The Making of the
Modern World
Wednesday 28 October 2015, 9-10am
THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION:
CONSEQUENCES
Tutor: Giorgio Riello
g.riello@warwick.ac.uk
The Industrial Revolution:
Different Explanations
Exp. 1. Until the 1970s (in particular c. 1955-75): Economic Growth
- key sectors (esp. cotton textiles)
-Factory production
- Use of new technologies
Exp. 2. From the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s: Manufactures
- a wider range of sectors
- the continuity with pre-industrial manufacturing (manufactures)
- consumption
- two new concepts:
- proto-industrialisation
- industrious revolution
David Cannadine, “The Present and the Past in the English Industrial
Revolution 1800-1900”, Past and Present, 108 (1984), pp. 131-72.
Exp. 3. Since the mid 1990s:
- the IR in a more global perspective,
- new concept of ‘divergence’
Explanation 2. Manufactures
Explanation 2. Manufactures
Alternative smaller-scale units that co-existed
with those factories were not so primitive during
the IR
Maxine Berg, The Age of Manufactures (1985;
2nd edn. 1994).
Concept 1: Proto-industrialization
Proto-industry is industrial production in small units mostly in
the countryside to produce goods to be sold in distant market.
The Proto-industrial model was developed by Franklin Mendels
and developed by Kriedte, Medick e Schlumbohm.
The model contained three elements:
• a strong link between agriculture and industry.
• production that was co-ordinated by so-called merchantentrepreneurs.
• an industry dependent on long-distance markets.
Concept 2: Industrious Revolution
Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution (Cambridge,
2008).
The ‘industrious revolution’ formulation is important
because:
• it emphasises labour rather than technology as the
key element of industrial production
• it extends the chronologies of the IR backwards in
time
• it connects consumption and production.
Exp. 3. Since the mid 1990s: The
Global Re-interpretation of the IR
This has been brought about by:
a. The industrial decline of Britain and most of Europe (the places
of the first IR)
b. The industrialization of Asia, exp. China and India.
Exp. 3. Since the mid 1990s:
The industrial decline of Britain and most of Europe
Industry accounted for 40% of the British economy in 1900 but
only 20% in 1990.
The Industrial cities of the Midlands and the North of England
declined in the early 1990s … but they revived in the late 1990s
thanks to financial and consumer services and outsourcing within a
global economy
Historians asked:
- What part was played in the history of industrialization by
Britain’s connections with the wider world
- the relationship between the IR and Western dominion over the
world
Exp. 3. Since the mid 1990s:
The industrialisation of Asia (China and India)
Was this an achievement contingent upon a prior
superiority in economy, mind or culture, or was it
mere accident?
‘why did Europe industrialise and grow rich and
Asia did not? And this question indirectly asks
‘why is Asia industrialising now?’
de-Europeanise of de-Anglicise the IR
Exp. 3. Since the mid 1990s:
(a) The Lost Opportunities of China
•Chris Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World (Cambridge, 2004)
‘it was European ships and commercial companies, not Asian
and African producers of slaves, spices, calicoes or porcelains
which were able to capture the greatest ‘value added’ as
world trade expanded in the eighteenth century’ and adds
that ‘Europe connected, subjugated and made tributary other
peoples’ “industrious revolutions”’.
Exp. 3. Since the mid 1990s:
(b) Global Luxury and Consumption
• Importance of Asian luxuries
and exotic American foodstuffs
• These were stimula to
European consumer goods
industries
See: Maxine Berg, ‘In Pursuit of Luxury:
Global History and British Consumer
Goods in the Eighteenth Century’ Past
and Present 182 (Feb. 2004 ), pp. 85-142
Maxine Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (2005), chap. 2
Exp. 3. Since the mid 1990s:
(c) The ‘Great Divergence’
Europe moved from a common path of economic development to
a new, higher level. Europe industrialised while China, but also
India and other places around the world did not.
Europe experienced a ‘Great Divergence’ thanks to:
- abundant supplies of coal
- presence of colonial markets.
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the
Making of the Modern World Economy (2000).
7. Why was Britain first?
• Britain had a very low share of the population in Britain
occupied in agriculture; France by contrast remained a very
agricultural society.
• As late as 1840 the output per worker in France was only 60%
of that of England: Britain was much more productive
• And finally that population growth was gradual in France,
while in England it rose rapidly.
7. Why was Britain first?
1. Comparative advantage in exportable commodities
- Britain was successfully exporting part of its industrial
production (60% of British cotton output was exported
compared to 10% in France)
2. International specialization
- colonial markets were particularly important and were
dominated by Britain
3. War and economic protection
- Britain did not bear the burden of physical destruction
- but the country was heavily taxed to pay for the army and
navy
- it was successful at the end of the Napoleonic wars.
8. The First Industrial Revolution and
the Second Industrial Revolution
Technological achievement in the First Industrial Revolution
according to Landes:
1. The substitution of human energy with machines - rapid,
regular, precise and tireless.
2. The substitution of animate with inanimate sources of
power - steam power for animal, wind and water power
3. The use of new and more abundant raw materials substitution of mineral for vegetable or animal
substances - change from a wood to a coal fuel economy
Table 1. GDP per Capita in some of the major industrial countries,
1820-1913 (in 1985 US $)
1820
1870
1890
1913
United Kingdom
1,405
2,610
3,279
4,024
France
1,052
1,571
1,941
2,734
Germany
937
1,300
1,727
2,606
Italy
960
1,210
1,355
2,087
United States
1,048
2,247
3,106
4,854
Canada
1,347
1,662
3,560
Japan
588
620
813
1,114
8. The First Industrial Revolution and
the Second Industrial Revolution
• new materials - steel,
chemicals – Germany leads
• new energy - steam
turbine, gas, petroleum,
electricity – Germany leads
• mechanisation – machine
tools, interchangeable
parts – U.S. leads
8. The First Industrial Revolution and
the Second Industrial Revolution
• interchangebility of parts, … the ways in which products
were composed an assembled
• ‘scientific management’ of productive lines
• In the Second Industrial Revolution, the Americans then by
the Germans took the lead
9. Britain Falling Behind
Table 2. The world Manufacturing Production, 1870-1911 (in %)
In %
1870
1881189619061913
1885
1900
1910
Great
31,8
26,6
19,5
14,7
14,0
Britain
France
10,3
8,6
7,1
6,4
6,4
Germany
13,2
13,9
16,6
15,9
15,7
Italy
2,4
2,4
2,7
3,1
2,7
Belgium
2,9
2,5
2,2
2,0
2,1
Russia
3,7
3,4
5,0
5,0
5,5
US
23,3
28,6
30,1
35,3
35,8
Japan
0,6
1,0
1,2
Others
12,4
14,0
16,2
16,6
16,6
World
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
100,0
9. Britain Falling Behind
Why did Britain fall behind Germany and the US in the
period 1870-1914?
•
The markets of empire
•
Competitive advantage in low productivity industry
10. The Modernisation of the Germany
Economy
1. The State was proactive
2. High levels of investments – support of banks
3. Welfare state – worker’s housing, social insurance, pensions,
etc.
The result was:
• 1891-1911 – the German population increased from 49
million to 65 million.
• Output increased from £23 per person to £37 per person a
year
• Trade increased by 200%
Conclusion
Was the IR the
beginning of
modernity?