The Plough

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

BBC

Business

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2017

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The plough was a simple yet transformative technology. It was the plough that kick-started civilisation in the first place – that, ultimately, made our modern economy possible. But the plough did more than create the underpinning of civilisation – with all its benefits and inequities. Different types of plough led to different types of civilisation. Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Ben Crighton (Photo: Farmer ploughing field, Credit: Shutterstock)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, this is it.
0:02.1	Episode 50, this is the 50th thing on my list coming right up.
0:07.1	But thanks to your help, this isn't quite the end.
0:10.4	There will be a little bit more.
0:12.6	Details in around nine minutes' time.
0:14.8	The end of civilization.
0:38.8	This complex, intricate modern world of ours is finished.
0:42.9	Don't worry about why.
0:44.9	Maybe it was swine flu or a nuclear war.
0:47.7	Killer robots or the zombie apocalypse.
0:53.1	And now imagine that you, lucky you, are one of the few survivors.
0:59.8	You have no phone.
1:01.0	Who would you phone anyway?
1:02.6	No internet.
1:03.6	No electricity.
1:05.2	No fuel.
1:08.4	Four decades ago, the science historian James Burke posed that scenario
1:12.7	in his TV series, Connections.
1:15.8	And he asked a simple question, surrounded by the wreckage of modernity,
1:20.5	without access to the lifeblood of modern technology, where do you start again?
1:25.3	What do you need to keep yourself and the embers of civilization alive?
1:31.4	And his answer was a simple yet transformative technology.
	...

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