technological steps

When I visited Kigali for 2 weeks in 2022, I observed a labour-capital ladder: At the bottom, the poorest workers could earn a living by carrying fuel to and fro on foot. Next, people with bicycles did the same thing faster. If you saved enough from cycling, you could buy a motorcycle and become a mototaxi driver, providing transport for the city's middle class. Taxi car drivers were on the next rung with air conditioning, personal space, and higher profits. At the top, luxury taxi car drivers serviced the elite. It struck me that the further up the ladder you went, the less work you had to do. Physical effort was minimized first, then mental.🏛️ *** I befriended some civil engineering students from the US while I was there. They were helping a nearby village build a water tank, and I got to accompany them on one of their daytrips. The elder of the village was a wiry man in his 90s. With a walking stick in hand, he could scale the steep hillside of his land with ease. By comparison,…