DeLong Econ 210a Industrial Revolution Slides: March 19: Marx and Urbanization and Industrialization and Marketization
- Alfred D. Chandler (1992), "Organizational Capabilities and the Economic History of the Industrial Enterprise," Journal of Economic Perspectives 6 (Summer) http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0895-3309%28199222%296%3A3%3C79%3AOCATEH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X
- Susan Wolcott and Gregory Clark (1999). "Why Nation's Fail: Managerial Decisions and Performance in Indian Cotton Textiles, 1890-1938." Journal of Economic History, June http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0507%28199906%2959%3A2%3C397%3AWNFMDA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848), "Manifesto of the Communist Party" http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
In our last episode...
Greg Clark said that there wasn't really an industrial revolution--there was a large demographic expansion made possible by the fact that Britain's population was out-of-sync with Europe and so it could trade manufactured goods for food...
And that technological progress in steam in the eighteenth century was no more impressive than progress in printing in the 15th century or ocean shipping in the 16th, and had bigger effects only because of the luck of demand elasticities...
And that Britons in 1860 had living standards barely better than those of Britons in the aftermath of the Bubonic Plague...
Nick Crafts said that there was an industrial revolution, but that it was small beer...
Nicholas Crafts (2002), "The Solow Productivity Paradox in Historical Perspective," (London: CEPR Discussion Paper no.3142) http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP3142.asp
Compare to 1.86% per year of real output per worker growth from the computer-communications leading sector of the late 1990s...
Jeffrey Williamson said that there was barely an industrial revolution because Britain tried to industrialize and fight wars...
Jeffrey Williamson, "Why Was British Economic Growth So Slow During the Industrial Revolution?" Journal of Economic History 44, pp.687-712 http://www.jstor.org/view/00220507/di975668/97p1230f/0
DeLong Indeed, back in 1776 Adam Smith had warned that Britain's politico-military state's success might well crush its economy, writing about even successful debt-funded wars:
The practice... has gradually enfeebled every state which has adopted it. The Italian republicks... Spain seems to have learned the practice from the Italian republicks, and (its taxes being probably has, in proportion to its natural strength, been still more enfeebled.... France... languishes under an oppressive load.... The republic of the United Provinces is as much enfeebled by its debts as either Genoa or Venice.... Is it likely that in Great Britain alone a practice, which has brought either weakness or desolation into every other country, should prove altogether innocent?...
Peter Temin said that there was too an industrial revolution, and it was substantial, and broad-based...
Peter Temin, "Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution," Journal of Economic History 57, pp.63-82 http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberhi/0081.html
But his argument appears to be vulnerable to a fall in the global price of textiles and other leading-sector goods...
And Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson said "wait a minute: people thought there was an industrial revolution..."
Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson, "Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution," Economic History Review new ser. 45, pp.23-50 http://www.jstor.org/view/00130117/di011838/01p0208u/0
And there was... although when do we want to date it to?
I'm currently wearing... maybe 3 pounds of cotton, 2 pounds of leather and plastic... 4 pounds of wool...
Now we have Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/manifest.pdf, who write in the middle of it and have no doubt that something extraordinary is going on...
Something hopeful...
And yet malevolent...
To which the solution is--well, a new world-religion:
Susan Wolcott and Gregory Clark (1999). "Why Nation's Fail: Managerial Decisions and Performance in Indian Cotton Textiles, 1890-1938." Journal of Economic History, June http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0507%28199906%2959%3A2%3C397%3AWNFMDA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9:
Alfred D. Chandler (1992), "Organizational Capabilities and the Economic History of the Industrial Enterprise," Journal of Economic Perspectives 6 (Summer) http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0895-3309%28199222%296%3A3%3C79%3AOCATEH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X
