Interpretation of First Industrial Revolution as an Industrious revolution - Term Paper Example

?Interpretation of First Industrial Revolution as an "Industrious revolution" Table of Contents Introduction: The first industrial revolution 3 Industrious revolution 3 Development of the industrious revolution 5 Industrious revolution and consumption revolution 9 Demand versus supply during industrial revolution 12 Conclusion 13 Works cited 14 Introduction: The first industrial revolution Industrial Revolution refers to the phenomenon of rapid development of industry. Such a phenomenon occurred during the late 18th century and continued till the beginning of the 19th century. This development took place in the European countries, particularly, in England and France. According to some researchers and historians, the root of this revolution lies in the innovation of new machineries and introduction of improved and mechanized methods of production (Craig and Thomas 253). Due to the introduction of improved methods, production could be made at a much larger scale than before. Improvements in methods of production and production possibilities in large scale allowed the manufacturers to produce better quality products at lower cost and within a lower period of time than it could produce previously. There are debates regarding the origin of the industrial revolution. According to some authors and historians, the beginning of the revolution was in Britain. The industrial revolution has been often termed as British invention. However, according to some other sources the roots of the revolution is unclear. Several European countries participated in the revolution and made it a global success. Some researchers have claimed that the term was first coined in France. Significant improvements can be found to have taken place during this period in France in economic as well as social spheres. These combined changes were named as ‘revolution industrielle’ in France and it was considered to be an economic counterpart of the political revolution that was taking place in the country during the period. Industrious revolution One thing is apparent from this discussion; it is that the industrial revolution took place as a result of considerable hard work and diligent attitude of the people that took the leading position in this revolution. The industrial revolution is the outcome of an ‘industrious revolution’ that took place in different parts of the world to improve the status of production units in the economies that participated in this activity. It took the form of industrial revolution when many countries from Europe as well as Asia took part in it. The phase of industrious revolution was prior to the industrial revolution between the 17th century and the 19th century. According to some scholars, this revolution was the forerunner of the industrial revolution (Craig and Thomas 248). The phenomenon of industrious revolution refers to the spending behavior of households during the 17th century. Therefore, it relates to the production as well as consumption of products and services. The simplistic explanation of the cause of revolution is that there was an unprecedented rise in demand for goods and services in the market. The industrious revolution took place before the industrial revolution took shape. Understanding of the industrious revolution would allow readers to understand the context of the industrial revolution better. According to information revealed by various sources, the first industrial revolution took place in the early Modern Period. The period of revolution was characterized by availability of excess of money as well as excess amount of food crops. This was the result of development of new technology and methods of production. However, the force that led to these technological advancements took shape during the pre-industrial revolution period, known as industrious revolution. During this period England moved from being an economy with sporadic technological changes to an economy in which persistent technological advancements took place. Well known historians, Joachim Voth and Jan de Vries have supported the existence of pre industrial revolution phase. Vries dubbed this phenomenon as ‘industrious revolution’, during which quantity of family labor has increased on an annual basis. According to Vries, it was a revolution in the manufacturing industries in England during the 17th century. A new range of consumer goods appeared during this period, which gave rise to new consumption possibilities. As consumption possibilities improved, consumers faced with larger choices to make their demand. Workers, who were also customers in the market, felt the incentive to work more and gain more earnings so as to facilitate the purchase of these new products. Thus, effectively, labor hours increased on one hand, and technological advancements took upward surge to enable producers develop higher varieties and qualities of goods. Development of the industrious revolution It is a conventional assumption that in the pre-modern era the length of working year was exogenously determined. In this period, level of consumption varied along with changes in wage rates and product prices. The twin theories of “industrious revolution and the consumer revolution” (Allen and Weisdorf, “Was there an ‘Industrious Revolution’ before the Industrial Revolution? An Empirical Exercise for England, c. 1300-1830”) developed the basis of understanding on which the concept of improvement in industries in all over the globe could be developed. During this period the concept of fixed work years underwent a change. Work years became longer and workers had the option of earning surplus amount of money that enable them to purchase novel goods, such as, tea, clocks or books. In this view, labor input was considered to be variable and consumption was compared to it as a fixed basket of various goods and services. The working year is computed by the number of rural or urban working days and consumption is compared by the number of working days required by the workers to earn the amount of money that would allow them to purchase that particular basket of goods. As the working year increased in length, workers were able to purchase the basket of consumption within a shorter period of time than they could do before. Such increased consumption possibilities inspired the workers to work for longer hours; they worked for more hours and traded their leisure off for extra amount of wage. Court records in London shows that workers willingly enjoyed less amount of labor and worked for more work hours in the beginning of 1800 than in the mid 1700. During this period, the official work days were considered to be much less than 312 days, since there were between 50 days to 60 days of holidays owing to religious occasions. Apart from these, another factor acted as a major reason behind less labor input by the workers. This is the psychological mind set of the workers. People were mainly concerned about their basic subsistence and were not inclined towards earning more than what they required for their daily consumption. Workers worked fewer days per year and fewer members of the family were engaged in productive (or income generating) work. Wage rates for artisans and other non agricultural workers were much higher in the 15th century than in the 19th century. The number of workers available in this profession was much less than that available in the later centuries. Looking at the reverse side of this picture, it can be concluded that the majority of population was engaged in agriculture as profession. This was the reason that supports the empirical evidence that rate of urbanization was very low in England during the 15th century. This fact leads to another proposition that most of the income might have been spent on food products. However, evidences from reality shows that the only one third of total income of the country was spent on the purchase of food items (Clark 251). This conundrum can only be solved through one explanation. This explanation is that in the pre-industrial period in England, agricultural wages were much lesser during this period than day wages for artisans and also these workers earned lesser income by working for lesser number of days in a year. Although there exists little record of the work days per year and work hours per day and the existing records do not specify the actual number of days worked, information collected from various sources can be compared with the number of work days in the 19th century. This comparison shows that the number of work hours increased remarkably since the 1800s, which gradually set the stage for industrial revolution in the mid 19th century (Clark and Werf 840). An industrious revolution can be detected by measuring the work hours in one day, the number of days worked in one year and the total number of households that are participating in the labor force. The following formula can be used to calculate the total work effort of every household in the country. In this regard, the concept of work hours has to be understood. Wage was paid to the laborers according to the work ‘hours’. ‘Hours’ denote two things on the work rate; they are number of physical hours worked in each day and the intensity of labor input made during the day. This is the concept of daily wages. This same logic can be used for the concept of annual wages. The days per year can be calculated by finding the ratio between annual wage and day wage. Daily food consumption is dependent on the daily wage. Even through workers might receive wages on a monthly basis; the daily wage can be calculated to find out the daily food consumption by the worker along with his family that consists of several non working members. The following figure shows the relationship between the daily wages earned by a worker in the agricultural profession (by working 200 days a year) and his consumption of food. Figure: Food consumption and daily wage (Source: Clark and Werf 839) It can be found that the there was an increase in the daily wage between 1700 and mid 1800. This was a result of a large increase in the marginal labor input by the workers between these two periods. It cannot be accurately predicted whether the number of work hours per day increased or the number of work days in a year increased, however, it can be said confidently that the total amount of labor input made in a year increased, leading to an increase in total wage earned per year. Data in the 15th, 16th and 17th century shows that the total number of working days were approximately between 200 days to 260 days. However, the total number of working days in a year after the 1800 was approximately 300. From this information it can be inferred that the total number of days worked per year by a regular worker had increased in the pre-industrial phase (Clark and Werf, 8). All these phenomena led to the development of the industrious phase, which paved the way for the first industrial revolution. Industrious revolution and consumption revolution Different researchers have conducted studies on the development of industrious revolution. The basic idea, which has created the measure that helps in calculating the number of days in a work year, is to study “the number of days of work necessary per year to buy a fixed consumption basket” (Allen and Weisdorf, “Was there an ‘Industrious Revolution’ before the Industrial Revolution? An Empirical Exercise for England, c. 1300-1830”). This is to be compared to the estimate of the actual extent of working year as mentioned in existing literature. In this context, researchers account for not only the total amount of food that is to be consumed by the workers themselves, but also by their families, which consist of non earning family members. Thus, to account for this consumption, researchers calculate the annual work days that are “required to support a representative household” (Allen and Weisdorf, “Was there an ‘Industrious Revolution’ before the Industrial Revolution? An Empirical Exercise for England, c. 1300-1830”). For this calculation, two sets of data have been considered by medieval historians. These are daily wages of workers and the yearly consumption expenditures incurred by a typical household. Besides, since two different categories of workers can be vividly recognized; urban wage laborers and agricultural laborers, information related to both these categories of workers has been considered. It has to be checked whether the industrious revolution took place in both these categories of laborers and which category took most active part or was mostly affected by the revolution. For studying the occurrence of industrious revolution most of the literature shows evidence collected from different parts (both rural and urban) of England and Wales. For computing the consumer revolution, a typical consumption basket is considered and annual consumption expenditure is calculated on the basis of this consumption basket. This consumption basket consists of goods that are used for daily consumption, such as, “food, clothing, housing and heating” (Allen and Weisdorf, “Was there an ‘Industrious Revolution’ before the Industrial Revolution? An Empirical Exercise for England, c. 1300-1830”). These are the commodities that were considered as the basic necessities in the-then England. These items in this basket have been specially chosen in order to represent a typical consumption expenditure of a common representative household in England (Rugina 670). Hence, it does not contain any luxury commodity. If an industrious revolution is found to have taken place in England during the mid 1800s, then it would also be accompanied by a consumer revolution. In order to account or this consumer revolution, it has been studied over this period whether the expansion in the work year (accompanied by expansion of total wage earned per worker in a year) has been deliberately made with the intension of bringing an expansion in the consumption basket (Forni, Frey and Quaranta 1385). This expansion would be accounted for if any positive change is visible in the consumption basket in the form of addition of any commodity in the basket, particularly, novel goods or items that were considered as luxury items during that period. This includes food items, such as, tea, coffee, sugar or potato, and also non food items, such as, clocks or books. The additional change in consumption of each of these items per adult member of a family would be the measure of the consumption revolution (Hatcher 425). As total amount of wages rise, consumers would proportionally increase their consumption expenditure. In this method, industrious revolution would ultimately lead to the expansion of consumption expenditure that would ultimately bridge the gap between the actual work year and the work year required to buy the desired consumption basket (Shlapentokh 12). In order to calculate the annual number of work days in a year for a typical representative household, the following formula is used: Days per year = annual costs of baskets of household / day wage The following figure shows the trend of change in number of working days in a year between the 14th century and the 19th century. Figure: Number of working days per year (Source: Allen and Weisdorf, “Was there an ‘Industrious Revolution’ before the Industrial Revolution? An Empirical Exercise for England, c. 1300-1830”) This graph can explain the fact that the industrious revolution played an important role in European history during the medieval period. Remarkable increase in labor input by the urban laborers, rapid development in methods of production, modernization of the methods of production in urban as well as rural areas and rise in demand by the consumers in the market; all these led to rapid evolution of technology and development of modern machines that allows the producers to produce better quality of products at lesser cost and higher speed and accuracy (Wellington 40). Demand versus supply during industrial revolution The discussion as presented above validates one economic theory; the demand supply equilibrium. Equilibrium between demand and supply can be achieved when the market demand for some particular good is matched by the supply of that good in the market. Only in such as situation in which demand and supply matches, can a market operate smoothly without any external intervention. The industrial revolution was such a period in which both demand and supply provided proportionate response to one another. While there was an increased capacity of production, the increased amount of products was absorbed by higher demand in the market. Thus, it can be said that the industrious revolution is supplementary to the industrial revolution in order to lead to market equilibrium. However, several questions still arise regarding the strength of the arguments that support the phenomenon of demand supply equilibrium during this period. This is because some economists and historians are skeptic about the data and other information that have been collected and analyzed. All results have been derived on the basis of the interpretations made on the analysis of data (Mandle 9). However, it has already been mentioned earlier that the data are not always accurately available. While in some cases they are derived from fragile sources, in some other cases information are gathered on the basis of closely related facts instead of actual figures. Assumptions based on a broader study of the then time period plays a major role in this regard. Thus data used for the study is highly manipulated. Therefore, some researchers, such as, Joel Mockyr, have questioned the market equilibrium condition between demand and supply during the industrial revolution. This in turn questions the validity and extent of the industrious revolution. The questions that chiefly arise are “where, when and how fast” (Vries 255). The accurate answers to these questions have not yet been found by researchers. Conclusion The industrial revolution is one of the most important events in history of the modern world that is not only important for the country that directly took part in it or were directly affected by it during that period of time in which it occurred. This phenomenon is important even in the contemporary world, since, the advancements of the modern world are based on these historical developments (Grabowski 51). Since the revolution occurred during the mid 19th century, over the period of time, the effects of this revolution spread to the rest of the world. This discussion shows that the first industrial revolution was the result of an industrious revolution which was characterized remarkable increase in labor input by workers through extension of work days in a year and longer work hours per day. This led to extra in wage income by the workers, whose consumption expenditure consequently increased. Thus, the industrial revolution, if interpreted as an industrious revolution, shows that the revolution caused a surge in development process of the economies through increase in national income, higher aggregate demand and more stable market equilibrium. Works cited Allen, Robert C. and Jacob Weisdorf. Was there an ‘Industrious Revolution’ before the Industrial Revolution? An Empirical Exercise for England, c. 1300-1830. Econ.ku. University of Copenhagen. 2010. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. Clark, Gregory and Ysbrand Van Der Werf. “Work in progress? The industrious revolution.” The Journal of Economic History 58.3 (1998): 830-843. Print. Clark, Gregory. The macroeconomic aggregates for England 1209–2008. West Yorkshire: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2010. Print. Craig, Lee A. and Thomas Weiss. Hours at work and total factor productivity growth in nineteenth-century U.S. agriculture. West Yorkshire: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2000. Print. 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