before Google,
and you would discuss strategies for how to find things.
So you would say, oh, if if you know, for example,
(05:16):
that a particular person has been working on a problem
and you want to find some information. If you search
for their name, that might help, because it is completely
useless to search for an actual phrase or a bit
of content. That's never going to work. But maybe if
you search for someone's name. When Google came along, suddenly
(05:36):
you would type stuff into the search bar and you
would actually find it. And that that has been completely transformative,
and of course it continues to reshape the economy because
now it's become more and more local. These search engines.
They're on our phones, so your attention is being directed.
You want to search for a place to have a
drink nearby. You've been locked out of your house, you
(05:58):
need to find a locksmith. Google is trying to solve
these problems, sometimes with great success, sometimes not, and enormous
amount of effort are devoted to where you come on
that Google Search ranking. If you're on page three of
the Google Search ranking, you're absolutely nowhere. So it's an
insight into the way that a particular technology can unlock
(06:21):
a whole world of information out there.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And you've been listening to Tim Harford, author of Fifty
Things That Shaped the Modern Economy. You heard him talk
about the plow, barbed wire which was fascinating. What a
story he told about all those Americans rushing the settlers
to populate the American prairie, and there was not enough
wood to make fences to claim that land and protect
(06:47):
the property rights of those landholders. An incomes barbed wire,
two hundred and fifty thousand miles of barbed wire made
every year, and it Reshapedrican landscape. By the way, Harford
was quick to point out the word peyton patent. He
says peyton, we say patent. And of course intellectual property
(07:09):
rights and property rights of all kind are defended by
patent rights. And last, of course Google, which is now
a verb. Kim Harford with fifty things that shape the
modern economy, the story of the plow, barbed wire, and Google.
Here on our American story.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
This is Lee h.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Habib, host of our American Stories, the show where America
is the star and the American people, and we do
it all from the heart of the South Oxford, Mississippi.
But we truly can't do this show without you. Our
shows will always be free to listen to, but they're
not free to make. If you love what you hear,
consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
(07:51):
Go to our American stories dot com. Give a little,
give a lot. That's our American stories dot com.
This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
We search for the Our American Stories podcast go to
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Our Next Storyteller is an economist and best selling author
(00:30):
of Fifty Things That Shaped the Modern Economy. Here is
Tim Harford to tell the story about three of those,
starting with the plow.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
It's a wonderful example of how technology has profound effects
on society. We think about technologies as solving problems. So
with the plow, what's the problem. I want to grow crops.
The soil is not very fertile. I need to break
up the surface of the soils. So I invent the plow.
(01:02):
But of course that's just the beginning. Then all the
social changes begin. So with the case of the plow,
it created a surplus. It created a harvest that you
could store somewhere at the end of the year, which
meant you had an incentive to form up in big gangs.
These days we call them armies, and we go and
(01:23):
take the grain in someone else's barn. It meant that
you could support an elite people who thought, who planned, bureaucrats, accountants, priests.
It meant you could support cities, and with cities, of course,
comes the whole of civilization. So you could really say
this is where the whole thing started, whether you like
(01:44):
it or not, with the plow you say this.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
There was a reason that American farmers were so hungry
for barbed wire. A few years earlier, in eighteen sixty two,
President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Homestead Act.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
So that act said, anybody who wants to move to
the west, to the Midwest and to put up a
fence and to farm some land for five years, men, women,
freed slaves, anyone who wants to do that, that land
will be theirs at the end of a few years.
(02:21):
So it seems like a huge opportunity. The only trouble
is when these new settlers get to the Great American Prairie,
they realize there is no wood. Well, certainly there's not
enough wood to spare putting up miles and miles of fences.
And so if they want to claim land, and in
(02:42):
particular to keep off these tough longhorn cattle from trampling
all over the place, they need a source of fencing.
So this is one of those situations sometimes people invent
things and they never know what is going to be
used for. So the classic is the laser. The lasers
invented and it's solution looking for a problem. Complete opposite
(03:03):
with barbed wire, everybody knew what the problem was. It's
how do we make inexpensive fencing that doesn't require a
lot of wood. And there were huge efforts, lots and
lots of patents for different vencing techniques emerge from the
American Midwest at the time, lots of people trying to
solve the problem. The American government issuing reports saying we
(03:24):
need fencing material. And then about ten years later J. F.
Gliddon of de Kalb, Illinois produces this patent for this technology,
and it is the first recognizably modern barbed wire where
you have a little twist. You have two pieces of
wire together, you twist one around the other in order
(03:46):
to keep these barbs secure as that don't slide up
and down the wire. And that's really barbed wire as
we know it even today. And it was immediately a
sensational hit. So within a few years the factory of
Glidden and his associates were producing over two hundred and
fifty thousand miles of barbed wire each year. But as
(04:09):
with the plow, it created winners and it created losers.
It completely reshaped the American landscape. And it was just
one of those things where the President Abraham Lincoln had
granted people property rights, and yet those property rights are
really no good unless there's some practical technology for defending
the property rights, and it was barbed wire.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Let's talk about Google's search.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I was trying to describe to my wife the other day.
I was using a search engine on a newspaper website
and it wasn't working very well, and I was saying, oh,
Google works so well. This search engine's so bad. I
can't google anything. So even when I was trying to
describe the process of searching for something not using Google,
(04:54):
I was still using the verb to Google. So it's
just transformed the way that we access the Internet, that
we access the World Wide Web. I'm old enough to
remember the world before Google and the Internet before Google,
and you would discuss strategies for how to find things.
So you would say, oh, if if you know, for example,
(05:16):
that a particular person has been working on a problem
and you want to find some information. If you search
for their name, that might help, because it is completely
useless to search for an actual phrase or a bit
of content. That's never going to work. But maybe if
you search for someone's name. When Google came along, suddenly
(05:36):
you would type stuff into the search bar and you
would actually find it. And that that has been completely transformative,
and of course it continues to reshape the economy because
now it's become more and more local. These search engines.
They're on our phones, so your attention is being directed.
You want to search for a place to have a
drink nearby. You've been locked out of your house, you
(05:58):
need to find a locksmith. Google is trying to solve
these problems, sometimes with great success, sometimes not, and enormous
amount of effort are devoted to where you come on
that Google Search ranking. If you're on page three of
the Google Search ranking, you're absolutely nowhere. So it's an
insight into the way that a particular technology can unlock
(06:21):
a whole world of information out there.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And you've been listening to Tim Harford, author of Fifty
Things That Shaped the Modern Economy. You heard him talk
about the plow, barbed wire which was fascinating. What a
story he told about all those Americans rushing the settlers
to populate the American prairie, and there was not enough
wood to make fences to claim that land and protect
(06:47):
the property rights of those landholders. An incomes barbed wire,
two hundred and fifty thousand miles of barbed wire made
every year, and it Reshapedrican landscape. By the way, Harford
was quick to point out the word peyton patent. He
says peyton, we say patent. And of course intellectual property
(07:09):
rights and property rights of all kind are defended by
patent rights. And last, of course Google, which is now
a verb. Kim Harford with fifty things that shape the
modern economy, the story of the plow, barbed wire, and Google.
Here on our American story.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
This is Lee h.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Habib, host of our American Stories, the show where America
is the star and the American people, and we do
it all from the heart of the South Oxford, Mississippi.
But we truly can't do this show without you. Our
shows will always be free to listen to, but they're
not free to make. If you love what you hear,
consider making a tax deductible donation to our American Stories.
(07:51):
Go to our American stories dot com. Give a little,
give a lot. That's our American stories dot com.
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