In Technics and Civilization, Lewis Mumford divides the development of technology into three overlapping phases: eotechnic (Greek, eos meaning “dawn”), paleotechnic and neotechnic.
We live in a world where wars are, if not constantly a threat looming on the horizon, a part of reality. It is just how it is. Aside from destructive instincts, how did human civilization develop such a capacity for war?
Mumford puts much of the blame in the phase of technological development that he called the paleotechnic phase.
The paleotechnic period, which began at 1750 A.D., saw the creation of steam energy that gradually spread across the globe.
Coal brought with it the creation of the miner who worked in horrid and degrading conditions.
But two other things dominated this era: coal and iron.
Their color spread everywhere, from grey to black: the black boots, the black stove-pipe hat, the black coach or carriage, the black iron frame of the hearth, the black cooking pots and pans and stoves. This was literally and figuratively a dark moment for many people.
Because of how cheap Iron was, it was everywhere. People slept in iron beds, used iron dumb-bells, washed their face in an iron washbowl, and played billiards on an iron table. Locomotives were made of iron, so were train stations. There were cities covered in iron.
The reason why iron production was so cheap and efficient was that there was a large military demand for it.
Cheap iron and steel made it feasible to equip larger armies and navies than ever before: bigger cannon, bigger warships, more complicated equipment; while the new railroad system made it possible to put more men in the field and to put them in constant communication with the base of supplies at ever greater distances: war became a department of large-scale mass production.
In 1851, after the cessation of war for a time, people celebrated an era of peace and internationalism, but the paleotechnic regime (the political and business entities who had their hands in the coal mining and iron production industries) was preparing for a series of more lethal wars. And as a result of modern methods of production and transport, it was possible for entire nations to become involved.
Mumford wrote his book in the 1930’s and mentions the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, and the most deadly of all, the World War. We know what followed soon after…
It wasn’t that technology was good or evil. Technology was a morally ambivalent accelerator of human proclivities. It wasn’t that technology led to war, it’s that technology allowed greater and more deadly wars to occur. Not only were the weapons cheaper to make and more deadly when used, but they were also more accessible. It’s a lot easier to go to war when the tools are so readily available.
The armament industries were nourished by war, but they had to find new markets to enter into, since their own market was already saturated. Wars had already been fought and railroads had already been built. They found an outlet in America, in the steel framed building. But over time, they were forced back to their successful niche, the industry of war. They served their shareholders by inciting competitive fears and rivalries among nations.
Bloodshed kept pace with iron production: in essence, the entire paloetechnic period was ruled, from beginning to end, by the policy of blood and iron. Its brutal contempt for life was equaled only by the almost priestly ritual it developed in preparation for inflicting death. Its “peace” was indeed the peace that passeth understanding: what was it but latent warfare? What, then, is the nature of this material that exercised such a powerful effect upon the affairs of men?
The use of meteoric iron may go back very far in history: there is a record of iron derived from the ordinary ores as far back as 1000 B.C., but the rapid oxidation of iron may have wiped out any evidence of a much earlier use..
Iron was associated in Egypt with Set, “God of the waste and desert”, an object of fear; and since iron maintains close ties with the military arts, this association remains a appropriate.
Hence the paradox: between 1775 and 1875 there was technological backwardness in the most advanced part of technology. If iron was cheap and if power was plentiful, why should the engineer waste his talents attempting to use less of either? By any paleotechnic standard, there was no answer to this question. Much of the iron that the period boasted was dead weight.
Source: Technics and Civilization, Lewis Mumford