> The problem is that Landes is also a follower of the tradition of M.M. > Postan (as am I) --that before the industrial revolution it is probably > informative and insightful to try to analyze human civilizations from the > perspective of ecologico-cultural equilibrium. When living standards are > relatively high, birth rates are high and death rates are low; when living > standards are relatively low birth rates are low and death rates are high > (or, rather, variable).(posted 8762 days ago)The evidence for this is partial and there are counterfactuals. The booming West European population 1750-1800 was generally and often accompanied by depressed living standards, hunger and civil unrest. Equally, there is no single 50-year period in the previous 500 years where population swings in Europe and Asia cannot be more easily acsribed to the obvious effects of war, plague, adverse or positive climate fluctuations. In general, there has been no eco-equilibrium in human settled populations during the present Interglacial, ie, the agrarian period. The entire period has been characterised by secular growth trends in population and productivity. So what is the evidence for the existence of 'set-points' which in any case are moving targets? So the qualitative change which the IR represents was only an inflection in a long-term underlying trend; and it's too early in any case to argue that we've escaped the Malthusian trap :).
The argument for the effects of American silver and the European price revolution, in altering the balance of input and especially labour costs between Europe and Asia is more compelling. The real catalyst of change however was the mobilisation of fossil fuels, which also of course explains why Britain and Belgian has an IR and the Dutch didn't. Belgium and Britain had coal. Holland did not. .