Page 50 - The Drucker Lectures

The First Technological Revolution and Its Lessons [ 31

knowledge—originally a priestly class. Down to the end of the
nineteenth century, these three “estates” were still considered
basic in society. But at the same time, the irrigation city went in
for specialization of labor, resulting in the emergence of artisans
and craftsmen (potters, weavers, metalworkers, and so on) and
of professional people (scribes, lawyers, judges, physicians).
And because it produced a surplus, it first engaged in orga-
nized trade, which brought with it not only the merchant but
money, credit, and a law that extended beyond the city to give
protection, predictability, and justice to the stranger, the trader
from far away.
The irrigation city first had knowledge, organized it, and in-
stitutionalized it. Both because it required considerable knowl-
edge to construct and maintain the complex engineering works
that regulated the vital water supply and because it had to man-
age complex economic transactions stretching over many years
and over hundreds of miles, the irrigation city needed records,
and this, of course, meant writing. It needed astronomical data,
as it depended on a calendar. It needed means of navigating
across sea or desert. It, therefore, had to organize both the supply
of the needed information and its processing into learnable and
teachable knowledge. As a result, the irrigation city developed
the first schools and the first teachers.
Finally, the irrigation city created the individual. Outside the
city, as we can still see from those tribal communities that have
survived to our days, only the tribe had existence. The individual
as such was neither seen nor paid attention to. In the irrigation
city of antiquity, however, the individual became, of necessity,
the focal point. And with this emerged not only compassion and
the concept of justice; with it emerged the arts as we know them,
the poets, and eventually the religions and the philosophers.
This is, of course, not even the barest sketch. All I wanted to
stress is that the irrigation city was essentially “modern,” as we