The Wealth and
Poverty of
Nations
• Chapter 4: The
Invention of Invention
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Adam Smith: 1776
• Technological Innovation
encouraged by:
– Division of Labor
– Widening Market
• Both were already
happening during Middle
Ages
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Important Middle Ages Technologies
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Water Wheel
Eyeglasses
Mechanical Clock
Printing
Gunpowder
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Water Wheel
• Revived in 10th century
• By 1086 England had 5,600 water
mills
• Improved by dams and ponds
• Cranks and toothed gears made
possible
– Change direction
– Power at a distance
– Rotary and reciprocal motion
Water Wheel
• Applications:
– Grinding grain
– Hammering metal
– Rolling and drawing
sheet metal and wire
– Mashing hops for beer
– Pulping rags for paper
– Fulling (pounding)
cloth
• Transformed the
woolen industry
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Water Wheel
• “ Paper, which was manufactured
by hand and foot for a thousand
years or so
– following its invention by the
Chinese and adoption by the Arabs,
• was manufactured mechanically
– as soon as it reached medieval
Europe in the thirteenth century…
Europe was a power- • Paper had traveled nearly halfway
around the world,
based civilization
– but no culture or civilization on its
route had tried to mechanize its
manufacture”
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Abbot_Richard_Wallingford.jpg
Eyeglasses
• By age 40, get
farsightedness occurs
• Eyeglasses added 20
years to the working
life of skilled
craftsmen:
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– Scribes and readers
– Instrument and
toolmakers
– Close weavers
– Metal workers
Eyeglasses
• Invented in Pisa 13th
century
• By 15th century Italy
making thousands
spectacles
• Eyeglasses encouraged
invention of fine
instruments
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Gauges
Micrometers
Fine wheel cutters
Precision tools
Eyeglasses
• Knowledge of lenses
produced other
inventions
– Telescope
– Microscope
• Europe had monopoly
on corrective lenses
for 300-400 years
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Mechanical Clock
• Before its invention: sundials
and water clocks
– both unreliable
• Reliable time important
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/tslater/plunger/sundial.jpg
– Church seven daily prayer
offices
– Organize time in cities
• Time to wake, sleep
• Time to work, go home
• Time to put out fires (covrefeu became curfew)
Mechanical Clock
• Invented in Italy and/or
England 13th century
• Early clocks inaccurate
• Relentless pressure to improve
technique and design
• Clockmakers lead the way in
accuracy and precision
14th century clock
– Miniaturization
– Correcting errors
– Searching for new and better
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/stories/~/media/Images/header/column_1/turret_clock_mechanism.ashx
Mechanical Clock
• Undermined Church authority
– equal hours for day and night a new
concept
– Resisted by the church for a century
• Every town wanted one
– Public clocks installed in towers
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•
•
Conquerors seized as spoils of war
Symbol of secular authority
Allowed individual autonomy
Work now measured by time
– increased productivity
Bern, Switzerland
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Mechanical Clock
• European monopoly on
clocks for 300 years
• No one else could make
them to European
standards
Swiss watch mechanism
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Mechanical Clock
• Chinese treated time as
confidential aspect of
sovereignty, not to be
shared with the people
• Chinese reluctant to
acknowledge European
technological superiority
• Moslems did not establish
public clocks because it
would undermine religious
authority
Chinese water clock
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Printing
• Invented in China in
9th century
• Chinese language not
well suited for
movable type
– not widely used
• Chinese discouraged
dissent and new ideas
Chinese movable type
http://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/models/chinahist/images/print4.jpg
Printing
• Europe already interested in
written word
– Government paper work written in
common language: not Latin
– Scribes could not keep up with
demand
• Gutenberg Bible printed in 1452
• By 1501, millions of
books published in Europe
Gutenberg Bible
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Printing
• Moslems did not accept
printing
– Printed Koran
unacceptable
• India also did not accept
printing
– first printing press in 19th
century
• Europe: Church tried to
stop common language
printing of Bible
• But political authority too
fragmented to stop it
http://www.visuallee.com/weblog/images/gutenberg_detail.jpg
Gunpowder
• Invented by Chinese in
11th century
• Used as incendiary in
fireworks, war
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Tubed flame lances
Bombards
Arrow launchers
Fire thunder
• Chinese fought nomads
• Not siege warfare
http://www.starfleetyachts.com/images/fireworks.jpg
Gunpowder
• Europeans improved
gunpowder
• Europeans focused on
range and weight of
projectiles: siege warfare
• With improved metal
casting, made world’s best
cannon
• Thus military supremacy
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Why did Europe get Ahead?
Islam
• Islam from 750 to 1100 A.D. far
surpassed Europe in
– Science, Technology
– Astronomy, Mathematics
• Invented algebra
• Islam was Europe’s teacher
• Then Islamic science was
denounced as heresy
– by religious zealots
• Islam does not separate religious
from secular
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– as does Christianity
• New ideas dried up under
theological pressure
China
• Chinese inventions:
– Wheel barrow
– Stirrup and rigid horse
collar
– Compass
– Paper
– Printing
– Gunpowder
– Porcelain
Chinese paper
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China
• Water driven machine for
spinning hemp in 12th
century
– 500 years before
Industrial Revolution in
England
• Blast furnaces for
smelting iron: 125,000
tons pig iron in 11th
century
– Amount reached by
Britain 700 years later
• But both technologies fell
into disuse
http://members.tripod.com/east_west_dialogue/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/castbell1.jpg
Reasons for Chinese Stagnation
• Absence of a free market and
property rights
• Chinese state always interfering
with private enterprise
– Taking over or prohibiting
lucrative activities
– Manipulating prices
– Exacting bribes
– Curtailing private enrichment
• Government strangled initiative
Ming Dynasty Emperor
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0Yuanzhang-Emperor%20Taizu%20of%20Ming%20Dynasty.jpg
– increased costs of transactions,
– diverted talent from commerce
and industry
Ming Dynasty
1368-1644
• Ming dynasty in 15th century
first promoted maritime trade,
then prohibited it
• China became isolated
• Before Europeans arrived
Chinese fleet huge, advanced
– Huge ships compared to European
• By the time Europeans arrived,
Ming Dynasty ship compared
to Columbus ship
http://www.kaichang.net/images/2007/05/30/chinazhengheship1405vssantamaria500.jpg
Chinese fleet not a threat
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Reasons for Chinese Stagnation
• Confinement of women to
the home
– made it impossible to exploit
them in textile factories
• Chinese society totalitarian
• State monopolies on
Ming Dynasty women
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Salt
Iron
Tea
Alcohol
Foreign Trade
Education
Written material
Reasons for Chinese Stagnation
• Regulations on
• Clothing
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Construction of houses
Colors worn
Music
Festivals
• Rules from birth to death
• Endless paperwork and
harassment of people
• Result: no one tried. Why
try?
Ming Dynasty
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Europe
• Much less interference
• Innovation, emulation
challenged forces of
conservatism
• Sense of progress
replaced reverence for
authority
• Freedom in all
domains
Copernicus
Why Europe?
• Judeo-Christian Beliefs
– respect for manual labor
– subordination of nature to
man
– sense of linear time (not
cyclical): progress
• Market, free enterprise
– Innovation worked and paid
– Rulers limited in ability to
prevent innovation
Trade network: not
controlled by one empire
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