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A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

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Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#51
post #40

Understanding the development of Western Europe is one of the most important things historians could be doing right now. Because those lessons can be applied to help developing nations follow the same trajectory to development. Unfortunately too much of academia is fixated on faulting the west for past injustices, which leads to an unproductive Eurocentric mindset. (Britain will never, and cannot, pay back India what…

Lots of developing countries currently have per capita GDP comparable to western European countries in 1980 (Like as an example, Netherlands vs Vietnam).

Why not look at somewhat more modern lessons?

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#52
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about a much longer change than just 30 years. Serfdom was rare in the UK by 1400 long before the American revolution or steam power. As to slavery “no legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery. In the Somerset case of 1772, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be…

> Serfdom was rare in the UK by 1400 The UK didn’t exist before 1922. Or 1801, depending on how picky you want to be. In Scotland it was still around till nearly 1800 (oddly, the last serfs were coal miners); in England it started its decline just before 1400 and was largely eliminated by 1500 and totally by 1600.

1706/1707 is another reasonable start date to the UK depending on what is meant by that, but in this case I was referring to a geographic location not a political organization.

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#53
post #12

As far as I know, the Industrial Revolution started with coal mining. As shafts got deeper there was a need to pump in water and air, and then to lift product out. These steam engines at the site could run on low quality coal allowing all of the good stuff to be sold. The Industrial Revolution really started with these mines in the UK. As regards slavery and other factors, once the steam engines were invented and beg…

> As far as I know, the Industrial Revolution started with coal mining. I don't think that's correct. If you are looking for a one-sentence "how did the Industrial Revolution start" summary, I wouldn't use this. My recollection was that things kicked off with the first mechanized mills, locating along streams which used hydraulic or steam power for their energy. EDIT: The book describing this is called Behemoth: The…

>My recollection was that things kicked off with the first mechanized mills, locating along streams which used hydraulic or steam power for their energy.

That goes back to 3BC where the ancient greeks invented it, so I don't think that's a good candidate for the beginning of the industrial revolution. I get the association though, because it is a mechanical system harnessing non-animal power to do useful work.

https://www.greekboston.com/culture/ancient-history/water-mi...

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. We have plenty of examples of past civilizations experiencing similar economic conditions, slavery, etc. So why didn't e.g. the Romans have an industrial revolution of this scale? Coal (and exploitation of fossil fuels more generally) is the singular factor that differentiates the industrial revolution from everything before it.

Bret C. Devereaux's wrote a very interesting article on this topic in his blog. See: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus... His central observation is that the Industrial Revolution involves "coal, steam engines, textile manufacture and above all the harnessing of a new source of energy in the economy", but that "each innovation in the chain required not merely the discovery of the principle,…

Fascinating, the combination of need (more spinning machines could significantly improve use of thread spinning), the availability of coal plus the steam engines that were improved for coal mining use (bringing up the coal, pulling water out). It kind of all came together. Then boom.

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#55
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the profits from the slave trade that financed the initial capital investments in mining, factory, railroads, etc.

But those profits would have been bigger without slavery. Slavery persisted not because it made the south richer overall (it made the south poorer overall) but because it concentrated profits in a handful of political elites. Northern banks and industries, however, would have preferred a richer south with more potential customers. You can see the non-effect of slavery on overall American wealth by looking at the grap…

Slavery didn't really end, the same people worked on the same plantations... honestly, you wonder why they even started a civil war over it.

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I know, the Industrial Revolution started with coal mining. I don't think that's correct. If you are looking for a one-sentence "how did the Industrial Revolution start" summary, I wouldn't use this. My recollection was that things kicked off with the first mechanized mills, locating along streams which used hydraulic or steam power for their energy. EDIT: The book describing this is called Behemoth: The…

> My recollection was that things kicked off with the first mechanized mills, locating along streams which used hydraulic or steam power for their energy. That goes back to 3BC where the ancient greeks invented it, so I don't think that's a good candidate for the beginning of the industrial revolution. I get the association though, because it is a mechanical system harnessing non-animal power to do useful work. https…

No, that's true. But to add detail, this is how things kicked off in America particularly, in the late 1700s or early 1800's. The first American mills that could mass produce stuff were located along streams that used the turning of the waterwheels to do their work.

This comes from the book Behemoth: The History of the Factory by Freeman (edit: added this later). One of the main characters is a man named Richard Arkwright. You can see that his biography broadly tracks what I'm describing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Arkwright

You could call this line the 'origin story' of the Industrial Revolution - the invention of the Spinning Frame (a water powered automation machine, if you will).

> Arkwright and John Smalley of Preston set up a small horse-driven factory at Nottingham. To obtain capital for expansion, Arkwright formed a partnership with Jedediah Strutt and Samuel Need, wealthy nonconformist hosiery manufacturers. In 1771, the partners built the world's first water-powered mill at Cromford, which covered both carding and spinning operations and employed 200 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Arkwright

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#57

Huge catalyst: massive colonialist profits from India (est. $1 trillion), Africa and later on the Middle East (oil, prior to nationalization)

The Industrial Revolution started in the mid-18th century in England. The steam engine was introduced before the Seven Years' War (1756-63), where England and its allies won and the former essentially became the sole European power in India, though it still only controlled a small fraction of the territory. The Industrial Revolution was well underway before the Anglo-Mysore and Anglo-Maratha wars where England gained control of most of India. The Scramble for Africa was 100 years later. The American colonies were confined on the east side of the Appalachians. The amount of revenue derived from control of that amount of territory couldn't possibly have driven the largest economic transformation in the history of the world. Many empires of similar size have come and gone with no similar jump in the world economy.

>In 1750 Britain imported 2.5 million pounds of raw cotton, most of which was spun and woven by cottage industry in Lancashire. The work was done by hand in workers' homes or occasionally in master weavers' shops. In 1787 raw cotton consumption was 22 million pounds, most of which was cleaned, carded, and spun on machines.

What could have contributed to the Industrial Revolution, however, is the technology of Bengal, the first region of India that England gained control of. The economy of early-18th-century Bengal has been described as proto-industrial. The lazy "anti-imperialist" critique of the Industrial Revolution in fact undersells India as merely a source of resources. In fact, in the Anglo-Mysore wars, it was the Indians who had superior artillery (though English tactics carried the day) — designs adapted from the "Mysore rockets" were used in the siege of Baltimore, which gave us the infamous line "the rockets' red glare" in that song where they almost seem like an anachronism.

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#58
The industrial revolution was enabled by the rapidly declining price of first iron and later steel.

Making iron requires bringing together iron ore, coal, and limestone in a furnace. These are heavy, and transporting them by horse drawn wagons any distance is expensive.

England was fortunate in having coal mines, iron mines, and limestone quarries either co-located or on the same river so barges could be used. So once charcoal was exhausted and coking developed as the reducing agent, England had a distinct advantage in producing cheap iron.

Once cheap iron was available, it could be used for rails, wheels for mining carts, mining tools, pumps, and eventually steam engines, one thing feeding another in a virtuous cost cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy#Transition_... https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/coal-mining-in-the-british... https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/iron-mining-in-the-british...

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#59
post #12

As far as I know, the Industrial Revolution started with coal mining. As shafts got deeper there was a need to pump in water and air, and then to lift product out. These steam engines at the site could run on low quality coal allowing all of the good stuff to be sold. The Industrial Revolution really started with these mines in the UK. As regards slavery and other factors, once the steam engines were invented and beg…

Slaves/serfs make economic sense primarily on a plantation/manor where they can be given use of a small plot where they construct a shelter and raise their own food. They receive little or no subsidies from the planter/lord.

The difference is that serfs are attached to the manor instead of being owned by the planter. Thus, serfs are not sold, but change lords by inheritance, marriage, or other changes in land rights. Europe was so densely populated that serfs probably had little or no cash value. If you had a manor, you already had serfs.

Re: A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

#60
post #12

As far as I know, the Industrial Revolution started with coal mining. As shafts got deeper there was a need to pump in water and air, and then to lift product out. These steam engines at the site could run on low quality coal allowing all of the good stuff to be sold. The Industrial Revolution really started with these mines in the UK. As regards slavery and other factors, once the steam engines were invented and beg…

> Once an economic replacement for slavery and/or indentured servitude is available, these practices tend to disappear.

Slavery is rampant in the world now. Quite a lot of it in service of the kinds of automation and productivity you describe, but in parts of the world where these discussions aren’t so casual. Slavery hasn’t been obsoleted, it’s been outsourced.

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