Why no Roman Industrial Revolution?

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, lucklucky said:

Well Britain - and others -  had cumulative   1400 years of evolution over the Romans. Mechanical watches were developed by late middle age for example.

Another point: Britain was an Island at low risk of being invaded. In a sense also implies that the British have to deal which others. It is not like in Italy if Borgias don't like you you move to Sforzas Milan ...or the Venice Republic...

You talk about Germany and they seem to wake up technological and culturally by Renaissance age, but they did not have an empire all over the world. They did not had the pressure and also culturally due to that reason it means a more closed society. Britain had to be more flexible.

Portugal was always limited by its tiny population. We never had depth and always very poor in resources. A bit latter there are the Dutch with same issue and with many more wars.

Spain is a more interesting case but they expelled Jews so a certain market culture necessary to develop technology is missed, these things remain in culture for a long time. It is a good question to ask our Spanish contingent.  Why Spain did not started the Industrial Revolution?

One thing that is missing is what are differences in households and family structures  of Britain vs Spain  if it matters. Also related to the road structure of Spain vs Britain.
 

Low risk of being invaded. It was arguably the risk of invasion that helped kickstart the British industrial revolution, in the Elizabethen era. I understand it was the development of naval technology that didnt just drive the development of mass production of guns, but also, when you stop to think about it, latterly, the advent of the marine chronometer. I grant you land invasion is another thing entirely. But there was no reason that other isolated and fairly secure areas, like Switzerland for example, also didnt have just the same advantages.

Here is the thing. I dont think it was the Empire that created the industrial revolution. I think it was the other way around. It was the industrial revolution, and the mass production of guns, muskets, cheaper production of ships and components therein, that made the Empire possible to acquire. Particularly for commercial enterprises, such as the East India company, whom could aquire military equipment at cheaper rates. The cynic in me wonders, was it cheaper for the British to lose the American colonies, than it was for France to win them, for this precise reason?

Fair point on portugal. I always seem to see it as a larger country in population than it is.

Spain, well, we too kicked the jews out, under Edward 1st, in 1290 We did latterly invite them back in 1655. I dont know if they can be credited as creating the market structure we enjoyed. They certainly contributed to it, I dont deny it. But my impression was the City of London was already florishing when they returned.

The UK had mediocre roads up until the 1800's (I would still say they are still crap actually ), but of course we did have the inestimable advantage of easy carriage around the coastline via sea, which we were utilizing right up to the 1960's.  Which of course, both Spain, Italy and to a lesser extent, France all enjoyed too. Germany enjoyed the advantage of being able to move so much down its estensive river network.

I guess the point im making is, I cant really see any clear advantage the UK had, other than coal, and having a political system that was not dominated by religion. There were other regions in Europe that had coal (Poland I know seems to have large stocks of it). But all the rest seem to have had their political systems at least partially hobbled by religious interference.

Of course, as others have said, we had the Scots, so perhaps im overthinking it....

 

Edited August 8 by Stuart Galbraith

[seahawk]

So you mean the Empire played no role in the industrialisation? Not that it would be an advantage to have free access to most of the World's resources.

[Rick]

Some answers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk1aFeI4CqQ

[DB]

19 hours ago, urbanoid said:

True, also the issues with slavery aren't simply technological, they're also social, legal etc. Let's say there are 'industrial' breakthroughs made, what's stopping you from using slaves to extract coal from the mines, after all it isn't the most pleasant work? Sure, you would need free engineers and supervisors as well as guards, but for simple manual labor the slaves would do. 

Arguably, for the UK at least, until the abolition of the truck system and "company shops", mining was essentially indentured labour, which falls into the modern definition of slavery. Similarly, farm labourers were "tied labour" - if they didn't work on the farm, they didn't have a roof over their heads and with little option for free movement, that amounted to a form of slavery too.

However, this topic is about the Romans, who did slavery quite differently from that exercised by later western societies and weren't affected by the movement of bottlenecks and increased demand already discussed with respect to cotton.

The argument has been made that slavery stops making economic sense (for basic agriculture, at least) when the energy cost of maintaining slaves exceeds the energy cost of maintaining beasts of burden - which brings us to the horse collar trope and King David's Spaceship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_collar

The effective types of horse collar do not appear to be available to the Roman Empire in an era where the Empire was at its peak, so that may be a strong factor.

I think there is also a scaling issue - you get more smart people the more people there are, and they feed off each other, so information sharing is key and that is more pervasive and practical once you have a printing press. And then your limiting factor is literacy, which ties in with free time and the industrialisation (increased productivity) of the farming system again.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, seahawk said:

So you mean the Empire played no role in the industrialisation? Not that it would be an advantage to have free access to most of the World's resources.

Oh, it certainly played a role in it. But if you accept the narrative that industrialization was already underway in the Tudor period, as some archaeologists seem to suggest, then you have to accept the idea it was industrialization that made Empire possible for a fairly mediocre power as we were. Particularly compared to Spain anyway.

Then when Empire began, it was a demand for more seapower, more landpower.   Then you got the trade, and access to the other resources, such as spice, Iron ore. And then it really kicked up a gear.

Id argue that all we needed for industrialization in the first stages was coal and bronze, which both seem to be available in the UK. 

Edited August 8 by Stuart Galbraith

[seahawk]

The Spanish never had the same global coverage as the British - nobody did. And for the Sugar Revolution (as one of the first steps in the industrialisation), one needed land in a suitable climate for sugar cane and access to slaves to fill the workforce gap. The Spanish had no access to African slaves and the population density in their colonies never was too low to make slavery a promising venture.

[lucklucky]

4 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Low risk of being invaded. It was arguably the risk of invasion that helped kickstart the British industrial revolution, in the Elizabethen era. I understand it was the development of naval technology that didnt just drive the development of mass production of guns, but also, when you stop to think about it, latterly, the advent of the marine chronometer. I grant you land invasion is another thing entirely. But there was no reason that other isolated and fairly secure areas, like Switzerland for example, also didnt have just the same advantages.

Here is the thing. I dont think it was the Empire that created the industrial revolution. I think it was the other way around. It was the industrial revolution, and the mass production of guns, muskets, cheaper production of ships and components therein, that made the Empire possible to acquire. Particularly for commercial enterprises, such as the East India company, whom could aquire military equipment at cheaper rates. The cynic in me wonders, was it cheaper for the British to lose the American colonies, than it was for France to win them, for this precise reason?

Fair point on portugal. I always seem to see it as a larger country in population than it is.

Spain, well, we too kicked the jews out, under Edward 1st, in 1290 We did latterly invite them back in 1655. I dont know if they can be credited as creating the market structure we enjoyed. They certainly contributed to it, I dont deny it. But my impression was the City of London was already florishing when they returned.

The UK had mediocre roads up until the 1800's (I would still say they are still crap actually ), but of course we did have the inestimable advantage of easy carriage around the coastline via sea, which we were utilizing right up to the 1960's.  Which of course, both Spain, Italy and to a lesser extent, France all enjoyed too. Germany enjoyed the advantage of being able to move so much down its estensive river network.

I guess the point im making is, I cant really see any clear advantage the UK had, other than coal, and having a political system that was not dominated by religion. There were other regions in Europe that had coal (Poland I know seems to have large stocks of it). But all the rest seem to have had their political systems at least partially hobbled by religious interference.

Of course, as others have said, we had the Scots, so perhaps im overthinking it....

 

Continental Europe had much more risk of invasion  - even localised that do not appear in general History books - than Britain.

Your point about Empire vs IR do not make sense, Britain certainly had started navigating before industrial revolution. Portuguese, Dutch, Spain had Empires before industrialisation.

The Jews are literate in a historical period most people aren't and usually part of finance. Also tolerance or not towards them shows a general attitude how someone that  develop something new which implies upending the current order will be dealt with.

The British people most have something that allowed upend the aristocratic order and the birth of bourgeoise and trade.

Trade and cultural relation with money needs to have been made more socially acceptable than in other societies.

Edited August 8 by lucklucky

[sunday]

Finance in the form of the first modern stock trading market was pioneered by the Dutch in 1611. There could have been some fly of investors because of the French invasion of 1672, but I am not sure of that.

[Murph]

One word: Slavery.  Why get modern when you can have an endless supply of slaves?  The greatest curse on humanity was the institution of slavery.

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Continental Europe had much more risk of invasion  - even localised that do not appear in general History books - than Britain.

Your point about Empire vs IR do not make sense, Britain certainly had started navigating before industrial revolution. Portuguese, Dutch, Spain had Empires before industrialisation.

The Jews are literate in a historical period most people aren't and usually part of finance. Also tolerance or not towards them shows a general attitude how someone that  develop something new which implies upending the current order will be dealt with.

The British people most have something that allowed upend the aristocratic order and the birth of bourgeoise and trade.

Trade and cultural relation with money needs to have been made more socially acceptable than in other societies.

Im just making the point, Industrial expansion made it cheaper to build a big navy than, say, the French, for whom the war in America (not least supplying them weapons) was ruinous. Nails, block and tackle, naval guns, all were procured through new industrial processes. There was also developments in taxation. We lost a rather nasty naval war with the Dutch, and I think it was Charles II whom brought in some new taxes to pay for a new navy that wouldnt have the same problem.

Your second point. Well, there was something. The Black Death, particularly the 1300's one, upended the social order. Peasants were able to take over large estates because their owners all died, leading to upward mobility. Then we had a civil war in the 1640's. And then we had a black death. So yes, there is that. There was a considerable amount of social and political turmoil, and then a fairly long period of stability. I wonder if that had anything to do with it?

[lucklucky]

But industrial expansion occurred already with Empire in existence. 

Yes it is possible that was due to "unlucky-lucky" circumstances, the butterfly that with a flap of its winds made a virus enter the respiratory tract of an aristocrat family leader that if did not died then would block for 50 years the start of industrial revolution...or just like Sunday says a war a succession at wrong historical time or just the wrong societal mood.

[sunday]

2 minutes ago, lucklucky said:

But industrial expansion occurred already with Empire in existence. 

Yes it is possible that was due to "unlucky-lucky" circumstances, the butterfly that with a flap of its winds made a virus enter the respiratory tract of an aristocrat family leader that if did not died then would block for 50 years the start of industrial revolution...or just like Sunday says a war a succession at wrong historical time or just the wrong societal mood.

There were also other reasons, like underpopulation in all of Spain at both sides of the Atlantic*, scarcity of iron fields near coalfields, too many mountains, too few navigable rivers in the Peninsula. So industrialization began in Cuba, with the first Spanish rail line there, intended to serve the sugarcane sector.

* During the American wars of independence, the usual military unit was the battalion, not even the regiment, because of the low population.

[urbanoid]

19 minutes ago, sunday said:

There were also other reasons, like underpopulation in all of Spain at both sides of the Atlantic*, scarcity of iron fields near coalfields, too many mountains, too few navigable rivers in the Peninsula. So industrialization began in Cuba, with the first Spanish rail line there, intended to serve the sugarcane sector.

* During the American wars of independence, the usual military unit was the battalion, not even the regiment, because of the low population.

Why on both sides, something happened to the 'European' Spanish?

[sunday]

17 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Why on both sides, something happened to the 'European' Spanish?

Spain was never a very populated country, and from that little population came those that went overseas to civilize and evangelize.

For instance, in the Spanish Habsburg armies, less than 20% of infantry soldiers were Spanish.

I do not know how accurate is this graph from the Spanish wikipedia, but it more or less matches my recollections:

Vertical axis is thousands of inhabitants, horizontal axis is year AD.

As comparison, there were 15 million of people living in France in 1500.

Edited August 8 by sunday

[urbanoid]

8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

There were other regions in Europe that had coal (Poland I know seems to have large stocks of it). But all the rest seem to have had their political systems at least partially hobbled by religious interference.

Of course, as others have said, we had the Scots, so perhaps im overthinking it....

 

Depending on the timeframe those major coal deposits in what is today's Poland may or may not have been under Polish control - or surely weren't by the time Poland was completely partitioned. For the whole 18th century Poland was in deep crisis of... everything really. By the end Poland was unsuccessfully trying to reform and shake off the system that... definitely didn't encourage technological progress. It wasn't really about religion though, more of a social issue. Poland was politically dominated by landed nobility who lived off said lands and for them it wasn't very noble to dabble in such 'commoner' things like trade or manufacturing. At the same time they jealously guarded their political privileges from other classes, so the rise in trade and manufacturing could be seen as detrimental to them, because it would have weakened their relative economic power and subsequently the political one too. Needless to say the position of the monarch was rather symbolic, after all it was the nobles who elected him.

So my guess is that without some alien space bats Poland couldn't have introduced the industrial revolution to the world even without the myriad of internal and external issues detrimental to the state.

 

[sunday]

Just now, urbanoid said:

Depending on the timeframe those major coal deposits in what is today's Poland may or may not have been under Polish control - or surely weren't by the time Poland was completely partitioned. For the whole 18th century Poland was in deep crisis of... everything really. By the end Poland was unsuccessfully trying to reform and shake off the system that... definitely didn't encourage technological progress. It wasn't really about religion though, more of a social issue. Poland was politically dominated by landed nobility who lived off said lands and for them it wasn't very noble to dabble in such 'commoner' things like trade or manufacturing. At the same time they jealously guarded their political privileges from other classes, so the rise in trade and manufacturing could be seen as detrimental to them, because it would have weakened their relative economic power and subsequently the political one too. Needless to say the position of the monarch was rather symbolic, after all it was the nobles who elected him.

So my guess is that without some alien space bats Poland couldn't have introduced the industrial revolution to the world even without the myriad of internal and external issues detrimental to the state.

 

Political environment was not very conductive to long term enterprises. Could you say liberum veto?

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Depending on the timeframe those major coal deposits in what is today's Poland may or may not have been under Polish control - or surely weren't by the time Poland was completely partitioned. For the whole 18th century Poland was in deep crisis of... everything really. By the end Poland was unsuccessfully trying to reform and shake off the system that... definitely didn't encourage technological progress. It wasn't really about religion though, more of a social issue. Poland was politically dominated by landed nobility who lived off said lands and for them it wasn't very noble to dabble in such 'commoner' things like trade or manufacturing. At the same time they jealously guarded their political privileges from other classes, so the rise in trade and manufacturing could be seen as detrimental to them, because it would have weakened their relative economic power and subsequently the political one too. Needless to say the position of the monarch was rather symbolic, after all it was the nobles who elected him.

So my guess is that without some alien space bats Poland couldn't have introduced the industrial revolution to the world even without the myriad of internal and external issues detrimental to the state.

 

Polandball cannot Into space?

I really must read more on Polish Lithuanian  Commonwealth.

[urbanoid]

26 minutes ago, sunday said:

Political environment was not very conductive to long term enterprises. Could you say liberum veto?

Liberum veto was merely one of the tools that were used (first time in 1650s), but the problem was far wider, mostly concentrating on the attitude of the nobility. LV couldn't be used in all cases, that's why the Constitution of 1791 was approved by the confederated Sejm (where liberum veto didn't apply and the simple majority decided). Even that required very sneaky, semi-legal maneuvers - it was voted for before most of the deputies could come back to the capital, so there were only 182 of them present (out of around ~500) and 72 of those were against. The outcome would have almost certainly been different had all the deputies been present.

 

Edited August 8 by urbanoid

[sunday]

Considering the Third Partition was to be in 1795, perhaps that Constitution arrived a bit late...

[urbanoid]

Absolutely, too little, too late*, btw. it wasn't even in effect anymore by the end of 1793.

*or too early according to the alternative approach

 

[rmgill]

Wasn’t the big driver for steam engines the need to de-water deeper mines? Water power for factories was often sufficient for leather belt line power systems. Later as power demands wen’t up steam became viable. 
 

The Romans had quite a large water powered system in what is now France I think. I think James Burke mentions it in one of his shows. 
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbegal_aqueduct_and_mills

Edited August 8 by rmgill

[rmgill]

Oh. Right. The wikipedia link mentions Burke at the end. Faith in Numbers. 
 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3yVWSnH3LB4&pp=ygUWRmFpdGggaW4gbnVtYmVycyBidXJrZQ%3D%3D

[Stuart Galbraith]

.

Edited August 9 by Stuart Galbraith

[urbanoid]

16 hours ago, sunday said:

Spain was never a very populated country, and from that little population came those that went overseas to civilize and evangelize.

For instance, in the Spanish Habsburg armies, less than 20% of infantry soldiers were Spanish.

I do not know how accurate is this graph from the Spanish wikipedia, but it more or less matches my recollections:

Vertical axis is thousands of inhabitants, horizontal axis is year AD.

As comparison, there were 15 million of people living in France in 1500.

Ha, because the borders of the 'core area' haven't been changing all that much, as was also in the case of France, I have probably subconsciously assumed that it was in general 'a bit less than in France'.

Poland had several large drops, estimates are 30-50% down in the 1648-1660 period (as high as 4 million), up to 25% down during the Northern War, then losses from subsequent partitions until Poland disappeared from the map. In what later became Poland in 1918 there were 31 million people in 1914, that number dropped to 26 million by 1918.

[sunday]

11 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Ha, because the borders of the 'core area' haven't been changing all that much, as was also in the case of France, I have probably subconsciously assumed that it was in general 'a bit less than in France'.

Well, Spain's borders are noteworthy for how little they have changed in time in comparison to other big European countries, but I am afraid I am not able to fully understand your point here.

Edited August 9 by sunday