Transcript - Izzit.org

WOMAN: …and eventually there was the energy of coal…
MAN: …and the energy of oil…
WOMAN: …and linking these sources of energy to our mechanical devices meant that we could till soil,
draw water, grind corn and produce all kinds of things far more quickly- than by simply using our own
muscles.
MAN: Mechanization was the second step out of the subsistence economy. We mechanized by inventing
devices, and by using natural forces to add to our own efforts. And it was specialization and
mechanization that gave us our surplus.
WOMAN: But what is the surplus What is it that specialization and mechanization gave us
MAN: First, we now have stores of food that will last us through the winter. We have a few luxuries to
tide us over until the harvest.
WOMAN: Second, we have surplus food and manufactured goods that we can exchange for other things
we want when the trader brings them.
MAN: Third, we built a bridge and a barn and a waterwheel, we dug irrigation channels. We made
spinning wheels and plows- and they help us protect or even increase our prosperity.
WOMAN: Fourth, we can spare one or two people from the field to serve the rest. Parts of the surplus
food can go to someone who teaches the children, and somebody who looks after the sick.
MAN: And fifth, we have a bit of time to spare. We can play games occasionally, paint beautiful
pictures on our crockery, or make beautiful clay figures or decorate our huts. So, we applied our surplus
to five different things: reserves (in this case food), trade, capital, services and leisure.
WOMAN: All this may not seem much if you don’t remember how they started out in a subsistence
economy.
MAN: I’ll never forget it – days of cold, sickness, hunger – days of backbreaking toil…
WOMAN: It all seems a long way away now.
MAN: Yes, we have come a long way.
WOMAN: Yeah. Of course, I don’t really have to tell you that our community is imaginary. A valley
like ours never really existed.
MAN: Not exactly, anyway. But everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve talked about, really happened
through the ages in some community or another. Let’s take a look at reality for a minute.
WOMAN: This is how men once tried to set down their own reality. These are the actual pictures drawn
by primitive men showing their own lives as hunters and wanderers.
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