For thousands of years, most people on earth lived in abject poverty, first as hunters and gatherers, then as peasants or laborers. But with the Industrial Revolution, some societies traded this ancient poverty for amazing affluence.
Historians and economists have long struggled to understand how this transition occurred and why it took place only in some countries. A scholar who has spent the last 20 years scanning medieval English archives has now emerged with startling answers for both questions.
Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the University of California, Davis, believes that the Industrial Revolution ”” the surge in economic growth that occurred first in England around 1800 ”” occurred because of a change in the nature of the human population. The change was one in which people gradually developed the strange new behaviors required to make a modern economy work. The middle-class values of nonviolence, literacy, long working hours and a willingness to save emerged only recently in human history, Dr. Clark argues.
Because they grew more common in the centuries before 1800, whether by cultural transmission or evolutionary adaptation, the English population at last became productive enough to escape from poverty, followed quickly by other countries with the same long agrarian past.
Niall Ferguson is his excellent book “The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power” said it best:
KTF….mrb
Interesting article but the idea of genetic evolution in this context seems flawed. “Memes” proposed by Dawkins are more likely to explain the trends though the thought “tea and crumpets” powering the British Empire is very appealing.
I’m also thinking that “deferred gratification” is more likely to be spread by new social norms, but is fragile (see entry: Societies, American modern, circa 2000). New social patterns and reinforcements would spread this “meme” into the lower classes much faster than the proposed genetic mechanism.
Actually, I believe it was a gradual understanding of universal rights and the rule of law rather than the rule of men. This started in England with the Magna Carta and those ideas gradually became enshrined in English custom and American Constitutional Law
The idea that man can own something and dispose of it to make a profit and that he will be motivated to do so is fairly new on the scene. You can also correlate this with the book “Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith. General Affluence is a self feeding phenomen (with cyclical periods of depression/recession).
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I will look forward to reading this book when it comes out. There are so many different factors that one could argue came together at the right time to give rise to the Industrial Revolution. Some of those date from the Middle Ages, such as the development of mechanised timekeeping, the invention of double-entry bookeeping and other modern accounting systems, the printing press, and legal reforms like the creation of the corporate form, ending prohibitions on usury, and the rise of predictable legal systems and courts of law. The Reformation also had a critical role, not only for the social changes that were brought but also because it created so much taxable wealth just by freeing up vast tracts of land that were until then controlled by the Church. In England, the closure of common lands was also important because it reduced the power of the peasantry, which in other countries formed a major impediment to industrialization. England’s geographic isolation also certainly helped–it is much easier to develop civilized systems and wealth when invading armies are not marching across your border every 10 years. England also happened to have the coincidence of population centers near the fall line–for water-powered textile mills–and also near ample sources of coal and ore for smelting and iron-making.
RE: “The change was one in which people gradually developed the strange new behaviors required to make a modern economy work. The middle-class values of nonviolence, literacy, long working hours and a willingness to save emerged only recently in human history, Dr. Clark argues.”
I really suspect that it is the circumstances that call forth character traits.
And when there are not the circumstances in which a “willingness to save” is really fruitful or useful, then people do not save.
This has much to do with Maslow’s old theory about our hierarchy of needs. Those who are focusing on, say, gathering food and water for day to day needs are less likely to think about literacy.
So when the state and civilization was more stable, and then when individuals were guaranteed the rights with which God bestowed human beings, they became more interested in exercising those rights.
In this way, the Russian people under Communist rule were notoriously “unproductive” . . . because they weren’t guaranteed the fruit of their labor anyway, so it really didn’t matter what they did.
Another, less political example might be the “courage” that is suddenly exhibited when otherwise coddled and protected people are suddenly threatened, or their loved ones. Suddenly, the courage that is latent and pre-existent has a context and a “reason for being.”
A PBS series some years ago indicated that the biggest impetus was the fact that the average survivor of the Plague inherited from five relatives (serfs as well as nobility). This sudden accumulation created sellable excess, spending money, and leisure time for thinking and creating.
#7, I just finished Norman Cantor’s “In the Wake of the Plague” which discusses such things. Highly recomended.
Actually #1 may have put his finger on it for a different reason. Current thinking has suggested that Tea-drinking was part of the reason, coupled of course with the inventions that started the Agricultural Revolutions.
The idea was that when communities expanded to a certain size, they would collapse through the ravages of disease. In Japan, however, where tea was taken this did not happen, nor did it happen in the British industrial cities which supported populations of a previously unknown scale. The reason, tea has been discovered to contain a natural defence against disease.
So there may have been some method in the madness which meant that the first thing the army did when making camp was to brew up a cuppa. The secret of our success?
I think it is critical (Ferguson’s comments under my name in #1 aside) to look very closely about British attitudes towards Empire moving from the 1690’s ownward. Once the last royal execution took place (1698 I believe) from that point on it was clear to the newborn middle class that they would not be subject to royal writ cleaning out their pockets and rendering their investments worthless. This pushing forward of dispersed power (through Parliament) and the desire to mimic the success of the Dutch East India Company and Bank meant two exciting things:
1. A stable environment for investment
2. Much freer flow of capital.
You can’t have real affluence without both.
KTF!….mrb
I think primogeniture in England also came into play. In England the estates of the nobles were concentrated in the hands of the first born son so that there was wealth accumulation for investment unlike in France where it was broken up among all of the sons. This also led to the younger English sons having to have a trade – 1) soldier/adventurer; 2) priest 3) naval/merchant marine officer 4) lawyer 5) merchant – which led to empire building and markets for English goods and raw materials.
Chips, strong point, The British Isles had net outflow migration all the way until 1965, despite the large loss of Empire after WW2.
Well of course maybe Empire was the result of the large healthy tea-drinking urban populations who required feeding, clothing, building materials and of course, lots and lots of tea!
I hate to burst the tea bubble, but India is swarming with tea-drinkers who are poor, illiterate, prone to disease, think for today only and don’t save for contingencies.
Likewise, Katherine, caffeine is present in the Arab countries which originated coffee, as well as in India. Nicotine was present in tobacco which originated in North America. And sugar is widespread around the entire world. So why haven’t the Arabs, the North American and Asiatic Indians, and everybody else, shared in the industrial revolution?
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
Hmmmmm, perhaps the Industrial Revolution in England had something to do with the change in character which came about as a result of the Great Awakening???
Ah, my friends in 14 (Katherine) and 15 (dpeirce), you must remember that these “new drugs” were blended in the British Isles with another completely unique physical characteristic that allowed the Empire and Economic Prosperity to endure:
The Stiff Upper Lip.
Cheerio!…..mrb
Well, I am quite convinced that somehow developed society arrived because of christianity. Sciences and technology were developed because we worship a God of order and has created order and law. The concept developed, also out of christianity, of chivalry also was key to allowing modern developement.
The writers of the article, having the apparent axiom that the above is untrue, will endlessly pursue the endless untrue possiblities that exist.
Sad.
DonGander
Stiff Upper Lip ^_^. (#17)
It occurred to me that development of the English Stiff Upper Lip might have been facilitated by the development of another drug which you didn’t mention… brewskis. Enough of that drug and one’s lip stiffens admirably. However, it then occurred to me that this drug was available pretty much throughout the world; so that can’t be it either.
Let the search for an explanation continue!!!
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”
[i]– Ben Franklin [/i]
Is necessary to keep a stiff upper lip while drinking, otherwise you risk dunking your moustache in your beer!