What explains European technological leadership by the nineteenth century - Essay Example

What explains European technological leadership by the nineteenth century Introduction It all began with the Age of Exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries. European ships boldly ventured into the seas and oceans of the world in search of new trading routes and partners to fuel a newly emerging capitalism in many of the European countries. The Age of Exploration was in turn rooted in the new ideas, technologies and spirit of enquiry that grew out of the early periods of the Renaissance. Prior to the Age of Exploration, the most vibrant and active economies of Europe had been in Mediterranean regions like Italy and Greece. But as a direct outcome of the daring sea expeditions carried out in the Age of Exploration, a new European economy became dominant. Known as the Atlantic economy, it was run and controlled by countries of Western Europe, such as Britain, France, Germany and Holland. These countries became the wealthiest and most powerful economies in Europe, and continue to be so to the present day. Even as trans-oceanic trade became commonplace, Europe was undergoing a commercial revolution. As trade and commerce assumed higher levels of importance, traders and merchants superceded feudal landowners to become the most powerful class in society. In relatively short time, for the first time in the history, the bourgeoisie began to take charge of the politics and government in the European nations. The European voyages of discovery led to a vast influx of precious metals from the New World and a wide variety of valuable commodities from Asian countries, thus raising prices, stimulating industry, and fostering a money economy. Expansion of trade and the money economy lead to the development of banks and other institutions of finance and credit. In the 17th century, the Dutch were in the forefront financially, but towards the end of the century, with the establishment of the Bank of England, Britain was set on the road of becoming the foremost economy in Europe. Capitalism kept on spreading, and a new class of commercial entrepreneur evolved from the old-type merchant adventurers. There was a fair amount of technolgy already present, many machines were known, and there were factories employing these machines and technology. However, these early and primitive factories were the exceptions rather than the rule, if only for the simple reason that they were still fuelled by wood. But soon the much more powerful coal would come to replace wood as the fuel of choice. At the beginning of the 18th century, the general population was rapidly expanding and were wealthier than ever before. People began demanding more and more goods of better and better quality (Columbia Enclyclopedia, 2004). In the second half of the eighteenth century, a great economic transformation began sweeping the countries of Europe. The Industrial Revolution has begun. Over a span of 100 years, by 1850's, industry would rapidly become a major force in shaping economy, deeply affecting national life in a the major European countries, but most prominently in the country where it all started: England. The Industrial Revolution would go on to change the face of nations all over the world. This Revolution provided the economic base for the rise of a vast number of new professions, and after the Second World War eventually led to the appearance of unprecendented levels of prosperity in the Western world. Many developing nations of Asia and elsewhere are even now trying to catch up with the pace of progress implied by the word "Industrial Revolution." Since Karl Marx's Das Kapital (1869) and Arnold Toynbee's Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England (1884), there have been scores of books exploring industrial revolution - this scientific, economic and social phenomenon of most singular importance in the history of the world - from different perspectives. A few of the currently popular books on this subject are Understanding the Industrial Revolution by Charles More, which describes theories of economic growth and shows how these can be applied to the industrial revolution, including discussion of theories on the supply of capital, role of labour, innovation and entrepreneurship etc. Entrepreneurship and the Industrial Revolution by Mark Casson (Editor), which includes discussions and important historical studies of entrepreneurial behavior during the revolution. The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830 by T. S. Ashton and Pat Hudson, which presents the industrial revolution as an important and beneficial mark of progress. The British Industrial Revolution: An Economic Perspective by Joel Mokyr (editor), which is an essential book for economic and general historians of Great Britain in the 18th and the 19th centuries. 2) The Hypothesis In the eighteenth century, a series of inventions transformed the manufacture of cotton in England and gave rise to a new mode or production - the factory system. During these years, other branches of industry effected comparable advances, and all these together, mutually reinforcing one another, made possible further gains on an ever-widening front. The abundance and variety of these innovations almost defy compilation, but they may be subsumed under three principles: the substitution of machines - rapid, regular, precise, tireless - for human skill and effort; the substitution of inanimate for animate sources of power, in particular, the introduction of engines for converting heat into work, thereby opening to man a new and almost unlimited supply of energy; the use of new and far more abundant raw materials, in particular, the substitution of mineral for vegetable or animal substances. These improvements constitute the Industrial Revolution (Landes, 1969). Innovation is the key driving force to technological progress. Apparently, the new technological leadership shown by England during the era of Industrial Revolution between 1750 and 1850 was a result of the Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century. New attitudes began to spread widely among the upper classes in the 17th and 18th centuries. Knowledge of science was stimulated by the incessant profileration of books. Interest in science and technology became a pervasive phenomenon among wider cross sections of the European society, but it was particularly intense in Britain. The British also were culturally more pragmatic and practical-minded and than the other nations of Europe, as for example the French. But it must be noted that new scientific knowledge, though it provided a backdrop to industrial revolution, does not explain the Industrial Revolution. It is the improvement of technology by simple engineering that seems to be the key to the Industrial Revolution. Beyond both science and technology, however, it was the unique economic structure of Britain that proved to be exceptionally conducive to the growth of invention and innovation. This economic structure was a product of the remarkable succcess of the Great Britain in the global economy from 16th century onwards. A unique cultural orientation and economic success underpinned the technological superiority of Britain by the beginning of the 19th century over any other nation of Europe and the rest of the world. Growth economics posits technological progress at the center of economic growth. In the case of Industrial Revolution, economic growth was both the cause and the effect of technological progress. 3) Economic Model Technology is nothing but applied science. By the middle of the 18th century in Europe, science created new attitudes, approaches and a whole culture that enhanced experimentation and inventiveness among the people. However a lot of science and theoretical physics that developed before and during the period of Industrial Revolution did not find any practical usage before 1850. It only happened afterwards. Perhaps the only major instance of scientific knowledge leading to new technology during the Industrial Revolution was the 'atmospheric'steam engine invented by Newcomen in 1712. This was largely based on the discoveries of von Guernicke and Papin a few decades earlier. Thus there is very limited direct connection between the knowledge newly discovered during the scientific revolution and the mechanical designs and inventions of the Industrial Revolution. The connection between new scientific knowledge in the domains of physics, chemistry and biology to new technology becomes evident only from the second half of the 19th century (Allen, 2004). Apart from the scientific advances which may have fundamentally influenced the Industrial Revolution in myriad indirect ways, the prolific inventiveness of the industrial revolution can be directly attributed to four factors that created the proper context and environment in Britain: - Trans-oceanic trade and commerce, accumulation of imperial power, and globalizaton - Britain's abundant coal resources - The accumulation of human capital - The increase in mechanical and technical knowledge and skills since the Renaissance The economic environment of Industrial Revolution and how it influenced the technological progress can be depicted by a very simplified diagram (Allen, 2004): 4) The Evidence It is commonly believed, and rightly too, that the Industrial Revolution was triggerred off and bolstered by by one fundamental invention which both lay people and historians attribute as the foremost cause of the Industrial Revolution: the steam engine of James Watt. The steam engine was originally a simple mechaism - which later on got more and more intricate, sophisticated and massive - that transformed fuel into mechanical work. Coal is burned, and the heat it produces inside the steam engine is used to turn water into steam which is then released to act as a mechanical motive force. Thus coal replaced humans and animal energy as the source power to move around things and run machines. Machines themselves replaced human craft and skill, as could be prominently seen in the transformation of cotton and textile industry during the early phase of Industrial Revolution in England (Rutherford & Ahlgren, 1990). The accumulation of machinery developed into a centralized factory system which became the hallmark of Industrial Revolution. The factory has come to stand as the quintessential icon of industrial progress. However, when examined a little closely, there emerge a host of economic as well as other scientific and technological factors that made the Industrial Revolution possible. First and basic is the prevalence of the scientific method. Though it is true that the Industrial Revolution did not depend on the new scientific view of the world until much later on, the scientific method and attitudes would have naturally influenced the thought processes going into the new production technology. Although such influences may not be quantitatively measurable, they are definitely discernible and significant. For example, John Smeaton conducted experiments on models of water wheels in a systematic manner to improve their design. Such thoroughness in the processes of observation and experimention, manifested in the above-mentioned as well as in countless other instances during the era of Industrial Revolution could not have taken place outside the milieu of Scientific Revolution. In as much as it is difficult to imagine the Industrial Revolution outside of the context of Scientific Revolution, the latter can be said to be a primary causative factor of the former. But perhaps as equally important as the influence of scientific thinking are the capitalistic forces at work. The textile industry was a key area of growth during the early decades of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, the cotton industry in Lancashire, England, is considered to be the seat of the Industrial Revolution and the birthplace of large-scale factory production. Before the advent of factory-based production on an industrial scale, weaving and spinning were done in home-based environments. Merchants or their agents would visit these places and supply raw materials while collecting the finished products. As the demand for cotton goods grew, due to increase in population and economic growth caused by a wide variety of reasons, cotton production had to shift its base from homes to the mills that were being set up in towns and cities across England. The development of new technologies facilitated the shift. But the shift in itself promoted new technologies. Centralized factory-based manufacturing leads to higher productivity. But it also helps the owners have better and direct control over their workers. Previously, the merchants could not force the people working from home to work hard enough to meet the increased demand for cotton. Financial incentives alone were somehow unable to motivate the workers enough, perhaps owing to the tedious nature of the work. But in the new factory setting, merchants could change the working time from a self-paced pattern to a standard, and gruelling, fourteen hours a day for six days a week. Marglin (1974) proposes that these centralized factories then created a demand for improved, labor-saving machines. These new technologies, when developed, went on to enhance the efficiency of the factory production system. England grew in its technological might. And so, capitalistic forces can be clearly seen at work in briging about the technological leadership of Britain in particular and Europe in general by the beginning of the 19th century. But these capitalist forces could come into active play, as we have seen, only when the ground had been prepared by a long spell of rapid economic growth. It is within the causes of this economic growth that we can find the roots of Europe's technological prowess and the Industrial Revolution. The success of European economy preceded the Industrial Revolution, and economic incentives played a major role in the advancement of 18th century technology. To begin with, British foreign trade boom during the Age of Exploration led to a high wage economy in the country. The trade boom pushed the urbanization rate from 7% in 1500 to 29% in 1800. Moreover, the tight labour markets present in the English towns and cities led to a hike in wages. In the Great Britain of the 18th century, a combination of high wages, cheap coal and low skill premium generated an increasing demand for new labor-saving technology. They also increased the capacity to meet this need. In the second half of the 17th century, British wages rose sharply relative to capital costs. And by 1775, the average wage levels in London were head over shoulders above the wage levels in any other major city of Europe, leaving Asian urban centers far behind. High wages of course meant a high standard of living. Energy was very cheap in northern and western England, and this is where the coal was mined and the Industrial Revolution began. But the availability of coal at cheaper prices was not simply a result of abundance of natural reserves. Cheap coal was largely an offshoot of the rapid urbanization process. Urbanism had been triumphant in the monster cities which grew up in Western Europe since the late medieval period. Of these, however, London was the largest with a population of over half a million people by 1700 (More, 2000). As the city of London expanded, the price of wood rose steadily. This prompted the systematic exploitation of English coal fields. Interestingly, by 1800, England mined a large percentage of its coal requirements in Europe, mostly from Southern Belgium. These two factors, namely, relatively high wages in Britain and greater exploitation of coal resources paved the way to the mechanization of production process and substitution of coal for labor. In England as a whole, the number of people increased vastly, and the proportion of children and young probably rose. The growth of new communities shifted the balance of population from the South and East to the North and Midlands. Men and women born and bred in the countryside came to live crowded together, earning their bread, no longer as families or groups of neighbours, but as units in the labour force of factories. Work grew to be more specialized, new forms of skill were developed. Labour became more mobile, and higher standards of comfort were offered to those able and willing to move to centres of opportunity (Ashton, 1997). In the late 18th century, England had a per capita income of nearly 2,000 dollars, with a few European countries trailing close behind, whereas China, by comparison, had only 450 dollars (Inikori, 2002). Also, the average interest rate was about 5% in England and over 30% in China, which illustrates how capital was much more abundant in England; capital that was available for investment. Higher wages and higher standards of living meant a mass market for new products. On the other side of the equation, higher wages also implied greater supply of savings, which led to the accumulation of capital and the growth of industry. 6) Conclusion The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in the late 18th and early 19th century that began in Britain and spread throughout the world. It is generally thought that increasing technological knowhow culminated in drastic industrial progress in the era with which we asssociate one of the greatest revolutions in the history of mankind. And this progress in industry naturally led to economic growth. While it is true that much economic growth has come out of the industrial expansion, at the same time economic growth is also the source that initiated and sustained technological power and progress of Europe from the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution. References: Allen, B. (2004). Science, Economics, and the British Industrial Revolution. Nuffield College. Oxford. Retrieved May 29, 2006, from http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/Members/robert.allen/Presentations/leyden-2.pdf Ashton, T.S. (1997). The Industrial Revolution, 1760 -1830. Oxford: Oxford University Press Columbia Encyclopedia, The. (2004). Industrial Revolution. The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001-04. Retrieved May 29, 2006, from http://www.bartleby.com/65/in/IndustR.html Inikori, J.E. (2002).Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England. Cambridge: Cambrdige University Press Landes, D.S. (1969). The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Marglin, S. (1974). What do bosses do The origins and functions of hierarchy in capitalist production. Review of Radical Political Economics, 6, 2ff. More, C. (2000). Understanding the Industrial Revolution. London: Routledge Rutherford, F.J., & Ahlgren, A. (1990). Science for all Americans. 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