The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective

Transcription

1 The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective Why did the Industrial Revolution take place in eighteenth-century Britain and not elsewhere in Europe or Asia? In this convincing new account Robert Allen argues that the British Industrial Revolution was a successful response to the global economy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He shows that in Britain wages were high and capital and energy cheap in comparison to other countries in Europe and Asia. As a result the breakthrough technologies of the Industrial Revolution the steam engine, the cotton mill, and the substitution of coal for wood in metal production were uniquely profitable to invent and use in Britain. The high wage economy of preindustrial Britain also fostered industrial development since more people could afford schooling and apprenticeships. It was only when British engineers made these new technologies more cost-effective during the nineteenth century that the Industrial Revolution would spread around the world. is Professor of Economic History at Oxford University and a fellow of Nuffield College. His books include Enclosure and the Yeoman: The Agricultural Development of the South Midlands, (1992), and Farm to Factory: A Re-interpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution (2003), both of which won the Ranki Prize of the Economic History Association.

2 NEW APPROACHES TO ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY Edited for the Economic History Society by nigel goose, University of Hertfordshire larry neal, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign New Approaches to Economic and Social History is an important new textbook series published in association with the Economic History Society. It provides concise but authoritative surveys of major themes and issues in world economic and social history from the post-roman recovery to the present day. Books in the series are by recognised authorities operating at the cutting edge of their field with an ability to write clearly and succinctly. The series consists principally of single-author works academically rigorous and groundbreaking which offer comprehensive, analytical guides at a length and level accessible to advanced school students and undergraduate historians and economists.

3 The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective robert c. allen University of Oxford

4 University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Information on this title: / This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published th printing 2015 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN Hardback ISBN Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

5 Contents List of plates List of figures List of tables Acknowledgments page vi vii ix x 1 The Industrial Revolution and the pre-industrial economy 1 Part I The pre-industrial economy 23 2 The high-wage economy of pre-industrial Britain 25 3 The agricultural revolution 57 4 The cheap energy economy 80 5 Why England succeeded 106 Part II The Industrial Revolution Why was the Industrial Revolution British? The steam engine Cotton Coke smelting Inventors, Enlightenment and human capital From Industrial Revolution to modern economic growth 272 References 276 Index 313

6 Plates 6.1 English kiln (image courtesy of Dianne Frank) page Chinese kiln (image courtesy of Dianne Frank) Abstraction of Von Guericke s illustration Thomas Newcomen s steam engine Woman spinning (from Costume of Yorkshire, by George Walker, 1814, Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library) Reconstruction of Hargreaves spinning jenny of 1770 (Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library) Arkwright s water frame, c ( Science Museum/Science and Society) Arkwright s water frame, c. 1775, detail ( Science Museum/Science and Society) Rolling mill (courtesy of Uwe Niggemeier) Enlarged view of the rollers, spindle and bobbin (Wyatt and Paul) 199

7 Figures 2.1 Labourers wages around the world page Respectability ratio for labourers: income/cost of respectable basket Subsistence ratio for labourers: income/costs of subsistence basket Subsistence ratio for labourers in Europe and the United States: annual earnings relative to the cost of the subsistence basket Labourers wage across England Respectability ratio for masons: income/cost of respectable basket The standard model of agriculture and English economic development Agricultural labour productivity Farm and labourers daily earnings Alternative farm incomes with and without productivity growth Prices of energy, early 1700s Prices of wood fuels in London Real prices of wood and coal in London Real prices of wood and coal in the midlands Flowchart (one period) of the model Supply and demand for labour Total productivity in English cloth Simulated urbanization rate, Simulated agricultural total factor productivity, Simulated real wage, Simulated urbanization rate, Simulated agricultural total factor productivity,

8 viii List of figures 5.9 Simulated real wage, Wage relative to price of capital Price of labour relative to energy, early 1700s Phase 1: macro-inventions Phase 2: the trajectory of micro-improvements Coal consumption in pumping engines: pounds of coal per horsepower-hour Coal consumption in rotary engines: pounds of coal per horsepower-hour Pumping engine: costs per horsepower-hour Rotary engine: costs per horsepower-hour Real price of cotton yarn Real price of cotton yarn Average total cost per ton of pig iron Total factor productivity in pig iron production Components of cost valued in 1755 prices Proportion of iron smelted with coal or coke Average pit head price of coal Price of charcoal 231

9 Tables 1.1 Percentage distribution of the population, page The respectable lifestyle: basket of goods Subsistence lifestyle: baskets of goods Subsistence incomes: baskets of goods How food consumption varied with income: Somerville s budgets England in Adult literacy, Crop yields and enclosure, c British coal production, The price of energy The real price of energy Stationary power sources in Great Britain Capacity of stationary steam engines Real cost of cotton (16 count) in 1784 prices (d/lb) Raw cotton consumption (thousands tons) Inputs per ton of pig iron, Characteristics of the important inventors Inventors and enlightenment connections Inventors and experimentation Important inventors: father s occupation Trends in literacy in English occupations,

10 Acknowledgments This book is the outcome of a research programme that began in the 1980s aiming to computerize the price histories of European cities and eventually the whole world. This programme grew out of another project with Dick Unger to develop a database of grain prices, and I have benefited enormously from working with him. I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the US National Science Foundation for funding this research through individual grants and via networks the Western Network on Education and Training, the Team for Advanced Research on Education, Globalization, Education, and Technology, and the Global Price and Income History Group. Time to write the book was provided by a British Academy Thank-Offering to Britain Fellowship and supplemented by the Oxford Department of Economics. I would like to thank Stuart Murray, Cherie Metcalfe, Ian Keay, Alex Whalley, Victoria Bateman, Cathy Douglas, Tommy Murphy and Roman Studer for research assistance. My wife Dianne Frank drew the pictures of the pottery kilns, and my son Matthew helped translate the French quotations. I thank them for that and also for their support and tolerance during the intense periods of writing. I have discussed this research with many people and learned much from them, among them Ken Sokoloff, Daron Acemoglu, Joel Mokyr, Alessandro Nuvolari, David Hendry, Paul David, Peter Temin, Jeff Williamson, Peter Lindert, Jane Humphries, Debin Ma, Jean-Pascal Bassino, Christine Moll-Murata and Jan Luiten van Zanden. I am particularly grateful to Knick Harley, Stan Engerman, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Patrick O Brien, Jo Innes, Nigel Goose, Peter Temin and Joel Mokyr, who read the manuscript and provided me with feedback. Joel Mokyr generously made available a copy of his book The Enlightened Economy in manuscript. All of my references are to that text. My professional development has been shaped by the advice, support and example of two outstanding scholars Gideon Rosenbluth and

11 Acknowledgments xi Patrick O Brien. From them I learned the crafts of the economist and the economic historian. Without the experience of talking and working with them, this book would not have been possible. I thank them for their guidance, their encouragement and their friendship. I am pleased to dedicate this book to Gideon and Patrick.