One theory as to why China never underwent industrial revolution in the 1700s was the high efficiency of manual labour, which got them stuck in a local maximum.

One theory as to why China never underwent industrial revolution in the 1700s was the high efficiency of manual labour, which got them stuck in a local maximum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_level_equilibrium_trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_level_equilibrium_trap