21 Comments

Nice compressed history lesson. It seems political, economic, and technological threads are interweaved from the 1500's to the 1880's in ways that are difficult or subtle to unravel and explore as separate influences/ concepts. And given the comments about Germany, Ireland, and later European and non-European growth, we have to keep our wits about us to understand that the mass benefit results you are exploring did not spring up everywhere as rapidly as our modern news cycle and internet exposure might influence our thinking. A lot of social and physical infrastructure (and human and money capital) has to be established to get these things off the ground in a major way.

Having been born in St. Louis, I was surprised to see the USA map for 1820 showing such a concentration of population around that whole area. It seems it was an even earlier and larger springboard for settlers going North and West from there than I had appreciated. I had left the state long before they built the Gateway Arch so maybe I would have learned more details of that historical contribution if I had been local when it was built.

Expand full comment

Per Ober, the classical Greek merchant city states such as Athens were as prosperous as Golden Age Holland with extremely high population densities, and this lasted for centuries. Goldstone suggests Song China and Tokugawa Japan also qualify.

I think Goldstone's term "efflorescence" of notable pre-IR escapes from Malthusian forces captures this better than “progress." Obviously a gray line separates the two concepts, but Goldstone also suggests that fossil fuel energy is the distinguishing factor, with Holland being an especially interesting border case due to peat.

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for the comment.

Tomorrow I am publishing an article on Ancient Greece that focuses on Ober's book.

I will also be publishing another article on Goldstone's concept of "efflorescence." Given that he wrote a very positive recommendation of my book, I doubt that he disagrees with me too much.

Expand full comment

I wrote a positive recommendation as well, and I also don’t disagree with you too much.

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for that!

Expand full comment

One thing missing from your list is Song China. It also experienced significant economic growth and some proto-industrial commercialization. Then it got strangled by the Confucian bureaucracy, and then the Mongols invaded.

Expand full comment
author

I am far from an expert on Song China, but I do not think that they experienced significant per capita economic growth. There certainly was a huge increase in population, particularly due to immigration from Northern China and the adoption of rice. I think the growth of Song China was mainly due to the increase in population, not an increase in the material standard of living.

Rice is fabulous in expanding populations, but not in increasing the standard of living. I plan to write an article about it in the future.

You are correct about Confucian bureaucracy and Mongols.

Expand full comment

There are certainly accounts of what looks like commercialization in Song China.

Expand full comment
author

Another bit of evidence is that the urbanization rate in China never got above 3%. This does not prove that there was no material progress, but it is very odd for there to be material progress without any urbanization.

Until modern times Asia typically had very densely populated rural regions and very low rates of urbanization. I think this is due to the characteristics of rice, which is extremely labor-intensive.

Expand full comment
author

True, but I do not think that is evidence of an increased standard of living for the masses.

Expand full comment

Well somebody had the disposable income to buy all the pottery the proto-factories were producing.

Expand full comment

Interesting post, but the section on the Industrial Revolution in the UK seems surprising, e.g. not sure how:

“Its “bleeding edge” technological innovations were automating textile production using water power.” and “Coal was still mainly used for home heating.”

Squares with

“By 1835, around 75% of cotton mills were using steam power, and there were well over 50,000 power looms being used in Britain.”

Source: https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2183/the-textile-industry-in-the-british-industrial-rev/

Britain built large numbers (hundreds) of canals to move coal around before the building out of the railway network. I’m sure that railways accelerated things but say the IR was caused by railroads starting In 1842 doesn’t seem consistent with this data.

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for the comment.

This article is not really about the causes of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. It is more about sharp upticks in per capita economic growth (as identified by Angus Maddison’s estimates) for nations of the past.

The exact timing of the Industrial Revolution in Britain is very controversial, and I do not claim to speak for the majority of economic historians. It is obviously a trend that did not occur in one year.

The article you linked was specifically about the textile industry. I do not see the growth of the textile industry as synonymous with the Industrial Revolution. I see the British textile industry as the next iteration of highly productive textile industries based on water and wind power that had previously existed in Northern Italy, Flanders, and the Netherlands. The textile industry was not large enough as an industry or important enough as a product to transform a nation.

Many historians see the cotton textile industry as the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution, so they look for upticks in growths or major innovation of that industry to identify the start of the Industrial Revolution. This causes them to focus on the 18th-century Britain. The quote that you listed above is for 1835, so that is not really the same period.

I look for upticks in economic growth for the entire nation. My reading of the Angus Maddison estimates is that the clear discontinuity in estimated British per capita GDP was in the 1830s or 1840s. This is when long-term growth rates suddenly tripled.

The textile industry played a vital role in all the Commercial societies that preceded Britain, so I do not see it as revolutionary as most economic historians do. Just like the preceding Commercial societies, England experienced solid per capita GDP from 1500 to 1840, but nowhere near as much as in Industrial societies.

Given the timing of the apparent uptick in national growth in Britain, it is hard to miss that this is exactly the timing of the Railroad Boom in Britain. Given how critical railroads were and the prominent role that railroads played in other nations, I do not think that it is a coincidence.

I see the railroad as far more transformative to the Industrial Revolution than textile factories (which had been in existence for centuries). Of course, there were many other critical innovations as well.

You are correct about Britain having a large network of canals (and I would add highways). This was also common in Commercial societies that preceded the Industrial Revolution.

Just so I understand your point of view, do you dispute that the 1840s was the discontinuity of British economic growth?

If not, then what innovation do you think caused the discontinuity?

Expand full comment

Thanks for the reply, Michael. I think that the central point is that by 1840 Britain had a major, steam powered, industrial sector in the textile industry. The steam powered nature of this made it qualitatively different to the ones you quote in Europe (it also benefited from lots of other innovations made in the industry in Britain) and it did increase economic growth in the early 19th century. I have no doubt that growth accelerated from the 1840s probably due to railways and also very likely the repeal of the Corn Laws. However, I think most people identify the IR with steam powered, mechanised mass production and that preceded building the railways in Britain. You can choose to define the IR as only starting when growth hit a certain level in the 1840s but I don't think many would share that definition.

Expand full comment
author

You might also be interested in this article:

Substantial growth in the industrial sector occurred long before most economic historians realize. My interpretation of the data is different from the authors of the study.

https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/did-the-industrial-revolution-occur

Expand full comment
author

Again, I am not defining the start of the Industrial Revolution. I am defining the start of the onset of rapid per capita economic growth (in many nations).

There was clearly steady per capita growth in England from 1500 to 1840, but then sometime between 1820 and 1845, it dramatically accelerated and it remained roughly triple the previous period. I never labeled it “the Industrial Revolution.”

I am not convinced that the textile industry created increased national per capita gdp in Britain before 1820. It probably played an important role after that date.

Yes, the Corn Laws played an important role.

Expand full comment

Thanks for clarifying. You do label Britain pre 1840 as 'pre-industrial' though which probably ed to my confusion. I'll read your linked article with interest.

Expand full comment
author

Yes, I agree. I can understand the confusion. Sometimes it is hard to pick terminology that is both understandable and precise.

I appreciate the feedback, though.

Cheers.

Expand full comment

Well written and interesting! RE: "Strong long-term economic growth" then being "Followed by long periods of stagnation or decline", I strongly *suspect* that in some or possibly even most of the those cases, the period of stagnation or decline was not actually because they couldn't push further but because each in their own way allowed the current big winners and assorted other groups to lock in the status quo so as to protect themselves from diminishment or outright dislocation and whatever moves they made to do so installed structures that inhibited innovation, growth, expansions, whatever else, and I suppose by definition (since their locking in the status quo) outright denied truly widespread opportunity which would have deleterious effects on real growth and advancement.

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for the comment. Glad that you enjoyed it.

I assume that your comment about “decline” is about the nations who experienced decline after long periods of growth that I discussed at the end of the article. As far as I know there has been no systematic comparative study that covers the economic decline in those nations. You may very well be correct in your reasoning. It could also be that their economic growth was primarily based on commodities, so once the global price of those commodities declined, the nation returned to “normal”.

Expand full comment

Yeah, commodities supply dynamics was likely a big explanation for some of them. Comparative analysis is very fun here! But on sometimes it can be tough to say which came first, like, was their a stagnation and decline period and so then well off elements of the status quo did the locking in out of fear of losing their stuff? But at least in some cases I say the arg still holds because if they hadnt done it then would they have been at least better off or possibly even gotten out of it? I say maybe/yeah. Or had they already done it before the shock came and thats why the shock knocked them off so bad?

Lets consider some cases in dumbed down form for sake of space: The Spanish Empire essentially had a commodities shock, it lack of a proper (proper meaning of the size, diversification, advancement, etc. that would be commensurate with what the Spanish Empire was) industrial economy really, really hampered it. Was this just resource curse-ish stuff? If so, in this case at least, was the effects we would identify as effects of that stuff that we could label as pathologies of undo concentrations of power/influence within the political economy contriving things so as this alternate sector that could both produce new rival winners and also compete for skilled and unskilled labor, was inhibited? Or was it not that (in the sense of coming first) but rather during the period between when the writing was on the through the initial first stage of when it began, that out of fear of the change in conditions, The Land Aristocracy and associated industry (lets call them Big AG here) along with the remaining mining whatevers and other powerful societal institutions such as the Church, just decided, whether overt plan or tacit cooperation through separate actions or both, generated a set up that inhibited growth of new sectors so as to reach a shared and stable new equilibrium in the political economy? I dont know.

Oooh, i have a better example: I think a detailed arg could be made that Metternich (the head of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for like 40 years) actively worked to suppress industrialization in the Empire during his time in power. He seemed to aim to maintain the existing social and political status quo, and he thought industrialization threatened it. He figured ndustrialization might empower the up and coming bourgeoisie and create labor tightnesses that might boost the working classes which might generate empowered demands for various reforms, and prob more inportantly, a big expansion of that sector which they were arguably primed to do given their high end sc & engineering and nat resources and ge location, could have endangered the power and money of the Big Ag and the -- relative to what it could be -- quite small industrial base it did have that was dominated by nobility and very sorta cartelized along with other groups like older industry-traditional crafts. He literally seemed to (not always) often intentionally limit the growth of factories and the dev of modern infrastructure. His Carlsbad Decrees stifled university professors and students on social stuff but were part of a rigid system that really inhibited the free flow of all sorts of ideas even if it was just focusing on social stuff. By trying to preserve the aristocracy and inhibiting economic modernization, he may have put eastern Europe behind to this very day.

I have some others that I think are better I'd have to jog memory and I have to go.

Best,

Mike

Expand full comment