ABSTRACT
Invention occurs at the level of the individual. It is a game against nature, rather than against other players, what Von Neumann and Morgenstern call a “Crusoe game.” 4 Yet the adoption and diffusion of technological change involve social interaction, and the kind of society in which the inventor lives decides whether the invention will be taken up by others. Many societies on record did not provide the right environment in which inventions would spread at a pace strong enough to affect output and thus living standards perceptibly. The consensus on classical civilization (Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman) is that these societies were not very successful from a technological point of view (Finley (1965, 1973); Lee (1973); Hodges (1970)). As some critics have pointed out, such a judgment is overly harsh (K. D. White (1984)). First, classical civilization did make some significant breakthroughs, and their extent is likely to be underrated by historians because of the scant literary and archaeological evidence remaining. Second, the notion that science could be applied to attain concrete objectives rather than admired for its own sake was certainly present, and particularly developed amongst the Hellenistic mechanicians. Third, as Finley (1973, p. 147) emphasizes, in some sense the judgment imposes our own value system on a society that had no interest in growth. “As long as an acceptable life-style could be maintained, however that was defined, other values held stage.” In the areas that mattered most to them, the Greeks and Romans achieved huge successes. Nonetheless, the judgment reflects our intuitive disappointment with a civilization that has celebrated such triumphs in literature, science, mathematics, medicine, and political organization. 5 The greatest achievements of classical technology were in those aspects of technology that were non-physical in nature: coinage, alphabetization, stenography, and geometry were part of the information processing sphere rather than the physical production sphere of the economy.
