From: Donald B Wagner(posted 8756 days ago)In this fascinating debate I have a small empirical point to inject that has some relevance. The Eh.res editors suggest:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< <<<<<<<< 3. Europe's take-off was the result of its interactions with Asia as part of a world trading system. The counterfactual here is that in the absence of Asia, Europe would not have undergone the Industrial Revolution. If this is the argument the question becomes one of identifying the specific mechanisms through which trade benefited Europe differentially, and how Asian trade in particular contributed to Europe's take off. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>
I have been studying the iron industry in Qing China, looking very closely at its technology. See my book, _The traditional Chinese iron industry and its modern fate_, 1997, which is also on the WWW at .
It is striking to find that the iron-production technology changes very significantly from the 18th century on, gradually going from large-scale capital-intensive to small-scale labour-intensive. (The same development is likely to have taken place in other industries, I can't be sure without much more research.) While there obviously were numerous factors at work here (including e.g. the Qing government's attempts to discourage large-scale production), I have argued that this development was primarily a rational response to changing economic conditions:
The trade with Europe provided investment opportunities with much higher returns than large-scale industry. That was the *first* blow to the large-scale sector of the traditional iron industry. Large- scale works closed down, production decreased, and what was produced came from smaller works. These were in an engineering sense less 'efficient' than the large-scale works - but they were more efficient in an overall economic sense, because they used less of the scarcest resource, capital.
The *second* blow (a knockout) to the large-scale sector came in the early 19th century, when the cost of English iron had fallen to the point that it could compete in China with Chinese-produced iron. The large-scale sector was dependent on large markets, and therefore on good transportation, and regions with good transportation were of course the first to be penetrated by the foreign competition. The small-scale ironworks of isolated regions were protected from the foreign competition by high transportation costs - they not only thrived, they even grew for a while, and they were still there in the 1950's, when an attempt was made to use their technology in the Great Leap Forward.
So here is one way in which the trade between Europe and China helped Europe's industrialisation: it brought about a shift of China's capital resources away from production of essentials, eliminating European industry's most important competitor in Asia and opening an additional market.
It would be interesting to investigate whether Chinese capital actually ended up in European industry, by various indirect channels.
Both of the above-described blows were felt by Chinese society as a whole as major industries collapsed, leaving armies of unemployed workers with no alternative but banditry/rebellion/revolution (call it what you like). (Remember that the Taiping Rebellion started among unemployed miners.) I suppose it was an advantage for European industry that China as a whole was destabilised, but here I am being more speculative. The destabilisation certainly made it harder for China to respond to the European challenge, and widened the 'bifurcation' that various debaters have talked about.
When I talk about these things I tend to be put in one or another of two pigeonholes: (1) sprouts of capitalism or (2) the evils of imperialism. Please be assured that my concern is to discuss what happened and why, neither what didn't happen nor the moral value of what did happen. And I am certainly not proposing any kind of single- cause theory, only pointing out one factor which I believe was important.
I wonder whether anything like the developments I have described here also occurred in India?
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< <<<<<<<<<< 4. Europe's access to New World gold, silver, or other natural resources was the source of its advantage. If this is the argument, what was the mechanism by which these resources stimulated European growth? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>
New World silver made the tea trade possible, and the tea trade provided the investment opportunities that started the ruin...