References To Technology
In the novel, MacKinnie introduces horse collars to improve the efficiency of his army. In Makassar terms, this is a disruptive technology for the following reasons, as explained in the novel. Makassar society uses slaves. Slaves are even used as draft animals, because they cannot exploit the full ability of the horse with a simple harness fastened around the neck. A horse eats as much as five men and so must perform better than five men to be worth using. With a wooden collar bearing on its shoulders, a horse can pull ten times as much as a man at high speed. The effect of this is either to render a large number of slaves useless, or to free them for other uses. Either way the economic structure of the society will change radically and with it the political and power structure.
Read more about this topic: King David's Spaceship
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)