What caused the industrial revolution?

[ray245]

There has been quite a number of discussions among history amateurs, usually discussing whether the industrial revolution can occur at a much earlier age, or occur in China.

Some of the commonly stated criteria for an industrial revolution to occur is having a large literate population that comes with the invention of the printing press, having a small working population that necessitate the use of machinery to compensate for the lack of labour.

Besides these few criteria, what other factors are necessary before an industrial revolution can happen? Is there any specific reason why the industrial revolution began in Britain rather than other nations like the Italian states or the Germanic states?

[Ziggy Stardust]

I think the widely accepted theory is that Britain had just the right legal, political, cultural, and socio-economic environment in which the industrial revolution was most likely to develop. Certainly, a major component was Britain emerging more or less unscathed from the wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, while continental Europe saw lots of large-scale destruction (especially the Seven Years War and, later, the Napoleonic Wars). Basically, England was the only major power that wasn't in long-term recovery mode, and already had a pretty extensive (and intact) merchant marine and trade networks. So they had a booming population and economy at a time that the rest of the major powers were weakened (which, in fact, further boosted the English industrial base by increasing demand for British imports on the Continent and the Americas).

[PainRack]

The problem is always the Ming. The Ming dynasty afterall did come close to the Industrial Revolution. It had a large artisan class, promoted after the tax reforms of 57 promoted money and commercial activities. There were..... proto industrial works, for example, large procelain kilns and even cotton weaving mills that could had resembled the precursors of Britain cotton mills. The Ming was also incorporating Western technology and knowledge, from mechanical clocks, astronomy and portugeuse canons. There was also earlier examples of the Arabs teaching the Song flamethrower cannons and etc....

So, why didn't the Ming develop their own industrial revolution? Diamond point about conservation vs coal itself is useless, since we KNOW that the Ming devastation of their forests ALSO drove them to rely significantly on charcoal and coal for fuel in the north.

The..... best point that I seen brought up was that the Ming dynasty was defeated by the Qing. Britain wasn't.

[madd0ct0r]

I've heard, (and would love to be corrected on) that one of the issues that beset England was actually a lack of workforce - while the first steam technology was developed for pumping out mines, it was the lack of workers that made the initial investment in machinery worth it - there was no other way to expand quickly.

[K. A. Pital]

Proto-industrialism and industrial revolution are different things.

The industrial revolution depended on several critical technical advances: puddling to make large quantities of iron & steel, coke instead of charcoal as fuel and, of course, steam power.

Without all three scientific-industrial innovations the "cultural ingredients" would be worth nothing.

Coal + metal and precise processes to produce these things mattered, not something else. In fact, persistent use of charcoal has marked backwards nations even after Industrial Revolution occured in Britain, indicating that it was very important to not simply discover such processes but also implement them.

[Stark]

What we call the 'industrial revolution' was really a period of either coincidental or sequential elements in culture, politics, economics, technology, and foreign relations. It'd be easier to talk about how the industrial revolution could have been missed by changing the situation than what 'caused' it. HISTORY caused it. When a need was identified, the tools were there.

[ray245]

What we call the 'industrial revolution' was really a period of either coincidental or sequential elements in culture, politics, economics, technology, and foreign relations. It'd be easier to talk about how the industrial revolution could have been missed by changing the situation than what 'caused' it. HISTORY caused it. When a need was identified, the tools were there.

Well, in this case we do have examples of societies that missed the industrial revolution. The Ottoman Empire or the Chinese Empire are two perfect examples of societies that missed the industrial revolution.

Perhaps discussing why the two empires did not industrialise even after they saw the benefits of industrialisation would be a good starting point.

[madd0ct0r]

Industrialisation is a random event, with P() increasing as increasing number of resources ( iron, coal, wood, kaolin, capital)?

(the same way agriculture can be modelled as a random event with P() increasing with the total number of amenable species available). Sadly, since there has only been one spontaneous industrialisation even in human history, it's kinda hard to calibrate.

[Zinegata]

I've heard, (and would love to be corrected on) that one of the issues that beset England was actually a lack of workforce - while the first steam technology was developed for pumping out mines, it was the lack of workers that made the initial investment in machinery worth it - there was no other way to expand quickly.

I'd actually agree that work force shortages would be a spur to develop machines that can perform the task of numerous workers. It's worth noting that although Britain is considered to be the leading nation of the industrial revolution, the United States was also a major pioneer in developing methods of factory production due to workforce shortages (even with the massive immigration during the time period).

I think we even had a discussion here before (or maybe another forum, I don't recall exactly) on how the Roman Empire had developed some machines and factory processes, but never quite adopted them on a large scale since they had a massive surplus of labor due to slaves.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Availability of resources: the British Isles basically had tin, iron ore, coal, etc, sitting next to the surface and ridiculously easy to access, and plentiful water power from small but short and relatively powerful streams (due to high rainfall) which fell quickly to the sea with lots of potential energy.

[madd0ct0r]

does water power have anything to do with it? - honest question, I'm not aware of many large scale deployments of it.

as for the resources - we weren't the only ones...

[The Duchess of Zeon]

does water power have anything to do with it? - honest question, I'm not aware of many large scale deployments of it.

as for the resources - we weren't the only ones...

Massive use of water potential energy derived geared and belt transmitted power for industrial machinery was the de facto standard of the 18th century and far, far more important than steam power for the early phases of the industrial revolution, possibly straight through to the 1840s.

[Thanas]

Anybody who claims he or she knows exactly what caused the Industrial revolution is probably either a) somebody who has spent his life working in that particular field of history or b) somebody who has an overinflated sense of their own knowledge.

Heck, theories get discarded and rediscovered in this area at such fast a rate....for example, the idea that abundance of cheap labor (due to the enclosures) was the jumpstarter was all the rage just a few decades ago. Now it has been discarded in favor of other theories.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Anybody who claims he or she knows exactly what caused the Industrial revolution is probably either a) somebody who has spent his life working in that particular field of history or b) somebody who has an overinflated sense of their own knowledge.

Heck, theories get discarded and rediscovered in this area at such fast a rate....for example, the idea that abundance of cheap labor (due to the enclosures) was the jumpstarter was all the rage just a few decades ago. Now it has been discarded in favor of other theories.

I didn't mean to say it was the only reason, I was just putting the natural resources of Britain up for consideration as another factor.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Entire life, no, but it was one of the main topics of my degree. Exactly would be an over- reach and an overspecifying. No one knows exactly, including the people who were there at the time.

For what it's worth, what I was taught and reasoned out, the three predominant causes, (not exclusive or only, just predominant) are the already existing pattern of overseas trade and merchant venturing; most of the firms and enterprises that sprang up in the Industrial Revolution were new concerns, but they came up against a background of a trading nation with links to- and markets- around the world, and successful traders with money to invest at that. The age of mercantilism, and a real advantage to have superior merchandise.

Second major factor is that we're talking about wonderful, sunny, happy, peaceful, nothing-ever-happens Europe here. In the eighteenth century. (Hopefully you will spot the irony in that earlier sentence.) The price of not getting ahead might be not keeping your head on your shoulders. There's a real need for better tools, better weapons. Britain's advantage in being of it but not in it- a secure island home to react to the pressures of war and politics while being little damaged by them.

The third major contributing factor was probably the Royal Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge- or just the Royal Society to give it it's usual name. They provided the intellectual power to make it all happen- think of the scientists of the day who invented the means and objects of manufacture and how many of them were members, Davy, Watt, Newcomen, dozens- and a culture in which it could happen.

Minor factors include a more or less stable rule of law, a rising population, resources- yes.

I'd actually reckon rather than China, the main alternative candidate for the Industrial Revolution to happen to was northern Italy, and possibly a couple of centuries earlier at that. All these things were present- but in unbalanced degree. The pressure was too great, Italy wasn't stable enough for the infrastructural development to happen and the ideas to bear fruit.
The closer I look at China the more it seems like Germany, an ethnic group- a people- without a nation, until the bits coalesce much closer to the present day than the Chinese official version likes to admit; the big missing factor there is their equivalent of the Royal Society, something that could take all the individual brilliant ideas and bring them together and run with them.

Oh, and an aside on that old and overworn rant "the tragedy of the commons"- pernicious nonsense. This was also the age of agricultural reform and scientific farming, an age in which common land was being enclosed by lords of the manor and leaseholders on a wholesale basis and converted from what ws often basically scrub into large, efficient pastures. Common land did not fade out of fashion because it was neglected and abused, it faded out because it was taken away from the commoners and privatised. Reducing many of them to absolute, in danger of failing to sustain life levels of poverty, and providing ample supplies of factory fodder.

[Zinegata]

Britain's advantage in being of it but not in it- a secure island home to react to the pressures of war and politics while being little damaged by them.

That Britain's primary military arm is the navy - which is reliant on warships that require much technology and industry to produce - is probably also another factor. Japan, which also industrialized fairly quickly, had a similar navy focus (although it's not an airtight argument - For a long time they were buying ships off the Brits, and they also did have a huge army with lots of artillery - which is also another tech / industry - intensive item)

[Simon_Jester]

Er. Regarding what ECR said about the tragedy of the commons.

I think that today, the "tragedy of the commons" is presented more as a hypothetical- something that can happen, a potential failure mode of a public resource.

Then again, that's not to say the early 19th century economists, those early evangelists of capitalism, wouldn't have advanced the "tragedy of the commons" in all seriousness as an explanation for why it was better for that land to be enclosed anyway. Which is ironic, as today it's become an anticapitalist parable, with the "commons" in question being whole planetary ecospheres.

[ray245]

Anybody who claims he or she knows exactly what caused the Industrial revolution is probably either a) somebody who has spent his life working in that particular field of history or b) somebody who has an overinflated sense of their own knowledge.

Heck, theories get discarded and rediscovered in this area at such fast a rate....for example, the idea that abundance of cheap labor (due to the enclosures) was the jumpstarter was all the rage just a few decades ago. Now it has been discarded in favor of other theories.

What is the currently favoured theory among the academia?

[Thanas]

No idea. It has been 6 years since I read a book about that subject.

[Vehrec]

As John Green points out here, the Industrial revolution was very interconnected. Advances in bleaching technology for instance, were driven by the availability of relatively cheap and abundant lead, which was available because of coal-fired foundries. It always comes back to Coal-and it is worth noting that by the time of the Industrial revolution the British had been mining coal for quite a while-Thomas Newcomen invented his successful steam engine to pump out flooded mines in 1710. This was not a practical steam engine for anything but pumping out mines, but it goes to show you something important-That the industrial revolution has deep roots, and that if you want to get to the cause of it, we are going to be going into very fuzzy territory. Yes, England had coal so close to the surface that initially, in the 1600s, it could be gathered by hand, but clearly, by 1750, this was no longer the primary source of coal, and the miners had gone much deeper and with great effort. It may have still been cheap, but I don't think you can call it 'easy' by any stretch of the imagination.

Likewise, I don't think you can call the overseas merchant marine or the land enclosures prototypes for the Industrial revolution either-the merchants might have preferred to own weaving establishments in India and not have to pay British wages, and while the Enclosures were all about using capital to improve the land, they were also rather myopically focused on agriculture as the landed elite were wont to do. They might have dug a few canals, but that was about the extent of their direct involvement in the Industrial revolution.

I personally hold that searching for a first cause that made the rest of the Industrial revolution fall like dominos is a bit of a lost cause. Rather, it seems more like a perfect storm of converging factors, of wages that were relatively high and workers that were suddenly looking for work, of coal that was cheap and water that was free, of people looking to turn a quick buck, and a rather modern fascination with machines and inventions. It was driven by foreign military expeditions and economic conditions at home, and it quickly became a positive feedback loop, obscuring it's character even more as it did so. I can't say what caused it, but I do know it was the most important Revolution in history.

[K. A. Pital]

Coal would be quite worthless without steel. The protoindustrial charcoal steel and iron-making process which existed before the modern foundries first appeared in 1750s (?) was unable to provide vast quantities of metal necessary. Not to mention lands would exhaust their entire forests well before building up a sizeable industrial machinery.

[Vehrec]

I take it you refer to 'puddling' and English crucible steel production methods, not the Bessemer process. While steel production for tools and precision instruments like clock-springs was hugely important, it would not be wise to underestimate the importance of other metals smelted with coke, coal gas, coal tar, and perhaps most importantly, the heating of British houses-which goes a long way to making the islands habitable at all. To say that coal would be worthless without steel undercuts hugely its early importance and usefulness in all manner of products.

[Guardsman Bass]

I tend to see it as a series of "filters", which Great Britain managed to line up before other countries and thus industrialized "first". Expensive labor and the heavy utilization of coal were probably the most important factors, but you can make good arguments for everything from the spread of "factory"-style, specialized production even before factories in textile production, to the argument that the British had a special lead in making precisely machined parts due to the importance of clock and naval instruments manufacturing.

The British also did seem to be very friendly towards machines and machine use, although I don't know enough to argue as to whether they were exceptional in that regard. Newcomben, for example, got a parliamentary patent for his engine, and the British crown subsidized events where machines were prominently displayed.

Perhaps discussing why the two empires did not industrialise even after they saw the benefits of industrialisation would be a good starting point.

I'm not sure about the Chinese, but most of the other major European powers (particularly in western Europe) did recognize the significance of industrialization in Britain. Hence why the British had such stringent rules against exporting technology. Peter Stearns in Industrial Revolution in World History pointed out that there was serious demand for British workers with knowledge/experience in textile production in France and elsewhere, with high wages.

It's not easy to industrialize, though, even if you're playing "catch up" with existing technology. Industrialization introduces some wrenching transformations in societies, and the Ottomans may not have been able to do that in time.

[PainRack]

Here's a question. Was China, even under the KMT actually an industrialised nation? Certainly the ending years of the Qing and in the era of the Republic, China had the technological trappings, with steam railways, engines, factories and the like. But was it an industrialised country?

[Iron Bridge]

The same thing that causes countries today to have "industrial revolutions": development of free market institutions. Britain always had one of the weakest monarchies, not just against nobles representing the manorial estates, but against the freeholding farmers and merchants. After the Civil War and Glorious Revolution, this faction took power and with the beginning of understanding of economic theory, set about destroying the vestiges of feudalism, royal grants of monopoly, restrictions on free publishing and discourse, and so forth.

Looking at presence of coal is missing the point. First because a lot of the early developments in living conditions did not involve what is today regarded as industry - improved agricultural tools for instance - and that second as an input commodity coal would simply be imported from where it could be found. The British Isles did not grow cotton, but they still had the world's largest textiles industry.

Of other countries that could have done it: first, we forget that the Netherlands actually did, mostly because their geography and demography did not allow them to become a great power. France could have done it, or at least overtaken Britain in the second leg if the Revolution had taken a different fork. Poland was also in the running, but was destroyed by Prussia and Russia. Spain, most of the German states, Ottomans and Russia were not. I don't know much about Italy at this time. But I put all of those, and even Indian states, ahead of China, which had the diametrically wrong culture. Even today it does not really understand freedom, although since the failure of Marxism it has at least stopped deliberately shooting itself in the foot.

Anybody who claims he or she knows exactly what caused the Industrial revolution is probably either a) somebody who has spent his life working in that particular field of history or b) somebody who has an overinflated sense of their own knowledge.

I agree that probably even a lifetime spent working in the field of history would not lead one to any firm answer to this question. But a few terms spent studying economics would give an accurate first approximation.