Brtish Industrial Revolution

Assignment 1

In the late 1700s, occurred major shift of technological, socio–economical and cultural changes in the human history radically changing the society around. This transformation was termed as Industrial revolution in 1880 (Birch, Lecture1). It all started in Britain and continues to shape the contemporary world (Stearns, 2013).  There were number of factors which contributed in paving the way for the Industrial revolution to start in Britain. The purpose of this assignment is to explain the reasons and theories to answer why the revolution started in Britain considering the theories of Peter N. Stearns & Robert C. Allen.

Agricultural Revolution

The agricultural revolution is one of the contributing factors that facilitated and can be consider characterizing the Industrial revolution. New farming methods were started to be  carried out and proved to be efficient , the phenomenon of peasants starting to  grow potatoes which was found profitable  for its high caloric yield from smaller plants. The ability of high yield of potatoes from smaller area also freed a percentage of rural labour for work in other areas. The advancements of agricultural movements around the Europe ultimately spurred the population growth in Britain and also reduced the amount of labour force required for agriculture. By the end of 1800, Britain population was doubled, however it must be noted that the rapid population growth was not only limited to Britain as France population increased by 50 percent also. (Stearns, 2013).

The British government enclosure acts also played a key role in creating a labour force for the revolution. Because of the enclosure acts, British landlords were able to take the land away from smallholding farmers. This resulted into two things, firstly the British agriculture started to be dominated by large estates which in turn increased agricultural market production and provided food for the growing population and secondly a labour force was created which was eager to work in new opportunities (Stearns, 2013).

The Domestic System

With more workers being available, domestic manufacturing systems started to spread. The population growth and consumer interest created new markets. Farmers started to work part time in farm and took interest in textile industry taking orders from urban merchants. This ultimately increased production and also an opportunity for additional markets (Stearns, 2013).In the manufacturing field, an encouraged attention was grown toward new devices. Formation of new scientific societies constituting researchers, merchants and manufacturers took place leading to new technological possibilities. Advancements in chemistry caused new discovery in techniques in the pottery. Invention & perfection of the steam engine and further it was put to use in application which discovered the possibility of other applications with the steam engine (Stearns, 2013).

The necessary explanation

It was the entrepreneurs that moved toward a factory system, workers who worked in the factories, investor who invested the capitol, consumers who eagerly accepted the machine made products were accounted for the factors which generate the phase of the change (Birch, Lecture1).  The factors which were required for the industrial revolution to occur were investment funds, access to raw materials such as textile fibres, coal and iron which are the sinews of industrial revolution. Additionally, government interest and support of economic innovation were crucial factors too. The most important was the availability of labour force which did not had better options and some workforce who were attracted to the industrial life (Stearns, 2013). However it can be noted that these all factors of landless workers, helpful laws, population growth, new technologies, and people eagerness can be considered as conditions that facilitated the changes probably but were not sufficient to cause the revolution and also should be noted that neither were these conditions exclusive for Britain.

Robert Allen explains that  people believe that  the political structure changes (parliamentary checks on the executives , the security of property rights & flexibility of the legal system) created during the revolution of 1688  were responsible for making it favourable for investments that made the Industrial revolution possible. Theories also suggest about the ability of British to work harder & French to fail to adopt the technology. Hence, even though good culture and law were necessary conditions, but they are not considered as sufficient. It is also stated that the increase of supply of new technology would not have impacted if there was no demand for new techniques.

Allen states that the inventions that caused Industrial revolution were adopted in Britain   because it was profitable to develop, use & perfect them in Britain.  The techniques were also biased and required increased capital requirement while reducing labour requirements. This suggests that the techniques are profitable to adopt in places where wages are relatively high and England stood apart from the rest for this.  In France and India, the rate of return to inventing British technology was too low to justify the necessary Research & Development. Also, invention generated expenses and it was only in Britain that generated the profits and hence could incur the R&D expenses needed to invent them. According to Allen, the important factor is the high level of wages in England with respect to capital goods prices.  The price structure facilitated the possibility of developing machine to substitute capitol for labour which was not same elsewhere in countries like France or India. Hence it was concluded by Allen that the Industrial revolution was the consequence of the high wage economy in England and thus technologies with high-capitol labour ratios were developed which facilitated the revolution (Allen, 2009).

The Luck factor

It was also noted that the tendencies of British coal mines to get flooded easily (unlike the Chinese mines) was one of the reason why steam engine was put in use and the wider applicability of the instrument was discovered in the process.  The scientific revolution did set a new faith in the progress of knowledge and technology which further provided prestige for inventors and business people. In contrast to this, the Chinese philosophy of retaining to their old instrument and not able to transit to new methods without Emperor Orders was the reason why China could not respond to the industrial revolution in spite of having the entire necessary factory to revolutionize (Stearns, 2013).