On Guns, Germs, and Steel

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The level of economic development in Papua New Guinea in the film was shown to be not very developed at all. For a majority of the film it focused on tribal peoples in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, where the inhabitants used stone tools, bows and arrows, and boats jury rigged out of tree trunks. However, in the last few minutes of the film it showed the more developed areas of the country, where people had cars and lived in houses. It seemed to be at the level of development as some sub-Saharan African cities - not as developed as, for example, Johannesburg, but more developed than a rural farm setting. It seemed to be an intermediate of the two, and I'd say in only some areas of the island.

Professor Diamond argues that the reason that countries like Papua New Guinea are so much less developed than first world, industrialized countries like the United States, is because of the means of agriculture that were geographically available at that location in the world. He condenses these important means into two groups - cereal grains, and domesticable farm animals. The former allows that society to develop a surplus of crops, allowing specialists to inquire into areas which beforehand they would simply have been unable because their time spent tinkering with the world around them would be time that their people weren't being fed. Surpluses fed these specialists, who were, for example, able to more effectively utilise fire, and make discoveries that advanced their society - for example, the creation of plaster and development of metal tools, especially alloys. The latter (domesticable farm animals) further increased efficiency around the farm because they allowed for extra sources of food - either by milking the animals in the case of cows, or breeding them for slaughtering to get meat - or just an increased capability of work, like maneuverability by way of horses or plowing by way of oxen.

Diamond uses these concepts to explain why Papua New Guinea was disadvantaged for socioeconomic development because the country was home to no indigenous cereal grains like wheat or barley, and it had no animals that could produce food or be used for work. Instead, Papua New Guinea had trees that produced a banana-like plant, that spoiled in two days, and scarce sources of protein - such that the indigenous peoples often ate spiders for supplement. Papua New Guinea also had none of the 14 essential domesticable farm animals that Diamond concluded, and only received pigs after European contact. Pigs, however, have no use for work, have no coats to obtain clothing from, and are largely ineffective when compared to bison, oxen, or cattle. On the other hand, the cradle of civilization, Mesopotamia, had almost all of these elements. They had 13 of Diamond's fourteen essential animals, and had the cereal grains of both barley and wheat. This allowed them to, in continuation of Diamond's theory, focus on food production and at the same time have a surplus so specialists and artisans could spend time doing things that don't necessarily concern food production, advancing the society both technologically, and economically. Then, when the lands of Mesopotamia dried up due to overuse, and the denizens of the region spread east, west, north, and south, they carried these grains and animals with them, producing advanced cultures along the way that were eventually able to conquer the world - like the Europeans, for all intents and purposes, have done.

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