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One of the leading economic history theories of why the industrial revolution happened was that it was largely a result of the Black Plague. The theory is roug

One of the leading economic history theories of why the industrial revolution happened was that it was largely a result of the Black Plague. The theory is roughly that before the Black Plague, the population was stuck in Malthusian dynamics at the top of the logistic curve - population had expanded to the level that land could support. The massive deaths allowed the remaining population to only farm the most productive land, leading to a massive surplus. The elite were able to capture that surplus and fund things like art, science, etc. Some of those scientists were able to create technology that led to further efficiency gains, so that technology could make the economy grow faster than population growth could catch up. There are a ton of things that allowed that surplus to translate into technology and economic growth. But AFAIK the leading theory is that without the massive shock from population decline due to the bubonic plague, that surplus would have never existed to begin with, so how it was allocated would have been moot.

pavel_lishin 5mo ago
I thought the aftermath of the Black Plague also allowed people to charge a lot more for their labor and services, since most of the laborers, well, died.
- jmalicki 5mo ago
  I mean all part of the surplus - you weren't struggling to barely survive so could do other things with your time, and some of the people used that surplus to invest in efficiency.
varjag 5mo ago
Black Plague ended in 14th century while industrial revolution started in the 18th. There is no connection.
- jmalicki 5mo ago
  The growth started in the 14th. It was awhile before the industry happened, but the change in growth rate is strongly connected with the Black Plague. One of the many, many descriptions of this is here (many because this is the mainstream theory): https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/black-death-and-industrialisation-lessons-todays-south https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/black-death-and-industrialisa... The first technology wasn't the steam engine, it was eating beef instead of just grain, and having cattle pull plows. We don't think of that as a huge technological revolution, but it was a dramatic efficiency gain at the time. It wasn't a new invention, but there wasn't enough surplus to deploy it widely before that.
  - varjag 5mo ago
    Anything can be anything if you stretch definitions far enough. But normally industrialization is seen as distinct and antagonistic to artisanal culture.
    - jmalicki 5mo ago
      There was a very marked change in the growth rate, which is why economic historians focus on that. Yes, there were multiple further steps that needed to happen, as you note. But the black plague got the population "unstuck" from a local minimum that they could not grow from, to being able to have cattle plow the fields and eat meat that allowed them to have some surplus to capture the further gains. It's not that the later gains were inevitable, but that they never would have otherwise happened, and the growth rate started with the plague. It's like saying the current AI boom started recently, there's no way the steam engine was related. It is a clear causal chain, even though many things had to happen in between. But before the black plague, at least the "western world" was stuck in Malthusian dynamics where there was no growth in technology or income.
      - watwut 5mo ago
        If "multiple steps" take 400 years, then the cause is something else.
        cortesoft 5mo ago
        What makes that a rule? Can causal chains not last more than X amount of time? What is the cutoff?
        jmalicki 5mo ago
        I will try to steelman watwut, a lot of people presume compound exponential economic growth is basically inevitable as a law, so you can always go back to some point in time. However, economic growth was basically flat before the Black Plague, and increases were basically random events that went back to Malthusian dynamics. Only since the Black Plague has the world enjoyed exponential economic growth. Most people talk about the industrial revolution, a lot of other comments talk about the british agricultural revolution before that, but economic historians have identified the inflection point at the black plague - that's where compound interest really started to be a driver of growth, it barely existed before that, at least on long time scales.
- TuringTest 5mo ago
  Societal changes are slow beasts, they may very well take several centuries to develop. Nation-states were a direct consequence of the printing press, yet they didn't arrive until XIX century.
- emmelaich 5mo ago
  You might regard the Renaissance as the prelude to the industrial revolution.
  - varjag 5mo ago
    I mean sure we can trace the causality chain of industrial revolution back to the asteroid that wiped the dinosaurs. How useful that formulation is another question.
- johngossman 5mo ago
  Lots of serious historians disagree. There are whole books on the topic. Here's just one paper as an example https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-demographic-economics/article/abs/microbes-and-markets-was-the-black-death-an-economic-revolution/402E19EF500B743434DAC5ADAD01C608 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-demograph...

pavel_lishin 5mo ago

I thought the aftermath of the Black Plague also allowed people to charge a lot more for their labor and services, since most of the laborers, well, died.

jmalicki 5mo ago
I mean all part of the surplus - you weren't struggling to barely survive so could do other things with your time, and some of the people used that surplus to invest in efficiency.

varjag 5mo ago

Black Plague ended in 14th century while industrial revolution started in the 18th. There is no connection.

jmalicki 5mo ago
The growth started in the 14th. It was awhile before the industry happened, but the change in growth rate is strongly connected with the Black Plague. One of the many, many descriptions of this is here (many because this is the mainstream theory): https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/black-death-and-industrialisation-lessons-todays-south https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/black-death-and-industrialisa... The first technology wasn't the steam engine, it was eating beef instead of just grain, and having cattle pull plows. We don't think of that as a huge technological revolution, but it was a dramatic efficiency gain at the time. It wasn't a new invention, but there wasn't enough surplus to deploy it widely before that.
- varjag 5mo ago
  Anything can be anything if you stretch definitions far enough. But normally industrialization is seen as distinct and antagonistic to artisanal culture.
  - jmalicki 5mo ago
    There was a very marked change in the growth rate, which is why economic historians focus on that. Yes, there were multiple further steps that needed to happen, as you note. But the black plague got the population "unstuck" from a local minimum that they could not grow from, to being able to have cattle plow the fields and eat meat that allowed them to have some surplus to capture the further gains. It's not that the later gains were inevitable, but that they never would have otherwise happened, and the growth rate started with the plague. It's like saying the current AI boom started recently, there's no way the steam engine was related. It is a clear causal chain, even though many things had to happen in between. But before the black plague, at least the "western world" was stuck in Malthusian dynamics where there was no growth in technology or income.
    - watwut 5mo ago
      If "multiple steps" take 400 years, then the cause is something else.
      - cortesoft 5mo ago
        What makes that a rule? Can causal chains not last more than X amount of time? What is the cutoff?
        jmalicki 5mo ago
        I will try to steelman watwut, a lot of people presume compound exponential economic growth is basically inevitable as a law, so you can always go back to some point in time. However, economic growth was basically flat before the Black Plague, and increases were basically random events that went back to Malthusian dynamics. Only since the Black Plague has the world enjoyed exponential economic growth. Most people talk about the industrial revolution, a lot of other comments talk about the british agricultural revolution before that, but economic historians have identified the inflection point at the black plague - that's where compound interest really started to be a driver of growth, it barely existed before that, at least on long time scales.
TuringTest 5mo ago
Societal changes are slow beasts, they may very well take several centuries to develop. Nation-states were a direct consequence of the printing press, yet they didn't arrive until XIX century.
emmelaich 5mo ago
You might regard the Renaissance as the prelude to the industrial revolution.
- varjag 5mo ago
  I mean sure we can trace the causality chain of industrial revolution back to the asteroid that wiped the dinosaurs. How useful that formulation is another question.
johngossman 5mo ago
Lots of serious historians disagree. There are whole books on the topic. Here's just one paper as an example https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-demographic-economics/article/abs/microbes-and-markets-was-the-black-death-an-economic-revolution/402E19EF500B743434DAC5ADAD01C608 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-demograph...