Stop crediting the wheel

The wheel is the most overrated invention in history, and the proof is that most of the world got on fine without it for thousands of years. The Inca built an empire of roads and bridges across the Andes and moved everything on it by llama and back. They had the wheel; it was on their children's toys. They looked at it, looked at the mountains, and made a decision.

The wheel is not an invention. It is a dependency. A wheel without a road is a disc that sinks in mud, which is why the great wheel civilisations are really the great road-building civilisations, and the road is the hard part. Rome did not conquer with the cart. Rome conquered with the surveyor, and the cart followed a century later to collect the taxes.

Consider what the wheel actually displaced. Before it, a heavy thing was moved by many people, which meant that moving a heavy thing required agreement. After it, a heavy thing could be moved by one man and an ox, which meant it could be moved by whoever owned the ox. The wheel did not free labour; it concentrated it.

I have been told that I am ignoring the pottery wheel, the water wheel, the gear. I am not ignoring them. I am pointing out that nobody puts a water wheel on a list of inventions that changed the world and then shows a picture of an ox cart. The cart gets the credit. The road does the work.

So the next time someone tells you that the wheel changed everything, ask them to push one across a field in October. Then ask them who built the road they drove in on, and whether that person's name is on the plaque.