In a message dated 4/13/00 1:29:53 AM, dl@silcom.com writes:(posted 8763 days ago)<< Perhaps the answer lies more in an argument which Stewart has made here on FoRK: labor saving is a process which feeds upon itself. >>
quoting Fernand Braudel, who knoew far more about thisthan I ever would. Basically he says that all thetechnology for industrialization of the textile industry existed in India (along with the designs--the Brits copies them, which were highly fashionable) but labor was so cheap it didn't pay to replace them by machines; likewise there are stories of Chinese irrigating fields by hand rather than using pumps, again labor being so common that it seemed immoral to substitute for it, which would have taken food from a ricewinner's family. It's all in, I think, The Perspecitive of the World, which is the third volume of his history of capitalism, and I think toward the end of that volume. (I've just narrowed your search from 3000 pages to about 300.)