The Unseen Work: Stewart Brand on Maintenance and Civilization

Stewart Brand, author of *Maintenance of Everything, Part One*, joins EconTalk to discuss the often-overlooked importance of maintenance in various aspects of life. The conversation explores how maintenance styles differentiate success, using the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race as a central example, contrasting the approaches of Robin Knox Johnson, Donald Crowhurst, and Bernard Moitessier. Brand and Roberts examine the role of maintenance in military strategy, highlighting the AK-47's reliability compared to the M-16 in Vietnam, and discuss the cultural factors affecting maintenance practices in different armies. They further analyze the Model T and Rolls-Royce as contrasting examples of maintainability and customization, and touch on the implications of AI on human vigilance and problem-solving.