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The industrial revolution: Why it started in Britain

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mwkruse
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The Economist: The industrial revolution: Why it started in Britain

The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention. By William Rosen. Random House; 400 pages; $28. Jonathan Cape; £20. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

“REVOLUTION” is an overused word; the latest footling change often hyped into the biggest revolution since the last one. But in the case of the industrial revolution, the mechanical transformation of Britain, and later Europe, during the 18th and 19th centuries, it is entirely justified. William Rosen, an American former editor and publisher, ranks it alongside the invention of agriculture as one of the two most important developments in history.

One peculiar characteristic of the industrial revolution is that it was, at least at first, confined to Britain. That is the mystery this book sets out to explore. Rather than a history of inventions, Mr Rosen’s book is a study of invention itself, the process of tinkering with an existing mechanism to make it better. …

… The author dismisses the more traditional explanations about why the industrial revolution began in Britain—such as an abundance of coal or the insatiable demands of the Royal Navy—concluding, instead, that it was England’s development of the patent system that was the decisive factor. By aligning the incentives of private individuals with those of society, it transformed invention from a hobby pursued by the idle rich into an opportunity for spectacular commercial gain open to anyone with a bit of skill and a good idea. That allowed England to harness the creative potential of its artisan classes in a way that no other country had managed before.

It is a plausible conclusion and Mr Rosen makes a powerful case. Having wisely waited until the very last chapter to reveal that his book, in the end, plumps for intellectual property as the biggest single spur, Mr Rosen retires, content with that thought. That is appropriate in a history, but it would have been interesting to know what Mr Rosen thinks of the way intellectual-capital laws are being challenged at the moment. …

I might have to read this one, but I'm convinced there was more than intellectual property rights that gave birth to the industrial revolution. I think William Bernstein does a more comprehensive analysis.

Comments

3 responses to “The industrial revolution: Why it started in Britain”

  1. ZZMike Avatar
    ZZMike

    Amazing coincidence! I just got “Most Powerful Idea” a few weeks ago – and am strolling through it.
    At about the same time, I found “The Golden Age of Steam” (John Pudney). (It suffers greatly from lack of an index.)
    (England generated the most amazing collection of engineers and scientists: Isembard Kingdom Brunel, Wheatstone, Watt, Babbage … It’s as if a virus came floating down from outer space onto England, generating generations of geniuses. There hasn’t been anything like it since Budapest in the early 40s: mathematicians (Erdos, von Neumann), artists & composers (most of whom left for Hollywood), filmmakers, …
    I can’t find the quote in either book, but the thesis is that it was the idea that an inventor would have ownership – reap the profits – of his inventions.
    At the beginning of “Idea” he talks about what needed to come together to bring about the steam engine (the first use of steam as motive power was the Old Greek guy Heron, sometime around 50 A.D.):
    Prologue, p.xxi
    … coal, iron, cotton … [provided the impetus, the need to get things from here to there before the horses gave out]
    “Thousands of innovations were necessary to create stem power…”
    (As an aside, that part of the “urban legend” about the spacing of railroad rails is true: it comes from the roads leading out of the coal mine.)
    p.xxiii
    “The best explanation for the preeminence of English speakers in lifting humanity out of its [10,000]-year -long Malthusian trap is that the Anglophone world democratized the nature of invention.”
    I think the idea is that before the change to inventor’s ownership, the invention went to the patron – the king, whoever was funding the inventor. And so, progress was slow.
    The other idea is that Malthus was a bit short-sighted – certainly a universal human failing. Prediction, they say, is always a risky business, especially about the future.
    Something just popped out as I was looking for a quote: bottom of p.321:
    “… those hours, 10,000 at a time …”
    That’s the generally-accepted time it takes to become a master at something: concert pianist, Zen master, whatever.
    (The next page talks about the first (and last) President to hold a U.S. Patent: Abraham Lincoln.)
    PS: The Bernstein link is broken (the interesting part of the URL is missing). This may be what you meant:
    The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created
    But that Bernstein seems to write more about economics than technology. Let me know if that’s it.

    Reply
  2. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    I fixed the link and you do indeed have the right book.
    Bernstein identifies four key variables that lead to Western prosperity:
    Property Rights (Not just intellectual)
    Scientific Rationalism
    Capital Markets
    Transport and Communication
    While economics is a piece it is a much broader and more holistic approach.
    Thanks for the heads-up on the Pudney book. I’ll have to give it a look.

    Reply
  3. ZZMike Avatar
    ZZMike

    Of those four, four emerged in Western Europe. England for property rights, France and Holland (and ???) for scientific rationalism, and I think England again for the other two.

    Reply

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