AHC: Earliest Industrial Revolution

It seems those three no's -- a wealthy, independent middle class, a commercial-driven economy, and the cost of mechanization being less than cost of hand labor -- can be consolidated. The first two can be summed up as "capitalism", "modern economy", or what have you, while the latter is more or less dependent on the other two pre-requisites (and others, naturally).

If this seems an acceptable summary, that would be an answer to the first question.

Modern capitalism, or some comparable economic system is probably needed (I'm no economist). Whatever equivalent economic model might allow those economic and social factors at the same time like British Capitalism did OTL.

In general you need to get that necessary Critical Mass of know-how, need, financing, demand, and motivation together to set off the "chain reaction".

Taking China -- or another East Asian nation if you rather -- as an example, the OP question is now: how could this country undergo the necessary economic revolution no later than Europe did OTL? (Under the assumption that the time from economic to industrial revolution is similar.)

China will be very hard to do, mostly for geopolitical and cultural reasons. The massive, all-encompassing centralized state and Confucian Celestial Order make getting many of the requisite socio-economic factors exceedingly hard to manage. You might need a major cultural overhaul somewhere in the middle ages, such as a more Mongolized China...but that has seriously difficult cultural inertia to overcome. I don't see a good way to do it. Maybe Hendrik might...

India is more likely with its many resources, crazy-diverse caste system (much potential for a wealthy, independent educated class somewhere in that), existant textile industries (they had the "cotton gin" centuries before Whitney), established trade networks, political rivavlries to spur competition, and such. The big problems there are the super-cheap labor and a cosmological view that does not lend itself to empirical thinking.

Japan may be your best Asian bet. Socio-politically it had many of the same factors going as Britain did in medieval times. The big killer is economic: merchants are held nearly as low as Eta (untouchables) in the social heirarchy. You need a good independent middle class that people won't shun. You could possibly butterfly Tokugawa and replace him with a Shogun more favorable to merchants such that bored peacetime Samurai start to invest time and capital into (or become) merchants and innovators ATL. After Japan ended its splendid isolation and saw the power of industry, these factors helped lead to OTL's rapid post-Meiji industrialization.
 
Geekis, I think you're right...

From the Last Samurai to the Battle of Tsushima is an astonishingly short time.

I vote Japan - the UK of the Orient.
 
Sounds like some good ol' Max Weber

(Not meant as a criticism, JTBC)

I'm basing this on the History of Technology classes I took and books I read, which Weber undoubtedly influenced. It's not necessarily religeous as a combination of social, political, cultural, and religion/cosmology. Frex it has been postulated that the Islamic view of God "recreating" the universe every day, possibly every moment, meaning that a second isn't necessarily a second from one second to the next, makes empiricism of measure more difficult to comprehend. Contrast Europe where the image of God as a "clockmaker" who built the world as a rational, fixed "machine" where a second is a second is a second from Alpha to Omega. China's case was argued as more bureaucratic: the unitary, all-encompassing power, aided by ancient Confucian traditions, kept much of the learning, money, and power in centralized hands. A wealthy, independent middle class would be a threat to the Celestial Sovereinty, frex.



Serendipity -- that could mean, in a Nobunaga lives TL... :D

That would be the ripe time for such butterflies, IMO. ;)
 
Geekhis Khan, your point about the Muslims seems, IMHO, moot in light of the fact that Ibn-Al-Haytham about a millennium ago was actually the inventor of the scientific method.

One thing I do not understand why the Muslims of the Islamic Golden Age never adopted printing (though they made very limited use of it, see here), despite having regular contact with China, where it was prolific, and clearly having a roughly equivalently developed society as the latter.

Concerning China, from reading The Great Divergance, by Kenneth Pomeranz, it seems that there Europe only advanced ahead of China dramatically between 1750 and 1800, due to a few factors, some of them with the location of resources, but others having to do with the Qing Conquest Theory (which makes some sense to me (but which Pomeranz rejects), given what happened during the Yuan Dynasty). In the book, despite rejecting the Qing Conquest Theory, Pomeranz gives the example of the Kangxi Emperor's execution of a man for believing the brain and not the heart to be the centre of human intelligence, as well as noting that a battle in the First Opium War was only won by the Qing because they dug up old Ming cannon and ammunition.

By the way, I know a decent amount about the Indus Civilization and I think it would be fascinating had they industrialized; they did have a set standards in some areas, such as the assembly line and interchangeable parts, that would not be replicated until the 18th century CE in OTL.
 
It seems those three no's -- a wealthy, independent middle class, a commercial-driven economy, and the cost of mechanization being less than cost of hand labor -- can be consolidated. The first two can be summed up as "capitalism", "modern economy", or what have you, while the latter is more or less dependent on the other two pre-requisites (and others, naturally).

If this seems an acceptable summary, that would be an answer to the first question.

Taking China -- or another East Asian nation if you rather -- as an example, the OP question is now: how could this country undergo the necessary economic revolution no later than Europe did OTL? (Under the assumption that the time from economic to industrial revolution is similar.)

There's a circular effect. Capitalism requires middle class, which requires capitalism.

In order for China to break out of it's high level equilibrium trap it had to have more expensive labor. This required either labor shortage which would come either from population loss or greater wealth. Wealth can be created by either finding new sources of gold/silver, technological advances for extracting gold/silver, or increased trade in general. The more you trade the richer you get.

Europe had the benefit of these conditions from 16th century on. It's historically trade based economies had expanded from regional to global trade. There was access to New World gold and trade goods. Mercury almalgamation was invented for refining ore. Also the Black Death suppressed population for several centuries.

In comparison China did not have any of these conditions. It's an agricultural economy which grew based on expanding land under cultivation. Trade was of lesser importance and merchants ranked low in the social hierrachy. It did not discover a new world or develop more advanced gold/silver extraction technology. Although China did suffer it's own population crashes, these alone did not change the situation fundamentaly.
 
It's worth pointing out that industrialization was doing quite well for itself in Britain before the invention of a useful steam engine. That is, steam, and even coal, are quite irrelevant to the initiation of an industrial revolution - they are effects rather than causes. Instead what you really need are good reliable power sources - coal took over, and then oil, but wind and water were what started things off, and a great deal can be accomplished with them (even in fairly flat places like Britain).

Banks and financial markets must be present, and not simple ones either. The Harrapans were in fact nowhere near the level needed to invent the grandparents of the institutions needed for an IR. Tuscany circa 1100 is the earliest you saw much of the sort in Europe. Though certain at times the Chinese were there.

While you do need some level of urbanization, industry doesn't need to be in it. More important is that it has access to sizable markets - this makes industrialization tremendously difficult away from navigable waterways or high-quality, flat roads.

You do certainly need a truly advanced base of craftsmanship to start with. While it was technically possible to do much of the devises of the early IR in the early iron age, it really wasn't likely. They weren't good enough at fine detail work. Things were getting pretty good by the 1000s or so, especially if you don't focus on northern Europe.

More than anything, you need stability. The aforementioned Song might have pulled just this off except for war, and there's a fair argument the North Italians were on the verge as well before the peninsula was razed by combined action of French, Austrians, and Pope. I guarantee you it was the relative peace of England that allowed it to take the lead.
 
Oda said:
Geekhis Khan, your point about the Muslims seems, IMHO, moot in light of the fact that Ibn-Al-Haytham about a millennium ago was actually the inventor of the scientific method.

One thing I do not understand why the Muslims of the Islamic Golden Age never adopted printing (though they made very limited use of it, see here), despite having regular contact with China, where it was prolific, and clearly having a roughly equivalently developed society as the latter.

Well, you can argue with those who made that theory (it's not mine). I'm repeating what was said in my classes, which could easily be a standard Historian Excuse Answer, since no one wants to answer "I don't know" ;).

Of course your second point is a big one too, and further points to questions why Ibn al Haytham's work never really spurred such a "Scientific Revolution" in Islamic culture as it did later in Europe. Possibly it was a few men with a minority opinion never taken seriously by the over-culture or leaders. Possibly it was an economic thing and lacked the proper socio-economic environment to thrive. ("I don't know" ;), no expert in the socio-economics of the Golden Age of Islam). Possibly the Mongols are the problem, as Islamic nations got way more isolationist and suspicious of new ideas after that, in which case maybe Snake is on the mark and we just need a longer-lived Caliphate for an Islamic industrial Revolution!


It's worth pointing out that industrialization was doing quite well for itself in Britain before the invention of a useful steam engine. That is, steam, and even coal, are quite irrelevant to the initiation of an industrial revolution - they are effects rather than causes. Instead what you really need are good reliable power sources - coal took over, and then oil, but wind and water were what started things off, and a great deal can be accomplished with them (even in fairly flat places like Britain).

Banks and financial markets must be present, and not simple ones either. The Harrapans were in fact nowhere near the level needed to invent the grandparents of the institutions needed for an IR. Tuscany circa 1100 is the earliest you saw much of the sort in Europe. Though certain at times the Chinese were there.

While you do need some level of urbanization, industry doesn't need to be in it. More important is that it has access to sizable markets - this makes industrialization tremendously difficult away from navigable waterways or high-quality, flat roads.

You do certainly need a truly advanced base of craftsmanship to start with. While it was technically possible to do much of the devises of the early IR in the early iron age, it really wasn't likely. They weren't good enough at fine detail work. Things were getting pretty good by the 1000s or so, especially if you don't focus on northern Europe.

More than anything, you need stability. The aforementioned Song might have pulled just this off except for war, and there's a fair argument the North Italians were on the verge as well before the peninsula was razed by combined action of French, Austrians, and Pope. I guarantee you it was the relative peace of England that allowed it to take the lead.

Great points, Admiral!

Yes, there already was "industry" in Europe prior to steam power. In fact, most of the first steam factories got their manufacturing technology, processes, and organization from earlier water-driven or wind-driven factories. The Dutch had quite advanced "industry" via wind power in the 15th C. The real advantage of steam engines was their transportability: power to go! Instead of having to transport the goods from the mills to the shipping points over canals or bad roads you could build the mill right there in the port.

Now, England offered all of those "perfect storm" factors for a true Industrial Revolution: the population, industry, education, wealth, resources, technology, security...all there in one package. They all played off of each other in an autocatalytic manner to spawn OTL's amazing, almost imediate changes.

Now, with some of these factors in place but not others we probably see a more gradual Industrial Evolution where new technologies appear and slowly diseminate into other areas, but not in the OTL autocatalytic way. Slower technological growth, which may be the path we could expect in our Asian Industry scenario. Frex Shurik, wolf_brother and I are working on a TL where the steam engine appears in the HRE earlier than OTL and becomes a helpful tool for small shops, but with the massive clusterf- of the political-economic situation there's never that immediate transformative effect Britain's IR did OTL. Eventually someone will figure out other uses for the thing, but certainly no massive textile mills poping up in Madgeburg any time soon.
 
The Caliphates, I think, suffer the same impediment to industrialization as classical civilization- widespread use of slave labor. Would I be incorrect?
 
The Caliphates, I think, suffer the same impediment to industrialization as classical civilization- widespread use of slave labor. Would I be incorrect?

Yes and no, IIRC (any experts on Islam reading this?). Weren't most of the Islamic slaves "House Slaves" rather than "Field" ones? If so the Roman model doesn't necessarily work since there isn't the same massive cheap labor pool. Again, I could be wrong here.
 
Yes and no, IIRC (any experts on Islam reading this?). Weren't most of the Islamic slaves "House Slaves" rather than "Field" ones? If so the Roman model doesn't necessarily work since there isn't the same massive cheap labor pool. Again, I could be wrong here.

Not really. Slaves were a much smaller component than in Classical Greece or Rome.

It was more that they had the same issues that the Ottomans had. Namely, they lacked water. That translated into both a much smaller agricultural surplus than in Europe (so less surplus labor for crafts [proto-industrialization]) and less ease of transport (so few places could get goods to significant markets). There were many other problems - including the lack of a large mercantile in Egypt - which was after all the obvious exception to the whole water issue.
 
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