Technological Progress and the Industrial Revolution 1700-1914 [antikvár]

Technological Progress and the Industrial Revolution I. TECHNOLOGY BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION To the economic and social historian the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is characterised by a host of novelties — the more or less rapid transition from domestic or workshop to factory production, and from mflKMfacture in the literal sense to macAi'raofacture; a spectacular development in the capitalistic form of industrial organisation, and the growth — for the first time on a significant scale — of a proletariat that owned nothing but its ability to work; the development of national and international markets in run-of-the-mill products rather than luxuries; the attainment within a few decades of a stage at which an industrial economy could continue to expand indefinitely by the plough-back of its own profits as capital; and a great deal more. In technological history the first impression is also of novelty — a spate of revolutionary inventions entirely transforming the technological scene. But more sober consideration tends to change the emphasis from novelty to continuity. The technological aspect of the Industrial Revolution (or at least its earlier phases) is better regarded as an acceleration — an enormous acceleration, it is true — in a process that had been going on since early in the Middle Ages. There have been two great Technological Revolutions in the story of mankind^. The first began with the advent of agriculture about 8000 B.C. It gave us all the basic agricultural techniques, including irrigation. It created the textile, pottery and metallurgical industries, and the technology of fermentation — for both bread and beer. To transport it contributed the sailing ship and the wheeled lApart from the tool-making and fire-using revolution that started the human story.