4 ms·
The explanation I've always heard for why the Romans didn't industrialize had less to do with technology and more to do with economics. The Romans made extensiv
by smacktoward 7y ago
The explanation I've always heard for why the Romans didn't industrialize had less to do with technology and more to do with economics. The Romans made extensive use of slave labor, so while they might have had the capacity to build engines and machines, there was simply no demand for anyone to do so -- why bother tinkering with machines when you can always just throw more slaves at your problems? Whereas in Britain slavery had mostly been confined to its colonies only, and the institution was abolished entirely between 1807 and 1833 -- the same period when industrialization really took off.
A similar effect could be seen in the different ways the American North and South evolved after independence -- the North, which didn't have slaves, industrialized, while the slaveholding South remained stubbornly agricultural right up to the Civil War.
The more expensive human muscle power becomes, the more attractive it becomes to replace muscles with machines. And a slave society is a society where muscle power will always be cheap.
- rayhendricks 7y agoThat does sound like a plausible explanation, however the United states industrialized and also had slavery until 1865 alright the south was less so.
- smacktoward 7y agoApologies, I edited my comment to address the US comparison before I saw your comment. Sorry to have ninja'ed you!
- rsynnott 7y agoWhile I’m sceptical of the slavery explanation for Rome, the pre civil war US south wasn’t meaningfully industrialised.
- LessDmesg 7y agoThat's a valid point, of course. However, abolition of slavery is only a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. Remember e.g. the Black Plague in Europe which led to a sharp increase in the value of human resources and caused some positive effects like the rise of free cities, powerful guilds of professionals, and the Renaissance of arts and sciences. However, things stopped short of an industrial revolution: it took some 3 or 4 centuries more to come around.
- buzzkillington 7y agoYes, because by the third generation population had recovered.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoWho is making the claim that the Romans didn't industrialize? They may not have gone through the industrial revolution, but I find the claim that they didn't have industrial output to be nonsensical/doubly when trying to connect the lack of a "full scale industrial revolution" to slavery, which is some weird myth that refuses to die. Romans heavily implemented new processes for things such as mining, milling, and shipping. The slavery angle doesn't pass any form of smell test. If the claim is true, why would any society that ever had slavery ever do anything? Romans had waterwheels that drove machinery and used generated power to automate many aspects of their society.
- marbu 7y agoAgreed, it's especially worth looking at particular examples of Roman industry, such as Las Medulas gold mines. That said, while we could assume that slavery angle wasn't ruling out industrialization entirely, it wasn't pushing towards it either.
- Spooky23 7y agoI've read that too, and always were skeptical. The Romans obviously made extensive use of technology, and their peers didn't advance much more quickly than they did, with the massive capitalization of slave and other labors. Nor did the vassal states within the "boundaries" that we find in history books.
- patentatt 7y agoI’ve heard it explained that every ‘great’ civilization has a ‘great’ energy source, and that slavery was Rome’s energy source. Much of especially the late Roman empires expansion and conquest can be seen through a lens of needing to capture more slaves. Not a historian, but I’ve heard that argument at least.
- usrusr 7y agoThe main source for the large-scale applications of mechanical energy that were later powered by steam engines was animals, in ancient Rome just as in pre-industrial England. I've heard that argument before, no technological progress because of slavery, but it's widely oversold. Romans had water-powered grain mills, saw mills, and trip hammers, despite slavery. They did have some famous mine-dewatering systems that were human-powered (slaves), keywords: reverse overshot water wheel. Mind-dewatering has been the original use case for the steam engine, so it's quite likely that those installations are the inspiration for the "no technology because of slavery" argument.
- muro 7y agoAs Christianity became popular, Rome started to free slaves. Later Rome was no longer a society based on slavery, rather early feudalism. Rome was also short on population after multiple plagues and needed to focus more on food production, rather than having enough manpower to industrialize. After all, they couldn't even put up armies in the size they needed. So at the time they could afford it, they were expanding or fighting civil wars, later they were scrambling to hold it together.