Essay:Industrial revolution

Was the Industrial Revolution a single, fluid event? the fallacies of Liberal and Conservative thought

Contrary to what ideas are inherent in popular contemporary belief about the Industrial Revolution, the historic process of industrialisation did not occur overnight. It did not even occur in the same time stretch applicable to the postwar economies of the Pacific Rim. Rather, British growth, beginning in the 18th century was much slower than growth in the East Asian economies of the 20th century. Whereas they had the advantage of importing technology and expertise, in the case of pre-20th century Britain, it all had to be developed domestically, and in the case of pre-Victorian times, before the emergence of technical know-how and a scientific approach towards production, it had to be done workers with simple artisan skills, using only crudely-fashioned tools and their own intuition and experience to guide them in their innovations, which were created on a slow, incremental scale (Crafts, 1981; quoted Matthias et al.(eds.) 1989, p. 9). Being in the first nation to experience industrialisation, the first pioneers had no outside help and had to handle everything on their own-from the technological enhancements so endearingly attributed to the Industrial Revolution by popular imagination, all the way down to the financing of new industries and the institutions required to sustain the new economic sector. Everything thus resulted in a slow but steady progression; however this process was one which covered almost 2 centuries of incremental improvements. In Italy, Trebilcock does not set Italy’s coming of age as an industrial power in the Mediterranean until late before the First World War, characterised with sporadic growth that sometimes regressed. And even so, economic development in the north was probably much faster than it was in the south. The relative sluggishness of growth has been attributed to various factors: namely, inertia in a feudal organisation of labour that was inefficient and the vested interests that sustained it (Trebilcock, 1981 pp. 330-1), Italy’s relative lack of resources, especially in coal which made difficult the task of setting up metallurgical industries (Trebilcock, 1981 pp. 306-7) and for the south, a lack of integration with the more prosperous north (Trebilcock, 1981 pp. 315-6), and competition with other industrial nations, particularly France and Germany. Initially, the Italians chose a laissez-faire policy, but with failures in the Italian economy, it was only with a protectionist policy to raise key strategic industries (Davis, quoted Matthias, 1989 pp. 66-7) that Italian industry could progress forward.

Thus it can be seen that various options for economic and social development are open to developing nations, but even these have had their own strengths and weakness. It is therefore evident that it is the choice of developing economies to pick strategies with cultural sensibilities and indigenous resources available in mind. But with so many policy styles to choose from, how can it be put into practice?

Sources

1. John Maurice Clark et al., Adam Smith, 1776-1926. (University of Chicago Press, 1928)
2. E. L. Hawkins, An abstract of Adam Smith's "Wealth of nations" (Oxford : Hubert Giles, 1905)
3. Steve Chan, Cal Clark and Danny Lam (eds.), Beyond the developmental state : East Asia's political economies reconsidered (Basingstoke : Macmillan, 1998)
4. Norman P. Barry et al., “Hayek's 'Serfdom' revisited : essays on 'The road to serfdom' after 40 years”, (London : Institute of Economic Affairs, 1984)
5. Paul Krugman, “Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession”, Foreign Affairs, 73 (2), 1994, pp. 28-44
6. Friedrich List, The national system of political economy (New York : Kelley, 1966).
7. Benjamin Powell, “State Development Planning: Did it Create an East Asian Miracle?” Independent Institute Working Paper Number 54 (September 28, 2004)
8. F. Fukuyama, Trust : the social virtues and the creation of prosperity (London : Penguin, 1996)
9. Lee Kuan-Yew, “From Third World to first : the Singapore story, 1965-2000 : Singapore and the Asian economic boom” (New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 2000)
10. Peter Mathias, John A. Davis, “The first industrial revolutions”, (Oxford : Basil Blackwell, 1989)
11. Clive Trebilcock, “The industrialization of the continental powers, 1780-1914” (London : Longman, 1981)

See also

• Globalisation