Many of you are comparing Greg's Farewell to Alms (an economist drawing on biology) with Jared Diamond (a biologist drawing on economics), but mischievous types like me look to another direction...
Michael H. Hart’s Understanding Human History is an objectionable book in a variety of regards, but it is another attempt to explain the broad sweep of human history using the concept of IQ. Let’s see what Hart says (pp.365-6) about why the Industrial Revolution came to England:
1. England had a high average IQ
2. England had a relatively high population (compared say to the Nordic countries)
3. England did not have slavery
4. England had intellectual ferment
5. Colonies added to the intellectual ferment of England
6. Unlike Germany or Italy, England was not politically fragmented
7. England had abundant iron ore and coal
8. England had relatively secure property rights
Hart stresses that in Europe only England had all these factors operating in its favor. For our purposes, Hart’s more pluralistic explanation is testament to how large a role the Malthusian model plays in Greg Clark’s book.
I know I may regret saying this, but: IQ is not a cause, it is a consequence. “Something” causes both IQ and prosperity etc etc.. But using IQ as an explanatory variable is meaningless.
“1. England had a high average IQ”
That’s comparative to other parts of the world, I assume.
How would one know? Does his book offer an explanation as to methodology behind that statement?
jack — “IQ is not a cause, it is a consequence.” How did you come to this conclusion? Higher IQ might be an outcome of more advanced modes of production (one becomes more aware and the brain is shaken awake once the right incentive structure is in place) but surely there are large differences in IQ within the rich capitalist world. So even if higher IQ is a consequence when it was lower there were still differences cross-country that might be important. For fear of being branded a racist I will leave it at that.
When someone comes up with a list on which their favorite theory has all the “yes” boxes checked, and everything else has at least a few of the “no” boxes checked, I’m very suspicious. It looks like they listed characteristics of their theory, selected the ones that supported the outcome they like, and possibly added a few characteristics to distinguish other intended losers. It’s not as convincing as an argument that presents some principles, explains which are positive and which are negative, and then looks at some cases in view of the theory.
Well, I see no mention of the country that was probably the most serious rival to Britain for initiating
the IR, Holland (or maybe Flanders). As near as I can tell, Britain has an edge on this list over
Holland on only two categories, with one of them questionable. The questionable one is population.
Yes, Holland (and Flanders) had a smaller aggregate population, but they had a much denser population,
already substantially more urbanized than Britain’s, which arguably would have given them an edge
even in this category.
This leaves only one category, one I have discussed in some other comments on this thread, and to
which I have heard no serious reply, certainly not from Greg Clark himself, although Rob Dawg here
would seem to be in agreement, with not quite following through on the full argument. It is the
far greater quantity of coal that Britain had, with, as Rob notes, a five-fold increase in the real
price of wood in Britain in the 18th century really pushing the use of coal, which both gave a
motive for using steam engines (to pump the water out of the mines, which was the main use of the
first Newcomen engines), along with allowing for a greater ability to use the steam engines to
run the heavier machinery associated with the IR. That is Britain’s clear (and only serious)
advantage over Holland. The old, traditional literature that emphasized the roles of coal and the
steam engine remain very impressive and not seriously responded to by Clark or anybody else.
Per the coal theory, you also have to ask why the Netherlands did not invest in mining the plentiful coal of the Ruhr and easily barging it down the Rhine. The answer is
“6. Unlike Germany or Italy, England was not politically fragmented”
and
“8. England had relatively secure property rights” [relative to Germany, anyway -- I'm not convinced this was true relative to the Netherlands other than from the risk of foreign invasion]
and the related observation Rob Dawg makes and that I have made,
“the island geography also provided favorable protection from predation on a national scale. ”
Recall that Japan was remarkably successful in industrializing well in advance of other Asian countries, even though it lacked good coal, iron, or petroleum deposits. Indeed, the lead of Japan over the rest of Asia was even more spectacular than the lead of Britain over the rest of Europe. Where institutitions allow these kinds of inputs can be easily imported, as Britain imported another crucial material input of the industrial revolution, cotton.
It’s important to note that Clark’s book really doesn’t answer questions like England vs. Holland. What it brings up at the end is the current Great Divergence — why are countries in different parts of the world so much more unequal today, and why does this inequality persist and possibly widen? His Darwinian speculations are a lot more likely to prove relevant to that massive question than to why the Industrial Revolution started in England rather than in Holland.
Nick Szabo,
Holland was not politically fragmented, unless you think that Flanders should be part of it.
They speak a different language than in Germany, so saying they and Germany were not part of
the same country is not a matter of political fragmentation. The hard fact is, that Holland
had windmills and not coal, with the former reducing their incentive to look for alternative
power sources, such as coal-fired steam engines, especially when the coal would have to be
imported.
It is true that Britain was more secure from invasion than Holland, although Holland came to
be the dominant financial power in Europe while Spain was battling to maintain control over it.
Keep in mind, that in 1815 Dutch banks owned British debt on the order of three times the British
GDP. The Bank of Amsterdam was founded before the Bank of England. Holland had secure property
rights and arguably more advanced capitalist institutions, as well as a denser population of
roughly equal general capabilities as that in Britain.
Gavin Kennedy,
France has some coal in its eastern part, but nothing like Britain. Again, Britain was more
using and dependent on it than France. Of course there are other differences between France
and Britain that you note. Again, Holland was the world leader of market capitalism in the
mid-18th century, as Adam Smith clearly recognized. The question remains, why Britain before
Holland (or Flanders, which was the urbanized leader with manufacturing, and strikes in its
textile manufactories dating back to the 1200s)?
One of those unexplained bits of history is that Holland produced geniuses by the bushel in the 17th century (Rembrandt, Vermeer, Leuvenhook (sp?), etc etc), but not in the 18th century, even though it remained prosperous.
The usual explanation is that Holland lost its dynamism, although that’s more of a description than an explanation.
The point is that we’re less likely to come up with plausible answers to small, specific questions like why was Industrial Revolution in England rather than in Holland than in larger, more general, more important questions like: “Why, as of 2007, is there such a high correlation in national capability to follow England’s lead into the modern world with latitude?”
Nick,
The argument of Mokyr and Nye is that it was the Glorious Revolution that
fully integrated England in a legal and institutional sense, with the
ascendancy of Parliament and its legal authority, displacing all kinds of
local exceptionalisms and special rules.
Being able to import coal does not cut it. We are talking about the invention
and innovation of the steam engine. It was invented to pump water out of coal
mines. The Dutch were not going to invent steam engines to pump water out of
German coal mines. BTW, Japan has always been pretty well endowed with coal.
I will grant that England did have windmills also. But it was its possession
of coal, and Holland’s lack thereof, which underlies the comparative advantage
of which you speak. So, England industrialized and Holland did not.
As for invasions, well, I agree that full Dutch power in finance came after
the Spanish were defeated. But Holland continued to be much more vulnerable
to invasion than England even then, with the huge French armies not that far
away, with Louis XIV at times causing them problems. The Dutch were already
very innovative and well ahead of the British in the early 1600s financially,
with the tulipmania happening in fairly sophisticated futures markets primarily.
The big thing that happened in Britain in the early 1700s, aside from the
invention of the Newcomen engine, were the enormous improvements in ag productivity,
which Clark does allude to. It is one of those older debates how important they
were to the IR. Most think they made a pretty big difference, including for
the demographic reason of supporting a larger population.
One also has to take into account that there was a significant change in political leadership from the 17th to the 18th centuries for the Dutch. The 17th century was driven by energetic commercial middle classes (it was their tastes, for example, that dominate Dutch art of the Golden Age) at the expense of the less commercial Dutch aristocracy. The very wealth of the great regent families that had accumulated from trade in turn turned them into an ossified political class that concentrated on landowning, and which used patronage and corruption to cement their positions within society. Consequently, social mobility, which had seen some spectacular successes in the 17th century, became less common, and the interests of the ruling classes, now concentrating on their lifestyles as landowning parvenus, no longer fully coincided with pushing successful pro-commerce policies. Dutch art reflects the decline of its patrons, as 18th century Dutch art shows little of the genius of the previous century.
A few other other thoughts:
Strong competition from other countries, as well as relatively successful economic warfare from the French against Dutch overseas possessions. Warfare plays its part, and while the Dutch were economically superior to their rivals, the differences in the size of the countries does matter. There is no doubt that Germany was superior economically versus the Soviet Union, but the Germans still bit off more than they could chew, and likewise the Dutch faced a formidable foe in Louis XIV. The drain was considerable.
The Netherlands’ small size was of course a problem, but the Dutch people also never had a taste for colonization like the English, or even the French. It can of course be argued that in the long run those colonies were wastes, but the role of New England forests in providing the raw materials for the development of the Royal Navy, for example, shows that the colonies could provide considerable advantages.
The English elite, for various reasons, I believe was more cohesive culturally. The Dutch aristocracy, although weaker than in many other places in Europe, never shared a common outlook with the regent classes. This, too, can be seen in 17th century art, as the aristocracy and especially the House of Orange generally preferred the more Catholic art of the Flemish Baroque over their own native artists. This trend accelerated in the 18th century as the Dutch elite became frankly less “Dutch” as they came to regard French culture superior in language, fashion, art, and architecture. Sophistication was in, and the simplicity of the Calvinist 17th century was out.
I have no doubt that coal and natural resources played a big part of the differences between England and the Netherlands. But it is important, I believe, to not overlook some of the rather significant cultural trends that were taking place.
I had a law school professor who attributed the rise of England to the legal doctrine of primogenitor where the whole of the inheritance went to the oldest son. This provided in the upper classes an educated but impecunious cadre of second and third sons who went out into the world to earn their fortunes. Had they inherited some of the family fortune they would have stayed home and not accomplished near as much.
Great discussion.
For an interesting perspective read the following book by historial Arthur Herman:
How the Scots Invented the Modern World
This book provides a compelling explanation about the Enlightenment that gave rise to the Ind. Rev.
BR: “Regarding Japan, it was completely sealed up, but one advantage it had over the rest of East Asia once Commodore Perry re-opened it was a huge amount of human capital in the form of pretty nearly universal literacy.”
This is another observation in support of the book consciousness theory, with the caveat that Japan had to overcome institutional barriers to importing raw materials before it could take advantage of its book knowledge industrially.
Another effect of book consciousness: what is often called the “de-skilling” of the work force might be better looked on as a shifting of skills from being based on coordination to being based on book learning. Widespread literacy by lowering the cost of book knowledge resulted in substitution of such knowledge (e.g. of mechanics, engineers, bookkeepers, and accountants) for coordination-based craft skills, often through the medium of automation and increased organization size. Literate mechanics and bookkeepers were probably no better paid than craft skilled labor, but fewer in number, resulting in an overall de-skilling of the workforce. This, and not the coal theory, explains why there were so many 18th century innovations in textile automation well before the incorporation of steam power into the textile industry. For the first time in history there was a large and well-read population of mechanics in an instutionally favorable economy.
BTW, on this point from the original post:
“1. England had a high average IQ”
Average in comparison to who else? And how are we supposed to estimate IQ in eras before the invention of IQ tests? Might it just be a byproduct of childhood literacy (i.e. adults trained to read as children have a higher IQ than adults who were still illiterate in their teens)? And genetic evolution of IQ, at least, doesn’t explain the great decline of England from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s, in sharp contrast to its great rise in the previous centuries.
A good theory has to explain many things, not just one event. Even if you merely hope to explain the industrial revolution and nothing else, it’s a severe mistake to simply focus on the industrial revolution in England and ignore other places and times.
SS: “[English IQ] High compared to everybody except northeast Asians and other Europeans.”
Steve, I did in fact check out your reviews of the Hart and Lynn/Vanhanen books, and I greatly appreciate your efforts in this regard. Epigenetic IQ may explain some patterns of history that long predate the industrial revolution (e.g. northerners invading south), but many of today’s differences across socieities are probably more the effect than the cause of childhood literacy and overall economic progress (you cite the Flynn effect, improved diets, and opportunities to exercise the mind, for example) when comparing the northern countries to each other.
IQ whatever its cause doesn’t explain what most of us have been discussing, which is not north vs. south but rather why England industrialized before the rest of Europe, why Europe before northeast Asia, and why Japan before the rest of northeast Asia. Just going by IQ (if we can project relative current IQs back three hundred years) northeast Asia should have industrialized before Europe, and Italy and the Netherlands should not have trailed the United Kingdom so badly in industrialization.
Instead Europe conquered the Asian sea trade routes and then proceeded to industrialize well in advance of northeast Asia. I am afraid that explaining this requires looking beyond simply measured things like IQ and the local availability of raw materials to messy social things like institutions.
Clark has no explanation for minor conundrums like why England instead of Holland, a culdesac which commenters here seem to have gotten hung upon (a classic example of the “bikeshed” tendency to focus on the trivial,” but he devotes the third part of his book to the huge issue of the Great Divergence — why many parts of the world have never caught up to England. To answer Clark’s Big Question — why in 2007 are the temperate regions so far ahead of the tropical regions — the dread letters IQ can play a useful explanatory role.
The question is why holland?
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Thanks.
It appears that some people seem to be getting well ahead of the important issues. Several factors, which I believe, all add up to the birth of the industrial revolution. Most notably, market forces, entrepreneurial spirit and experimentation of fledgling technologies.
It was a combination of ingenuity and market forces (supply & demand) which persuaded entrepreneurs such as James Hargreaves (inventor of the Spinning Jenny) to further the field of textile production which was the backbone of the industrial revolution in Northern England. Businessmen such as Richard Arkright revolutionised the industry further with the creation of the world’s first modern factory at Cromford (I’ve been there too). The power source during the early industrialisation of the textiles industry wasn’t steam, but in fact water.
A Domino effect then ensued in the following years resulting in many more groundbreaking inventions. It is of no surprise that these inventions/inventers hailed from the regions heavily influenced by the innovations of the burgeoning textiles industry. It was in effect, a centre of excellence. That is why; at the same point in history there weren’t related innovations occurring in other parts of Europe or the rest of the world. Parallels can be found in today’s industries, for example, the dominance of San Francisco and the West Coast of the US in the computer/microchip, industry. It is of my opinion that geography plays a huge part.
It would be wrong of me to – on the subject of the Industrial Revolution – talk solely about the textiles industry. Thomas Savey and Thomas Newcomer’s as early pioneers of the steam engine have to be recognised as some of the fathers of the industrial revolution, but it’s James Watt and Richard Trevithick whose second-generation steam engines truly fanned the flames of the fledgling industrial revolution. Trevithick had spent has whole life surrounded by steam power, from childhood – when his father worked at Cornish tin and copper mines – to his early career. Trevithick’s lifelong exposure to steam power was without doubt the contributing factor towards his subsequent invention of the high-pressure steam engine.
But of course the high pressure steam engine – the powerhouse of the industrial revolution – would never have made it off of the drawing board had it not been for the ground-breaking techniques of an often overlooked iron foundry pioneer. If I had to come up with the name of a person who I believe contributed more to the industrial revolution, that name would be Abraham Darby. Abraham Darby, looking for cheaper way to produce iron pioneered the use of coke in the iron foundries. As coke burns at higher temperatures than other materials such as charcoal, this means the iron producing potential is increased drastically. And with coke (made from coal) in such abundant supply, for the first time in history it was possible to mass produce iron. Without mass produced iron, there wouldn’t have been mass produced steam engines, and without mass produced steam engines, it could be argued that the North of England textiles revolution would have never got off the ground.
In conclusion; why did the industrial revolution happen in England? I’d have to say it’s thanks to 7 or 8 individuals – a handful of experimental entrepreneurs, a handful of businessmen, and a couple of geniuses thrown in to boot; combined with geography and an abundance of coal.
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Read The Economics of the Industrial Revolution
By Joel Mokyr
Please visit the webpage
http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=FDy3l91_TYkC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
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