111–120 of 152 posts
"Why England and not China and India? Water systems and the history of the Industrial Revolution": https://terjetvedt.w.uib.no/files/2017/03/TVEDT-2010-Why_eng...
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You are thinking about very basic needs. Most of the world is (thankfully) beyond that stage. You need to explain why while industrial capacities are available for centuries now, there is a very varied picture in terms of development. Its precisely this assumption that "demand is given" that questioned. Demand seems to be a more complex beast.
I actually think it's the other way around. I can plausibly explain differences in development levels by pointing to 1001 different factors from colonial legacies to geography to corruption to infrastructure etc. It is your conjecture, that people just don't want things in some of these places (sorry if that is reductionist?) that requires a lot of justification. What makes people in some places lack demand while ric…
and I would probably agree that most of them have some role, but ignoring the demand side is fundamentally flawed (in principle) given how circularly an economy works, especially over the long run.
Quantifying precisely what role demand plays would need careful justification and counterfactual economic "experiments" [0] but that was not my point. My point is that it is a factor seldom discussed, whereas even casual exposure to non-western society shows that people have very diverging attitudes towards consumption which are very culture driven.
[0] This should not be so difficult. Even today, centuries after the industrial revolution in many parts of the world 50% of the population is not even granted any agency, let alone be drivers of economic demand.
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> those lessons can be applied to help developing nations follow the same trajectory to development Not necessarily: firstly, some of those factors were "have the right geology" (coal/iron/later oil), which you can't replicate even if you want to, and secondly we're already in a developed world. That changes the environment and cost/benefit analysis greatly. The first person to develop a steam engine and the 1,000th…
I would argue that "applying lessons" ignores not just local geology, but - more importantly - local / regional culture, politics, socio-economics, etc. as well. It assumes that, throughout history, the rest of the world subconsciously has had - and still has - a need for Western-European frameworks of thinking about their place in the world. Which is very eurocentrist perception of the world. A hallmark of post-mode…
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The romans had industrial scale water driven mills. But what you need to keep the running, when one emperor falls and another kingdom falters, is a empowered citizen ship with venture capital, that is out of reach of the king, making innovation resilient. For me the industrial revolution started with the "familys" taking hold in the netherlands, england, germany - backing ventures, banking, becoming a powerhouse outs…
What you're describing is more of a social revolution (upset of traditional societal structures). As always with history, the interesting question is whether the latter could have happened without the former.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Venice/The-commune
Which by deduction means, that you need a trade supporting eco-system, without taxation on the moving of goods. Oceans prefered. Which means, that hermit kingdoms waylaying is the biggest innovation embargo.
Basically, if you never get freedom of movement, and the old world drags enough at your coat, you get stuck forever and a day. The greeks colonialized the mediteranean and from this "outposts" the philosophers were able to cause a ruckus with the tribal-religous culture at home.
Its the liberty of new beginnings, cheap defense against parasitic neighbours + highways that are the secret sauce. And it turns sour inevitably.
Just look at the us becoming more like europe every day and the hopes projected on a new colony project (mars - without new surplus beginnings and highways though).
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It was the profits from the slave trade that financed the initial capital investments in mining, factory, railroads, etc.
Then how did countries with de minimis involvement in the slave trade like Germany, Italy or Austria-Hungary do so much better economically than Brazil? Four to six times as many slaves went to Brazil as to all of the modern USA. The Trans Saharan slave trade where Arabs enslaved Sub Saharan Africans started earlier, lasted longer and enslaved more people than the Trans Atlantic trade too. If slavery was the reason f…
That's not what the article is saying.
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> those lessons can be applied to help developing nations follow the same trajectory to development Not necessarily: firstly, some of those factors were "have the right geology" (coal/iron/later oil), which you can't replicate even if you want to, and secondly we're already in a developed world. That changes the environment and cost/benefit analysis greatly. The first person to develop a steam engine and the 1,000th…
I would argue that "applying lessons" ignores not just local geology, but - more importantly - local / regional culture, politics, socio-economics, etc. as well. It assumes that, throughout history, the rest of the world subconsciously has had - and still has - a need for Western-European frameworks of thinking about their place in the world. Which is very eurocentrist perception of the world. A hallmark of post-mode…
I think you're missing the point - the idea is to learn from the industrialisation of those countries
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Industrial Revolution of course requires industrial machines. So as long as the machines are not invented, no revolution can start.
> Industrial Revolution of course requires industrial machines. So as long as the machines are not invented, no revolution can start. you clearly are not giving enough credit to slavery which is the whole point of this exercise. How are we going to build a case for reparations with you talking like that? :) I'm not defending anything about slavery, but just as impoverished working class Britons contributed little to…
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The industrial revolution predates Indian colonization. In fact, you have the causality exactly backwards. The British empire could not have colonized India without their force of industry (ships & machine guns)
> The industrial revolution predates Indian colonization The first British colony in India was established in 1608. The only way you can argue that the Industrial revolution predates British colonization of India is to use the date that the colonies were nationalized as the starting point, which is incredibly misleading, as most of modern-day India was already under British control long before direct crown rule, and…
These were trading stations established by the East India Company. You can't really talk about colonization till much later - arguably Clive's successes in Bengal in the 1750's marks the start of real colonization.
The dynamic of colonization after that was very much caught up with the desire of English manufacturers and merchants to find export markets for finished goods, especially cotton.
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The industrial revolution predates Indian colonization. In fact, you have the causality exactly backwards. The British empire could not have colonized India without their force of industry (ships & machine guns)
> The industrial revolution predates Indian colonization The first British colony in India was established in 1608. The only way you can argue that the Industrial revolution predates British colonization of India is to use the date that the colonies were nationalized as the starting point, which is incredibly misleading, as most of modern-day India was already under British control long before direct crown rule, and…
There were some minor battles before 1757, but the major parts of the plundering happened after then, and at that point the industrial revolution had already begun rolling in England with the textile machinery. 40 years later they invented the steam engine, not sure what they could have gotten from India that would help them make that. Europe has plenty of Iron and Coal and extremely good metallurgy skill from making all those cannons, muskets and armours, those are the main ingredients for steam engines.
Without the East India Company maybe the Industrial revolution would have happened in Germany first or something, but it is pretty clear that it would happen in Europe first, nobody else had that extreme scale and quality of ironworking.
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> those lessons can be applied to help developing nations follow the same trajectory to development Not necessarily: firstly, some of those factors were "have the right geology" (coal/iron/later oil), which you can't replicate even if you want to, and secondly we're already in a developed world. That changes the environment and cost/benefit analysis greatly. The first person to develop a steam engine and the 1,000th…
> Many of which are linked directly to present, ongoing injustices, but you'll never read that because you have no interest in engaging with the research itself, only a caricature. Besides, isn't it better history to find out what actually happened rather than just regurgitate the propaganda of the past? Whether its true or not makes no difference. Studying history with an eye to past injustices puts people into a mi…