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> My point is that the tremendous pre-steam improvements in spinning and weaving indicate that there was an incentive to innovate and automate - and a political
by throwup238 2y ago
> My point is that the tremendous pre-steam improvements in spinning and weaving indicate that there was an incentive to innovate and automate - and a political structure that supported it - that was independent of Britain's coal deposits and heating needs.
It just sounds like you're trying to make an ideological point.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoWhat? He's citing facts. (True, he hasn't cited any for the proposition that political structure is important. There are some to cite, though. For instance, see China's 12th-century revolution in iron production that was shut down because the politicians didn't like it.) To me, it sounds like you are so sensitive to a particular axe being ground that you can't hear it when there's objective evidence to support the viewpoint that you're nervous about.
- bowsamic 2y agoI imagine the person you’re replying to is a Marxist
- gumby 2y agoYour sentence is a refreshing (for these days) example use of their term in a normative, rather than political and/or pejorative sense. Marxism is really a consequence of the Victorian era, despite Marx and Engles being German. It is the fruit of not just the economic system of the mid-late 19th century but its social values as well. It makes no sense for the prior period of early industrialization. Also Britain’s political emphasis of commercial activity predates significant industrialization — just look at the enclosure laws and Corn Laws, and compare them to the contemporary extractive view towards commerce in France.
- bowsamic 2y agoThe reason I said it is because they seemed to be implicitly dismissing anything that isn't a historical material factor (i.e. dismissing an ideological explanation that doesn't address the historical material conditions)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]