ec120 week 08, topic 7, slide 0 technology, modernisation & industrialisation industrialisation:...
TRANSCRIPT
EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 1
Technology, Modernisation & Industrialisation
• Industrialisation: the Rise of Modern Industry
• The Industrial Revolution: its several facets
• Central Role of Technological Advance– Energy and Raw Materials for Industrialisation
• Industrial change:– Steam power– Iron and steel– Textiles– Contributions from other industries
• Why was the Industrial Revolution British?
EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 2
Industrial Revolution: the rise of modern industry
• “The Industrial Revolution” – a sequence of events starting in 18C marked by the expansion of industries organised along capitalist lines
• Precisely where did it occur and when?
• What distinguishes the industries that expanded?
• What caused the IR?
• What was so profound about the IR?
• Is the I.R. a useful concept?
EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 3
Four views of the Industrial Revolution
Mokyr identified 4 `schools’ of, or approaches to the I.R.:
1. The Social Change School
2. The Industrial Organisation School
3. The Macroeconomic School
4. The Technological School
EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 4
Technical change in the Industrial Revolution
• Distinguish between invention and innovation
• Allen’s argument (2009, ch 6):
– Relative input prices determined the new technologies
• Landes `three principles’ (Unbound Prometheus, p. 41):
1. `substitution of machines ... for human skill and effort’
2. `substitution of inanimate for animate sources of power’
3. `use of new and far more abundant raw materials’
EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 5
Sequence of events in Britain: a sketchSequence of events in Britain (Allen’s synthesis):
• Demographic catastrophe (Black Death) from 1348/50
• Commercial expansion to Asia and the Americas, from early 17th century
• Cultural developments favour invention and innovation
• Institutional change supports enterprise & wealth accumulation
EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 6
Mineral Sources of Energy & Raw Materials
• Wrigley’s thesis: Advanced Organic replaced by Mineral Based Economy
• Advanced organic economy: plant sources of energy & raw materials
• Mineral based energy economy: coal for energy, iron & coal as raw materials
• But Wrigley’s account is not the whole story
The Role of Science
• Allen emphasises two applications– Steam power → Steam engine– Clockwork → Gears (and engineering)
• Basic scientific advance was mostly continental
• But British technology benefited, albeit indirectly
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EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 8
Steam power
• Steam engines: external combustion engines
• Major invention: Newcomen’s `beam engine’, c1712
• Minor (and not so minor) inventions, include:improved fuel efficiency; high pressure engine
• Railways: expansion after c1830 (Liverpool-Manchester line)
• Later developments: compound engine, steam turbine
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Iron and steel• Smelting:
blast furnace production of pig iron from iron ore
• Refining: reduce carbon content of pig iron– `Forge’ pig iron into wrought (malleable) iron
• Steel: “a superior variety of iron”, has more carbon than wrought iron
EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 10
Textiles (1)• Four processes: preparation, spinning, weaving,
finishing
• Traditional sectors (in late 18C): wool, linen, silk
• New sector: cotton, small scale; rapid growth from 1760s
• Kay’s flying shuttle (1733): raised weavers’ productivity
• Spinning inventions were major labour-saving innovations
• Weaving: hand-loom dominated until 1830s/40s
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Textiles (2)
• Cotton industry:– “the wonder industry of the Industrial
Revolution” (Allen)
• Traditional textiles: innovations adopted but more slowly
• Cloth processing: expansion of the garment trades
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Contributions from other industries (briefly)
• Machine tools: advances in accuracy of manufacture
• Mining, especially coal became a major employer
• Chemicals (mainly used in textiles industries)
• Gas lighting: initially in Germany & France, then further developed in Britain
• Ceramics & glass: Britain followed continental innovations
Why was the Industrial Revolution British?
• Mokyr (2009): economic impact of Enlightenment ideas
• Allen (2009): “growth of the urban, commercial economy drove the economy forward in the centuries before the I.R.” (p.106)
• Clark (2007): “reproductive advantage of the rich”, “… economic success has a very important genetic component”, a Darwinian survival mechanism
EC120 week 08, topic 7, slide 13