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A flurry of new studies identifies causes of the Industrial Revolution

economist.com

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

#131

Post by Bouncingsoul1 »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #89
julianeon wrote: post #49

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…

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…

Walter Scheidel argues Roman Collapse started the IR. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172187/es...

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

#132

Post by bluGill »

Retric wrote: post #48
adventured wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Serfdom was rare in the UK by 1400 You're of course only talking about local slavery in the UK. They were among the primary slave traders outside of their home territory. The British Empire and its prominent subjects traded in millions of slaves between 1400 and 1800. Centuries of profit from that slave trade helped fuel investment into industrialization across the UK. This is a common escape for European apologist…

I actually mentioned that: “English merchants where happy to participate in the American slave trade” The point was slavery was economically and politically viable in the American south far longer than Europe. It’s a reasonable argument to suggest Europe outsourced and profited from slavery, but it also wasn’t in peoples faces just as few people consider the working conditions of the 3rd world today when they buy stu…

People in general treat the slaves near them well, and slaves far away bad. Having a slave as a household servant was most expensive because you treated them well, while you demanded many more hours of work from the slaves working outside who you didn't see as much. And if you can remove the slave to a distance mine - work them to death (that is dead, not the figure of speech), which was more efficient use of money.

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

#133

Post by marcusverus »

akiselev wrote: post #17
perrygeo wrote: post #14

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.

The Romans had coal [1]. The Greeks had even come up with a design that (remotely) resembles a steam engine [2]. What they didn’t have was the rest of the “tech tree” leading up to a usable steam engine, mostly metallurgy and the physics of work/energy. We can point to the first industry to truly mechanize as the beginning of the revolution but the technologies that got us there were legion. [1] https://en.m.wikipedi…

The Aeolipile has got to be one of the greatest "what if" moments in human history. I can't help but look at it and feel like humanity was one serendipitous moment away from kicking off the industrial revolution 1700 years earlier. And what would the world look like if Egypt had been the first to industrialize?! It boggles the mind.

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

#134

Post by CaptArmchair »

biorach wrote: post #123
CaptArmchair wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To develop the third world, it might be more informative to look at the postwar trajectories of Japan, Singapore, Korea, and of course China. That's the exact sentence, and it doesn't sit right with me for three distinct reasons. First, it can be read as an an implication: "these 4 countries where part of the "third world" and now aren't given their post-war trajectory." which ignores the history of those 4 nations…

I think you're reading far too much into it.

I don't think so.

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

#135

Post by phkahler »

BirAdam wrote: 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…

IIRC one of the oldest remaining steam engines was built for exactly that purpose. It is on display at the (poorly named IMHO) Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. I say poorly named because it isn't about him, it's about the history of industrialisation.

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

#136

Post by pradn »

BirAdam wrote: 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…

I'd say the following factors added up:

1. A reason to create coal-driven machines in the first place (to pump water from mines, when labor and other fuel sources like timer were low), to kick-start the process of mechanical innovation

2. Enough technical/scientific knowhow + conditions for entrepreneurialism (inventor gets to actually make a profit) leading to progressive mechanical innovations, spreading to other sectors like textile manufacturing

3. Easy access to coal (near the surface, in Britain itself) to provide energy for the new machines

4. Access to raw materials to drive textile factories, namely cotton produced by slaves in the Americas

5. An market for low-cost textiles produced using machines, to a great extent India (Indian textile imports were taxed, and exports were encouraged)

6. Capital for new machines/factories, often derived from excess capital from slave-plantations + re-invested profits from industry

It's going to require quite a lot of expertise to tease out the relative importance of these factors, so us laymen should be okay with a general picture. It's okay to admit that.

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

#137

Post by specialist »

julianeon wrote: post #56
whatshisface wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Arkw…

> To obtain capital for expansion, Arkwright formed a partnership with Jedediah Strutt and Samuel Need, wealthy nonconformist hosiery manufacturers.

This goes to u/qikInNdOutReply's point (cross-thread) about citizens with venture capital.

Knowing nothing about this, my hunch is there were many prerequisites.

Another interesting aspect (to me) is how some innovations (efforts) manage to avoid being snuff in their cribs. Everett's whole Diffusion of Innovation about the sociology of it all.

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

#139

Post by phone8675309 »

college_physics wrote: post #93

People focus maybe too much on the supply side of things. Resources, means of production, capital etc A puzzle that seems to floating above all this is the role of demand, what people want. An instance where it seems a key factor is the US consumer revolution. But maybe it was instrumental before. Also today, you get a distinct feeling that many parts of the world do not stay underdeveloped (using conventional GDP et…

People want whatever advertisers put in front of them - companies would not spend billions on advertisements if they didn't induce people to want things.

That's to say - in a modern society most people have what they need and have no real want other than what their social, political, and corporate masters tell them they want.

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

#140

Post by viburnum »

rayiner wrote: post #41
viburnum wrote: post #27

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…

The article was about Britain. As a matter of historical fact there's a link between the slave trade and industrial development in Britain. Maybe you're trying to defend capitalism or whatever with your hypothetical counterfactuals but that's what actually happened.
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