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Did the industrial revolution and green revolution require military expenditures? I think the most profound revolutions are orthogonal to the conflict-pacifism

by adolph 5y ago

Did the industrial revolution and green revolution require military expenditures? I think the most profound revolutions are orthogonal to the conflict-pacifism axis. When a revolution is seen primarily as conflict, the key ideas of the revolution are clearly not yet ripe.

adventured 5y ago
Increased military R&D spending due to extreme events (great wars) certainly has jumped some technology segments forward, faster than those jumps otherwise would have likely occurred. In exchange for an acceleration the cost comes in the form of greater spending in a shorter amount of time and, typically, inefficiency of spend (government oversight on spending will tend to be particularly lacking at such times).
- adolph 5y ago
  It is interesting to think about the history of technology in this way. For example, the Wright brothers seemed to make the most progress despite not being military funded, in contrast to the Smithsonian's Langley who failed despite (maybe because) of generous war department funding. Was the tech acceleration of aviation by military funding only to local minima that caused longer slowdowns? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Langley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Langley
marcosdumay 5y ago
Those weren't political revolutions. They changed everything, what caused some political ones, but they weren't themselves. And the political changes that came with them did almost always come through conflict. Except that "military expenditures" doesn't really capture it, because revolutions normally come through civil conflict, not military wars.
- adolph 5y ago
  > revolutions normally come through civil conflict, not military wars I cant agree with you on this for two reasons: 1. A stipulated definition of revolution is needed to make a claim about what is normal or most typical. 2. Even when revolution takes the form of armed conflict (typically because its ideas can't win), I think the decisive expenditures are military as opposed to civil (i.e. police) because the territory has natural divisions within their military or because an outside entity/ies provides assistance to a side. Witness Lebanon, Syria, Vietnam, Korea, ....
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Did the industrial revolution [...] require military expenditures? Given the mutual dependency it had with British imperialism, yes, quite a lot. EDIT: on reflection, though I edited it out of the question because I wasn't immediately responding on it, the Green Revolution has a quite similar relationship to mid-20th Century US imperialism and the global neoliberal order it supported/imposed, so yes, that too.
- adolph 5y ago
  Military expenditures of those periods were coincidental and not necessarily causal. The causality may run in reverse. For example, the industrial revolution gave Britain the means and a resource need to project empire past the colonial project of excess population disposal and mercantilism of East India Co. Likewise the green revolution is coincident to US hegemony but the roots are in Borlaug's humanitarian effort in Mexico. The Wizard and the Prophet makes for interesting reading on this. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34959327-the-wizard-and-the-prophet https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34959327-the-wizard-a...
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Military expenditures of those periods were coincidental and not necessarily causal Resource and knowledge flows that were direct consequences of military expenditures and the empires they built were essential in both cases. > The causality may run in reverse. The causality absolutely and unquestionably runs in both directions; in both cases the economic revolutions were processes fueled by an fueling military-expenditure-dependent empires.
    - adolph 5y ago
      > Resource and knowledge flows that were direct consequences of military expenditures Can't agree to that. As noted, correlation isn't causality from or consequence thereof. Wikipedia's list of critical tech for industrial revolution is textiles, steam power, iron working, machine tools. That seems reasonable. In context, the key developments of all happened upstream of military use/development (although they had military use, military expenditures were not causal). Take Watt's steam engine improvements. The development was substantially if not entirely civilian. Ran water pumps for coal mining which supported many industries including military, and military use was not critical for development. Possible counter example is Harrison's marine chronometer. Development was militarily supported and spurred on by a naval disaster. However, while contributory, wasn't essential to success of industrial revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Important_technological_developments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Importan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt_steam_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt_steam_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison

by adolph 5y ago

adventured 5y ago

Increased military R&D spending due to extreme events (great wars) certainly has jumped some technology segments forward, faster than those jumps otherwise would have likely occurred. In exchange for an acceleration the cost comes in the form of greater spending in a shorter amount of time and, typically, inefficiency of spend (government oversight on spending will tend to be particularly lacking at such times).

adolph 5y ago
It is interesting to think about the history of technology in this way. For example, the Wright brothers seemed to make the most progress despite not being military funded, in contrast to the Smithsonian's Langley who failed despite (maybe because) of generous war department funding. Was the tech acceleration of aviation by military funding only to local minima that caused longer slowdowns? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Langley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Langley

marcosdumay 5y ago

Those weren't political revolutions. They changed everything, what caused some political ones, but they weren't themselves. And the political changes that came with them did almost always come through conflict. Except that "military expenditures" doesn't really capture it, because revolutions normally come through civil conflict, not military wars.

adolph 5y ago
> revolutions normally come through civil conflict, not military wars I cant agree with you on this for two reasons: 1. A stipulated definition of revolution is needed to make a claim about what is normal or most typical. 2. Even when revolution takes the form of armed conflict (typically because its ideas can't win), I think the decisive expenditures are military as opposed to civil (i.e. police) because the territory has natural divisions within their military or because an outside entity/ies provides assistance to a side. Witness Lebanon, Syria, Vietnam, Korea, ....

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Did the industrial revolution [...] require military expenditures? Given the mutual dependency it had with British imperialism, yes, quite a lot. EDIT: on reflection, though I edited it out of the question because I wasn't immediately responding on it, the Green Revolution has a quite similar relationship to mid-20th Century US imperialism and the global neoliberal order it supported/imposed, so yes, that too.

adolph 5y ago
Military expenditures of those periods were coincidental and not necessarily causal. The causality may run in reverse. For example, the industrial revolution gave Britain the means and a resource need to project empire past the colonial project of excess population disposal and mercantilism of East India Co. Likewise the green revolution is coincident to US hegemony but the roots are in Borlaug's humanitarian effort in Mexico. The Wizard and the Prophet makes for interesting reading on this. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34959327-the-wizard-and-the-prophet https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34959327-the-wizard-a...
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Military expenditures of those periods were coincidental and not necessarily causal Resource and knowledge flows that were direct consequences of military expenditures and the empires they built were essential in both cases. > The causality may run in reverse. The causality absolutely and unquestionably runs in both directions; in both cases the economic revolutions were processes fueled by an fueling military-expenditure-dependent empires.
  - adolph 5y ago
    > Resource and knowledge flows that were direct consequences of military expenditures Can't agree to that. As noted, correlation isn't causality from or consequence thereof. Wikipedia's list of critical tech for industrial revolution is textiles, steam power, iron working, machine tools. That seems reasonable. In context, the key developments of all happened upstream of military use/development (although they had military use, military expenditures were not causal). Take Watt's steam engine improvements. The development was substantially if not entirely civilian. Ran water pumps for coal mining which supported many industries including military, and military use was not critical for development. Possible counter example is Harrison's marine chronometer. Development was militarily supported and spurred on by a naval disaster. However, while contributory, wasn't essential to success of industrial revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Important_technological_developments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Importan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt_steam_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt_steam_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison