At every turn there are bargains seeking each other but, because they cannot find each other, men are left in extreme want

From Essays of Michel de Montaigne essay number 35, On Administration. Hat tip David Post

My late father, a man of a decidedly clear judgement, based though it was only on his natural gifts and his own experience, said to me once that he had wished to set a plan in motion leading to the designation of a place in our cities where those who were in need of anything could go and have their requirements registered by a duly appointed official; for example: “I want to sell some pearls”; or “I want to buy some pearls.” “So-and-so wants to make up a group to travel to Paris”; ‘”So-and-so wants a servant with the following qualifications”; “So-and-so seeks an employer”; “So-and-so wants a workman”; each stating his wishes according to his needs.

It does seem that this means of mutual advertising would bring no slight advantage to our public dealings; for at every turn there are bargains seeking each other but, because they cannot find each other, men are left in extreme want.

In my opinion, one of the least remarked upon dynamics of history is the reconnection of humanity. We made our way out of Africa some 50-100,000 years ago and had occupied the old world by 40,000 years ago and the new world by 10,000 years ago. The last major land masses to be occupied by modern man were Madagascar and New Zealand, 2,500 and 800 years ago respectively.

During the expansionary phase, disparate group interaction was constrained by always being able to move beyond the neighbors. Once the landmasses were settled, and particularly once we moved from hunter gathering to settled agriculture and from nomadic to settled villages and towns, there emerged the need for new and better skills (i.e capacity to manage disparate interactions between mixed groups). The past five thousand years have essentially been one mass learning exercise of how to deal with increased densification of populations and increased interconnectivity.

The last major transition was about five hundred years ago when, for a variety of cultural, economic, and technological reasons, the routes were opened (first by sailing ships then ultimately by roads, rails, etc.) for mass, routine and frequent connection between remote and heretofore isolated communities. De Gama or Magellan or Columbus can claim the title for the advent of the new age of interconnectivity.

Montaigne lived 1533-1592, the century after the great reconnection began. It is interesting to see in his note that even at the dawn of reconnection and long before the internet, Twitter or Facebook, people were beginning to address the conceptual implications of greater interconnectivity.