Inventive Progress - Henry Grady Weaver - Mises Institute

Inventive Progress - Henry Grady Weaver - Mises Institute: "When the American Revolution had its beginning, living conditions had scarcely changed since the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. The colonial woman gathered her own firewood and cooked over an open fire, just as women had cooked since the dawn of history, and just as more than two-thirds of the women on earth are cooking today. She spun thread and wove coarse cloth, with a spindle and loom handed down from the early Egyptians. Every housewife made her own soap and candles and carried water from a spring or well. A crude millstone, dating back to ancient Babylon, ground the grain that the American farmer cut and threshed with knives and flails that were older than history.

These were the conditions existing when our forefathers threw off the shackles of Old World tyranny in order that human beings might be in control of their own lives and make full use of their individual initiative."

"From the Old World viewpoint, time was unimportant, and the conservation of human energy also seemed unimportant. It is only when men are free that they begin to place a value on their time; and when men begin to place a value on human time, they begin to realize the importance of preserving human life.

Down through the ages, the principal business had always been war. When a people won a war, they made slaves of the defeated people; if they lost, they became slaves of their conquerors. In either case, there was always a surplus of burden bearers. Long hours of drudgery helped to keep the slaves submissive, so there was no incentive to develop labor-saving techniques — no point in worrying about time."

"His first shipment of low-priced clocks to England was held up at the Liverpool Customs House on grounds of suspicion. The Customs officials knew the value of clocks, and they knew that clocks just couldn't be produced at the low prices shown on the Peck invoice — fraudulent payments must have been made on the side in order to avoid the full effect of the tariff.
British law provided that under such conditions the goods in question would be confiscated by paying the amount of the invoice plus 10 percent. The clocks never reached the consignee. They were taken over by the government. What the government did with them, I don't know.

But Peck, being a practical man, didn't put up any argument. He was a hardheaded manufacturer, not a salesman. The 10 percent extra profit was "pure velvet," and he rather relished the idea of disposing of his output without any sales expense or credit risk. He added more workers and continued shipping his clocks to Britain and collecting from the Customs Office until they finally got wise to him."