As per the above question, what circumstances; politically, socially or culturally that could speed up the first and also the second industrial revolutions? What inventions need to come into existence in order for it to speed up tech advances for like 50 years or so?
Speeding up the industrial revolution?
- Thread starter Nicksplace27
- Start date
Really? Nothing? How about post-Napoleon there are actually some liberal reforms put in place in France and Spain instead of a complete victory for conservative Europe? Then the industrial revolution can have greater population pool to build from the bottom up instead of just being restricted to Britain.
Between 1776 and 1815, technology exchange between America and Britain was reduced to smatterings. The 19th century phase of the revolution, in OTL, would involve exchanges across the Atlantic. Now, can interaction between the US, France, Spain and other parts of Europe help the pool of technology? What I am saying is that a 20 year advance in 1810 could amount to a 50 year advance by 1870.
How about butterflying away the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars? I understand that they set back the modernisation of France at least 50 years.
Really, becuase I thought that the ancien regieme was a financial disaster and allowing it to continue in any capacity would seem somewhat counter productive if you wanted any decent government led science programs.
There was a long-running discussion/sortofTL in SHWI about a Roman "Commercial Revolution". The basic idea was that certain legal advances that were made during the Renaissance (allowing banks, stock exchanges and insurance) could have been made during the Roman Republic or Empire. The conditions were similar I guess.
Anyway, the guy who came up with the idea thought that the Commerical Revolution was what allowed the business conditions for the Age of Discovery, European colonialism, and the Industrial Revolution. Anyway, if these same advances were made under the Romans, then conditions would have been changed in such a way (the author thought) would create the conditions to start a Roman Industrial Revolution.
Even before the Roman Industrial Revolution, the realocation of labor would change the way the Roman Empire worked. The rise of a wealthy (and powerful) class of banking and merchant families could go into Roman offices and offer stability to the Empire. The logic seemed to be that with the changed economy would push stability- the banking interests would want peace, and would be in a position to push the constitutional changed necessary to ensure stability.
With political stability being pushed from the economic side the conditions for Roman Industrial Revolution would be there. The need for labor would draw in the Empire's barbarian neighbors. Imagine the Franks crossing the Rhine to work in Paris' factories. Or the Visigoths being recruited to work in Constantinople's iron forges.
Anyway, with all these advances, trade would also rise, and the Roman Empire would come into much closer contact with the East. Territorial expansion down the Red Sea, Alexandria as the greatest city of the Empire, as the port that brings Roman and Eastern goods together. Roman business interests spread across the East, perhaps defended with Roman Legion garrisons.
Anyway, it was an eternal Empire idea that relied not on anyone living or dying, but with an idea being able to come of age several centuries sooner.
Jaded_Railman
Banned
More slavery would just forestall the Revolution longer. It's quite arguable that the slave economy completely out-competing wage labor is one of the reasons Rome stagnated for so long.
Faeelin
Banned
Has anyone argued this since the 1960s?
I'm not sure how more slaves helps capital accumulation on the other hand, either.
Jaded_Railman
Banned
Well, wage laborers and the yeomanry. A primitive sort of division of labor developed on large Roman latifundias allowed them to out-compete the smaller free-holders and drive them into the cities to join the growing underclass. The process of destruction of Rome's yeomanry started with the Punic Wars but was continued by otherwise natural economic processes.
ninebucks
Banned
I think he means the more modern trans-Atlantic slave system rather than the Roman system. That certainly did allow a few people to accumulate huge amounts of capital, whilst the specific nature of its application, (plantation agriculture), made sure wage-labour in other parts of the world were unthreatened.
Vis a vis a Roman IR, the problem is metallurgy. Roman metals were too heavy to efficiently power a machine, or, if you did hammer them thinly enough to save weight, they'd be so flimsy that they would shatter under the necessary pressure. There'll be no Roman steampunk while all the machines are constantly prone to explosion.
Which isn't to say that a Roman commerical revolution isn't a fascinating POD on its own...
Less and Less Freedom as the Empire Went On
It's not understood widely just how nasty and anti-innovative the Late Roman Empire was. The Empire started with a quasi-open society and high tolerance, and ended as open as the Taliban. Freedoms that had vanished or were were reduced include religion, career, and speech.
The Catholic Church likes to tell us that bulk Muslim conversions were at the point of a sword; in fact, there was no choice for the ruled among the Roman Empire, and the Muslims did give them religious choices; mostly-free choice looks more plausible to me. The Late Empire gave their people few choices of any kind.
IMHO, the only likely way of having Rome get there first would be for it would to find a way for the Republic to be reformed enough to continue, or at least keeping Senatorial power in the Imperial foundation (hard because it threatened Imperial rule). I'm working on a different ATL in which another classical liberal state makes it to today, resulting in much faster invention rates.
For more on Imperial disadvantages, see a thread on Roman continuation to the present in which I recently went through Imperial stagnation in detail, here, laying down the line that the Empire couldn't still exist today.
Jaded_Railman wrote:
It's not understood widely just how nasty and anti-innovative the Late Roman Empire was. The Empire started with a quasi-open society and high tolerance, and ended as open as the Taliban. Freedoms that had vanished or were were reduced include religion, career, and speech.
The Catholic Church likes to tell us that bulk Muslim conversions were at the point of a sword; in fact, there was no choice for the ruled among the Roman Empire, and the Muslims did give them religious choices; mostly-free choice looks more plausible to me. The Late Empire gave their people few choices of any kind.
IMHO, the only likely way of having Rome get there first would be for it would to find a way for the Republic to be reformed enough to continue, or at least keeping Senatorial power in the Imperial foundation (hard because it threatened Imperial rule). I'm working on a different ATL in which another classical liberal state makes it to today, resulting in much faster invention rates.
For more on Imperial disadvantages, see a thread on Roman continuation to the present in which I recently went through Imperial stagnation in detail, here, laying down the line that the Empire couldn't still exist today.
Jaded_Railman wrote:
I can think of a much simpler explanation - can you think of any absolute monarchy that didn't also stagnate long? I can't.
Faeelin
Banned
This seems a bit circular, no? No industrialization because they didn't have the metallurgy that was part of the industrial package.
You can read the Late Empire, BTW, as a time of vigorous technological change (waterpower's proliferation, and application to things like lumber cutting); Intellectual fermentation (The City of God, tons of heresies everywhere, etc., and Social Change; you don't put laws on the books saying "Stay where you are!" unless people aren't.
boredatwork
Banned
For an earlier industrial revolution you'll need a few ingredients:
1. Funding for private inventors/enterprise - either patrons / trade wealth (the renaissance model), or some other source.
2. Base of skilled craftsmen - can come from wealthy towns (as per OTL), from monastic groups (almost happened several times OTL), or from some other source entirely.
3. High &/or rising labor costs not otherwise easily offset - here is where the conflict with slavery (or just high population feudalism, such as in China) kicks in -why invent a water mill (f'rex) when a dozen slaves/serfs/peasants are cheaper and simpler?
4. Motivation - IE: competition - one big driver of european innovation was the fact that it was broken up into a slew of rival polities, a unified and 'secure' China had no need to rock the boat.
5. The ability to pass along the benefits of invention to one's family/children - otherwise why take the risk?
6. A practical worldview - you need to combine the memes of "the world can be at least partially understood", "the world can be at least partially predicted", "the world can be improved", "humanity is the master of nature", and "risk of failure is acceptable, given a sufficient reward"
With those six, you have everything needed to initiate the stream of developments leading from traditional agricultural society to innovational industrial society.
Hold off the Viking attacks on Northern Europe and you might see it happen earlier there. Netherlands would be my best bet.
Break the threat of the arabs/ottomans/nafrican slave raiders in the med and you might see it happen as the natural next step of the renaissance. Change the worldview of the Indian statelets, or the byzantines, or the andalusian taifas and it could happen there.
Heck, break China up, and keep it broken for a few hundred years, and the industrial revolution could start along the yangtze or yellow rivers.
1. Funding for private inventors/enterprise - either patrons / trade wealth (the renaissance model), or some other source.
2. Base of skilled craftsmen - can come from wealthy towns (as per OTL), from monastic groups (almost happened several times OTL), or from some other source entirely.
3. High &/or rising labor costs not otherwise easily offset - here is where the conflict with slavery (or just high population feudalism, such as in China) kicks in -why invent a water mill (f'rex) when a dozen slaves/serfs/peasants are cheaper and simpler?
4. Motivation - IE: competition - one big driver of european innovation was the fact that it was broken up into a slew of rival polities, a unified and 'secure' China had no need to rock the boat.
5. The ability to pass along the benefits of invention to one's family/children - otherwise why take the risk?
6. A practical worldview - you need to combine the memes of "the world can be at least partially understood", "the world can be at least partially predicted", "the world can be improved", "humanity is the master of nature", and "risk of failure is acceptable, given a sufficient reward"
With those six, you have everything needed to initiate the stream of developments leading from traditional agricultural society to innovational industrial society.
Hold off the Viking attacks on Northern Europe and you might see it happen earlier there. Netherlands would be my best bet.
Break the threat of the arabs/ottomans/nafrican slave raiders in the med and you might see it happen as the natural next step of the renaissance. Change the worldview of the Indian statelets, or the byzantines, or the andalusian taifas and it could happen there.
Heck, break China up, and keep it broken for a few hundred years, and the industrial revolution could start along the yangtze or yellow rivers.