Order of Escape

The order of escape is the distributional pattern at the heart of Angus Deaton’s analysis of technological transitions: the sequence in which populations benefit from a new technology follows lines of structural advantage—education, infrastructure, institutional support, economic security—so consistently across different technologies and different historical periods that the sequence can be anticipated before any given transition unfolds. Writing escaped elites from the limitations of oral memory centuries before it reached the general population. Printing escaped scholars from the monopoly of scriptoria decades before it democratized reading. Vaccination escaped wealthy nations from smallpox while the disease continued to devastate populations without access to the technology. The green revolution escaped farmers with access to improved seeds and fertilizers while leaving those without access further behind. In each case, the escape was genuine and the long-term benefits were eventually distributed more broadly—but the transitional period was marked by inequality severe