The Industrial Revolution IR

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The Industrial Revolution (IR)

• (1) What was the IR about, what made it so
  significant?
• Why did the IR happen in Europe and not in one
  of the three other Eurasian civilizations?
• Why did the IR happen in Western Europe and not
  in Eastern Europe?
• (4) What are the enduring consequences of the IR?

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Literature and Internet Sources

• Landes, David S. 1998. The Wealth and Poverty of
  Nations Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor.
  New York W.W. Norton.
• Jones, Eric L. 1985. The European Miracle
  Environments, Economies and Geopolities in the
  History of Europe and Asia (3rd ed.). Cambridge
  Cambridge University Press.
• Lal, Depak. 1998. Unintended Consequences The
  Impact of Factor Endowments, Culture, and
  Politics on Long-Run Economic Performance.
  Cambridge MIT Press.
• http//www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture
• http//www.wsu.edu8080/dee/enlight/industry.htm
  
• http//www.historyguide.org/lecture17a.html

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(1) What was the IR about?

• The IR was the most incisive and consequential
  transformation in the history of humankind,
  comparable only to the Neolithic Revolution but
  much faster.
• According to Landes (1998205), the IR reflects
  an acceleration of innovations in production
  technologies through (a) manufacture machines
  (spinning jenny) that replace routine manual
  labour by automated procedures, multiplying
  production output (b) power machines (like the
  steam engine) that replace muscle power by fossil
  energy, multiplying energy input (c) information
  and transportation technology (telegraph, steam
  boat) that enlarge the sales market.
• All this resulted in an explosion of productivity
  that provided cheap consumer goods for the
  broader masses. In the long run, this incision in
  human productivity increased health conditions,
  rose material living standards, promoted
  urbanization, occupational diversification and
  changing family structures, increased education
  levels, made more information available and
  transformed cultural norms (secularization,
  rationalization), state structures (welfare
  state) and the functioning of the state (modern
  democracy).
• For the first time in history, improving
  existential conditions have not been absorbed by
  population growth, with economic growth remaining
  faster than population growth.

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(2) Why in Europe?Answers related to Agriculture

• Europes ecological conditions favoured rainfall
  agriculture in small farming communities along a
  West-Eastern productivity gradient. By contrast,
  Oriental civilizations depended on river valley
  cultivation.
• The factor-ratio was different in these
  agricultural settings in Europe human labour
  rather than arable land was the scarce factor in
  the Orient land rather than labour was the scarce
  factor (note that the economic incentive is
  always to save the scarce factor and to rise the
  productivity of this factor producing the same
  output with lower factor-input).
• In the Orient the incentive was to increase
  soil-productivity through investing more human
  labour, resulting in high fertility rates and an
  emphasis on the extended family.
• In Europe, the incentive was to increase
  soil-productivity and at the same time to
  increase labour-productivity through improving
  labour-saving technology (ox-trekked plough,
  mills, field rotation, crop rotation). This
  resulted in lower fertility rates and an early
  emphasis on the nuclear family.
• Following these incentives, agricultural surplus
  grew to such an extent that late Medieval Europe
  could nourish the largest urban middle class of
  all civilizations (15 compared to 3 in China).

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(2) Why in Europe?Answers related to Capitalism
Humanism

• Once the Commercial Revolution of the 15th
  century offered individuals access to markets,
  they became economic agents. People could
  influence their returns through their own efforts
  and investments. The human leverage increased.
• These material developments favoured a new
  spiritual climate the increased economic value
  of the human factor was reflected in an ethical
  appraisal of human dignity, which became explicit
  in the philosophies of the Renaissance (16th
  A.D.) and the Enlightenment (18th A.D.).
• The changed spiritual climate of humanism led
  also to an appraisal of human intellect. This was
  a crucial change, since from now on human
  reasoning and logic as well as human experience
  and experimentation have been considered as a
  legitimate source of insight (beside revelation
  which so far was the only legitimate source of
  insight). This cultural change, plus the possible
  material returns from inventions, massively
  fuelled philosophical reflections, artistic
  creativity and empirical experimentation.
• The result of these developments was a scientific
  revolution that began with Copernicus and has
  been continued with Galilei, Keppler, Bacon and
  Isaac Newton. The insights gained through these
  scientific discoveries formed a necessary
  fundament for the technical inventions that
  initiated the IR.
• Compared to Europe, the material and spiritual
  incentives for economic endeavours and
  intellectual discoveries were poor in the
  Oriental civilizations.

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(2) Why Europe?Answers related to European
Expansion

• The threefold of capitalism, humanism and
  citizenship unleashed Europes material
  productivity and intellectual creativity in ways
  that no despotic empire could do.
• Under these conditions, it was Europe, not the
  Oriental empires, that started naval operations
  into other regions of the World. This happened
  when the Turks sacked Constantinople (1453),
  which threatened to cut off Europeans from the
  Oriental spice trade.
• In this context, Europe profited from NOT being
  united in one continental empire under a despotic
  ruler. In the early 15th century, for example,
  China conducted large scale naval operations that
  led far into the Indonesian archipelago. This
  happened against a background when a trading
  urban middle class became stronger in China. Once
  this class became too powerful in the eyes of the
  Khan he simply forbade any naval operations and
  took ship building under rigid controls (by
  decree in 1480).
• In Europe, by contrast, the following was true
• If Columbus couldnt get the job in Genova, he
  could try Portugal or Spain. (Jones 1985)
• The great discoveries meant an enormous increase
  of the market for potential European products.

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(2) Why Europe?Answers related to Technological
Inventions

• In previous times, the story of the IR has been
  told in terms of a chain of great inventions
  discovered by a few great man, such as James
  Hargreaves (1767 spinning jenny) or James Watt
  (1769 steam engine).
• However, these inventions could only have their
  impact within the broader trajectory along which
  Europe already began to move. The impact of
  single great men (and women) is always
  context-bound.

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(3) Why Western Europe?Simple Answer

• Following Europes socio-economic West-East
  gradient, the advantages Europe had over Oriental
  civilizations faded slowly away.
• Why England first (and not Holland)? Certainly
  one reason is that England disposed of the
  largest overseas market after she defeated all
  her naval rivals in the 16th/17th century. Would
  the Dutch in 1652 have defeated the English
  (instead of the reverse), the IR would have
  probably started in Holland.

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(4) Enduring Consequences Of the IR?