Overcoming The Obstacle Of Distance

Horses make it less costly to move resources from point A to point B. The same is true of our ancestors walking upright. The decreased cost of allocation increased the frequency of allocation. More frequent allocation meant more frequent allocation problems.

When monkeys, lions, whales and birds migrate they generally don't have to worry about what they'll take with them. It was a different story with our ancestors. They were able to carry many resources at the same time so they were forced to figure out what to take.

Our ancestors needed weapons for defense and for hunting. If they carried too few weapons then they might be killed by wild animals or other groups. But if they carried too many weapons then it would mean carrying inadequate amounts of food and other necessary resources. So they were constantly struggling to get the balance right. Getting the balance right depends on information. Groups that were better at storing, processing and sharing information were more successful than other groups. Trade provided information about the importance of things. This information helped our ancestors make better carrying decisions. Clearly it's better to carry more, rather than less, important things. So groups that traded more were more successful than other groups. Trade is facilitated by horses, which the native Americans didn't have, which is why they were far less successful than the groups that did have them.

The only animal in all of America, North and South America that could be domesticated for work was the llama. This prevented the creation of large cities (with the exception of some civilizations, like the Mayan culture) and of course was only available to a very small area in South America. The Europeans and Asians, on the other hand, had cows, pigs, horses, camels, and oxen, just to name a few. The ability to do work is the name of the game!

csbrown28 said:

The only animal in all of America, North and South America that could be domesticated for work was the llama. This prevented the creation of large cities (with the exception of some civilizations, like the Mayan culture) and of course was only available to a very small area in South America. The Europeans and Asians, on the other hand, had cows, pigs, horses, camels, and oxen, just to name a few. The ability to do work is the name of the game!

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The ability to do work is important, but I think the name of the game is accurately knowing the amount of benefit that others derive from your work/behavior.

Xerographica said:

The ability to do work is important, but I think the name of the game is accurately knowing the amount of benefit that others derive from your work/behavior.

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I would agree but I think the effect of knowledge is more important depending on the societies resource abundance. In other words, a mistake in a society of ultra-scarcity could result in many deaths, whereas the same mistake probably would not have the same effect in a society of ultra-abundance.