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The article says an industrial revolution would be difficult at best. Industrial Revolution would be relative to the unique scenario. People will always innova

• BurningFrog 6y ago
  We spent several hundred thousand years without an Industrial Revolution. Don't take it for granted.
• jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  The industrial revolution happened in one tiny part of the world with a variety of unique features. Seems likely that it could've been missed entirely had England's history been slightly different. E.g. part of why the industrial revolution was possible was because an argricultural revolution preceeded it. So there was a temporary increase in capital accumulation (since agriculture was more productive) followed by a rise in population (families could be larger), so this capital could be deployed in new industries using the cheap labor that had recently been born and wasn't needed to produce food. Had the industrial revolution not followed this agricultural revolution it seems possible that society would've been stuck in another Malthusian trap and there would not be enough surplus for the industrial revolution to get started.