5 ms·
1) Outlaw slavery 2) There is no step two
by glibgil 9y ago
1) Outlaw slavery
2) There is no step two
- empath75 9y agoI think the printing press and a patent system were both rather important. Otherwise it takes to long for advances to get well known.
- caio1982 9y agoThat's a very simplistic (bit naive IMHO) POV.
- jychang 9y agoI agree it's simplistic, but that's not particularly overly naive. The kickstart of the industrial revolution very much benefited from the disappearance of a large "free" labor source, and it was probably one of the primary social factors that worked in conjunction with the technological foundations at the time.
- saalweachter 9y agoWhen & where do you think the Industrial Revolution happened?
- orbat 9y agoStarted late 18th century, after several decades of European countries and US states abolishing slavery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom#1701.E2.80.931799_.28Late_Modern.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slave...). Why, when do you think it happened?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- saalweachter 9y agoSerfdom was completely ended in England 200 years before the Industrial Revolution, and while slaves were still present in England, they were never a significant part of the labor pool. What other conditions had to be met, or is it simply a matter of waiting two centuries after eliminating slaves/serfs from the labor pool?
- orbat 9y agoMy point was that it sounds likely that something like the industrial revolution would happen after the abolishment of slavery, when there's more pressure on people to be inventive. Not that it has to happen immediately
- adventured 9y agoEngland, like many of the European powers, vastly benefited from the slavery in the Americas through trade. Former English territories such as South Carolina (it was theirs for a century leading up to the Revolutionary War) or Georgia, were aggressive slave states and England was heavily responsible for that condition. England was the largest slave trader in the 18th century, as such the foundations of slavery particularly in the colonies were overwhelmingly their responsibility. England's wealthy slave owners were still very active in the slave trade well into the 19th century (into the 1830s). Their direct role in the slave trade, as such, didn't cease until about 50-60 years prior to the industrial revolution (their indirect role, responsibility and benefit extends far longer than that). European powers outsourced their slavery to the Americas, directly funding, operating and protecting it, while feigning morality about it at home.
- WalterBright 9y agoThe most obvious example of the negative influence of slavery on industrialization is the split of the early US into free and slave economies, and the near complete failure of the slave economy to industrialize.
- saalweachter 9y agoI'm not saying the elimination of slavery/serfdom isn't a necessary precursor; I just don't think it was a sufficient condition. What is the complete set of necessary and sufficient preconditions to have an Industrial Revolution?
- WalterBright 9y agoI don't know if this is a complete set, but: 1. economic freedom 2. printing press 3. a view of the universe that it follows rules that can be discovered and modeled in the small 4. the scientific method 5. protection of property rights, enforcement of contracts, rule of law rather than corruption
- adventured 9y ago> economic freedom China certainly supports that premise. The before and after on their shift toward economic liberalization, is something beyond dramatic. A 50 fold expansion of their economy in a mere three decades after Deng Xiaoping began the liberalization. It's also interesting to note that wealthier resource nations that heavily lack economic freedom such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela (formerly semi-wealthy in their case), also mostly lack modern industrialization and have routinely failed to develop their economies. Russia is another example of this in action. Putin will continually fail to see high level economic development under his regime, as the nation almost entirely lacks economic freedom. The primary means by which Russia can expand its economy under his oppressive rule, is through natural resource prices moving higher (which accounted for most of Russia's economic gains from 2001-2013, leading up to the price of oil imploding in 2014 and sparking a terrible recession there). Russia's GDP in 1991 was $518 billion (when the price of oil was $20). It was $1.28 trillion for 2016. Inflation adjusted (much less further adjusting for the higher real oil prices today), they've made very little self-sustaining economic progress, while burning through vast energy resources.
- jcranmer 9y agoAs a counterpoint, the cotton that fueled the textiles industry that drove early industrialization was entirely dependent on slavery. There is no doubt that the cotton gin was the primary economic factor in making slavery in the South profitable, and it's very arguable that, without the massive expansion of cotton cultivation, the textile industry in the early 1800s couldn't have grown as much and couldn't have driven industrialization.
- boomboomsubban 9y agoThis ignores the massive amounts of "free" labor that they were receiving from places like India and the Americas. That was a far larger pool than any amount of domestic slavery most of Europe had in previous generations.
- saalweachter 9y agoAnd England didn't finally ban slave labor abroad until 1833 ... after the Industrial Revolution; arguably, they continued to benefit from the defacto slavery of colonialism until the 20th century.
- flukus 9y agoAnd this is obviously why the industrial revolution happened in the Achaemenid Empire.