Comments on: The Industrial Revolution happened largely in one place

By: Szopen

Szopen — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 08:39:42 +0000

On the other hand, beasts of burden where not that cheap either. In 1482 in Olkusz mine there were 24 horses working in treadmill, and they had to be allowed to stop work. It was expansive. And Silesia had coal, but it started to be mined only in about half of XVIII century (And then almost immediately they started to use imported Newcome’s pumps or similar).

By: Szopen

Szopen — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 08:32:32 +0000

Interesting about the coal part; I’ve long wondered why not Silesia and other mines, where there was for long time a demand for different contraptions (paternosters) to remove water from mines. But they were extracting silver, salt, lead, so there was this one missing component. Indeed, without cheap coal, why bother with replacing animals in paternosters.

By: Mike-SMO

Mike-SMO — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 02:26:32 +0000

Coal and engines were important, but what was crucial was a society that allowed room for the new technology and its functional class. Britian and parts of Europe found a way to accept a”middle class” of skilled, energetic people the Marxian analysis worked only for a society with a rigid class structure. The industrial revolution provided for respectable advancement to “smart” peasants while allowing the “worthies” time to adapt, thus avoiding the chaos and brutality of a “revolution”. Skill with machinery or structure was necessary, profitable and allowed a gradual adjustment of the power structure. The builder and the old “royalty” were both able to prosper in their own realms. Attempts to suppress that growing “middle class” generally led to bloody dead-ends.some attempts to guide the process of transformation were successful. Some were not. The ability to incorporate the new and unproductive “educated” class into funtional systems has yet to be demonstrated.

By: Gavin Longmuir

Gavin Longmuir — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 16:20:36 +0000

The causes of the Industrial Revolution will be argued over until the end of time. What is clear is that several factors had to come together.

The need for power for such applications as mine dewatering. Knowledge of metal manufacturing. The ability to make cylinders with exacting dimensions. The capability to grow food more efficiently so that workers could move from farms to factories. Public health improvements that allowed large groups of people to work & live close to each other. It has even been argued that a key factor in the Industrial Revolution was the development of patent law.

Another example of this happenstance convergence of multiple lines of progress could be the micro-electronics industry, requiring progress in physics theory, materials, and manufacturing techniques. Apparently, Bell Labs had designed cellular telephony back in the 1960s, but it took decades before the development of the computer chip made cell phones practical.

When progress depends on the low probability event of multiple separate things converging, it is not surprising that such progress happens first in one location and then spreads.