# Why Did It Take So Long for the 'Industrial Revolution'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 28, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618 "2010-10-28T02:47:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618/81 "2010-11-05T15:54:09Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The Industrial Revolution started in Britain, and spread from there. \*\* I believe that Great Britain in the 18th century was the one and only place in the history of the human race, up to that point, where the Industrial Revolution could possibly have happened.\*\* Had the conditions in Britain in the 18th century not been what they were it is wholly possible we would still be waiting for it to happen, or else it would have happened later and somewhere else - the USA in the 19th century, perhaps. To continue from **casdave** , what about Britain under Roman occupation? Everything you cite was in place. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618/82 "2010-11-05T16:30:53Z")
> [@](#): > > You joke, but this has seriously been proposed–before clean water, people used to drink beer and wine, which make people slow and stupid. Switch to coffee and tea, and suddenly they’re active and alert. So the beginnings of finance and global trade started in coffee houses, rather than taverns. I am sure this not a serious attempt at explaining IR, more of an amused aside about the sort of arguments that have been put forward. I will point out that decent sanitation across all of the industrialised world is surprisingly recent, even in the UK. Even up to WW1 most of the UK population did not have access to indoor toilet facilities, and even as recently as 1922 the habit of drinking of weak, or small, beer was practised as a way of avoiding drinking from the standpipes in the street. All of this is rather later than the period of the Industrial Revolution. When you look into the number of inns, taverns, beer houses in almost any UK city it comes as a real surprise, the scale of the brewing industry was absolutely immense, even if it was frequently small scale, its just that everyone was at it, there was literally an ale outlet in every street. One benefit of tea drinking, apart from it being an obvious civilising influence that seems to pass much of the US by, is that it is a safe drink since the water has been boiled - or at least it should have been boiled if you want a proper cup of tea instead of the cafeteria hot water tank nonsense that makes for adequate coffee ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618/83 "2010-11-06T06:46:23Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > You could readily posit the case that the industrial revolution was delayed, after all , there is no particular definition of it being late or early. > > We could argue that many of the scientific investigation tools were available far sooner, however having theroretical tools and a practical means, along with a genuine purpose are not the same thing. > > In between we could argue that city states did not have the critical mass to develop international scales of industry, or that demand was too low, and that break ups of empires and conglomeration of city states were also essential, even if only to ensure a set of standards that were widespread enough to make transmission of knwoledge possible, so that language and literacy had to have enough practitioners to generate the intellectual capacity. > > We could also argue that the dead hand of organised religion, especially in Europe, but you might consider China, pretty much stopped the scientific method due simply to dogma. > > The thing is, that none of these arguments rely on genetics, if you were going to debate that IR was somehow dependant upon genetics, then you are into the territory of master races - good luck in trying to explain that away. > > As for the idea that had the Industrial Revolution not ocurred in England, it would have happened elsewhere within a few hundred years is not what I call evidence, that is just sheer speculation.We tend to seperate out the industrial revolution in a convenient timescale, when it is part of a continuum of development, we could attribute any organised collective production to the beginnings of inductrialisation, and that could include building the Medieval Cathedrals as this was a massive undertaking. > > The expansion of agricultural production was based upon observation and experimentation and this continued throughout all the period of IR and continues through to today, we have just arbitarily decided what is industrial and what is not, yet the mass production of ale, or of cloth, or even of flints is still industrial activity. > > Before the accepted period of industrial revolution, there was no incentive to change and it was not until capitalism began to rise that the idea of increasing the size of markets for goods came into being - prior to this it had been accepted that markets were finite and the only way to expand was to take from someone elses markets - a zero sum game. Industrialisation changed all that, all of a sudden the name of the game was growth and expansion, now you can create wealth not by waiting for demand, you can now create and stimulate demand - you can expand the economy. > > None of this relies upon genetics. Genetics are a necessary, but not sufficient condition. And slight increases in the frequency of certain traits could have been significant. That argument is set out in chapter on ‘consequences of agriculture’ from ‘the 10,000 Year Explosion’ mentioned above. I think the google books version of the chapter starts from p101 onwards. > **[The 10,000 Year Explosion](https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=VrpUh0rRYvsC&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=the%2BIndustrial%2BRevolution%2Bthe%2B10,000%2Byear%2Bexplosion&source=bl&ots=qTW2Zm1LBc&sig=vrjZYQEuyQgofpEhYiLQyw0iMsI&hl=en&ei=PPfUTJ-KOJK0sAP7-YSNCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result)** > > Resistance to malaria. Blue eyes. Lactose tolerance. What do all of these traits have in common? Every one of them has emerged in the last 10,000 years. Scientists have long believed that the "great leap forward" that occurred some 40,000 to 50,000... ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618/84 "2010-11-06T11:08:58Z")
Well its quite a stretch to look at the last 10000 years and from there select a relatively short period of perhaps 200 years and put it down to genetics. Choosing your data to suit your arguments is not really an argument at all. Now if you’d perhaps speculated why civilisation came about in the first place, thats very differant. Selective breeding has been understood for many years, heck, even the Egyptians practised it, but your premise seems to have been far narrower than that. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618/85 "2010-11-06T11:16:51Z")
Well its quite a stretch to look at the last 10000 years and from there select a relatively short period of perhaps 200 years and put it down to genetics. Choosing your data to suit your arguments is not really an argument at all. Now if you’d perhaps speculated why civilisation came about in the first place, thats very differant. Selective breeding has been understood for many years, heck, even the Egyptians practised it, but your premise seems to have been far narrower than that. This publication states that well established agricultural societies have little difficulty integrating new ideas and technologies, well we have plenty of evidence for that, since IR came from such sociteis, its a circular argument. So what? Lots if things in society are a matter of chance, for certain factors to come together at a particualr time, you could have readily argued that the spread of various plagues throughout Europe (and if you choose the spread of diseases carried by Europeans around the rest of the world) had a profound impact on civilisation. Just how far back and wha factors do you wish to consider? The development of cognitive facilities is partly dependant upon genetics, however a large part is about education in its widest sense, and quite where the boundaries lie is a matter that is still subject to debate. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618/86 "2010-11-08T16:37:17Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Ridley’s list, plus more specifically the gradual refinement of the steam engine, allowing brute power to be concentrated and replace human labour. Also, remember that the steam engine was invented 2000 years ago in Egypt (Heron of Alexandria, I believe, built one), but it doesn’t seem to have been considered useful then when slave labor was so much cheaper, and overall lack of vision. In England of the early 19th century, with the rise of organized labor, mechanization was probably seeming like a better investment for business. ---
**Author:** ![psikeyhackr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@psikeyhackr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psikeyhackr)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618/87 "2010-11-14T19:53:06Z")
Well there is the problem of advanced civilizations having existed before. > **[Antikythera mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism)** > > The Antikythera mechanism (/ˌæntɪˈkɪθɪərə/ AN-tih-KIH-ther-ə) is an Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery, described as the oldest known example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It could also be used to track the four-year cycle of athletic games which was similar to an Olympiad, the cycle of the ancient Olympic Games. > This artefact was among wreckage retrieved from a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera in 1901. On... What is the explanation for that? psik ---
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618/88 "2010-11-15T21:05:18Z")
> [@psikeyhackr](#): > > Well there is the problem of advanced civilizations having existed before. > > [Antikythera mechanism - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism) > > What is the explanation for that? > > psik What problem? Don’t confuse technological sophistication with the industrial revolution. The Antikythera mechanism was a a marvel of mechanical construction but it had no impact on ancient society as a whole. Several ancient civilisations had the ability to make complex mechanisms and others had the ability to organise large scale labour in mechanised factories - check out Roman water powered foundries - but they did not amount to an “industrial revolution”. “Industrial Revolution” is not specifically about scientific progress, factories, canals, steam power, or railways - although all of them helped to push it along - the Industrial Revolution was about a self sustaining positive feedback in the growth of capital. Profits from the agricultural revolution reinvested in transport infrastructure, leading to further profits to invest in new and expanding industries (such as cotton), leading to further reinvestment and expansion, and so on in an upward spiral. Why Britain in the eighteenth century and nowhere else? Historians are still arguing about this with no sign of a definitive answer but most of the recognised factors have been mentioned in one or more of the posts - efficient capital markets, strong property laws and stable government, a reasonably open propertied class without to much prejudice against “trade”, a general belief in progress, rising population and improving agriculture able to feed an industrial workforce, etc., etc. ps Sorry to come in on what is a slightly zombied thread! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-it-take-so-long-for-the-industrial-revolution/558618.md?page=4)