How could the world skip the industrial age?
- Thread starter NapoleonXIV
- Start date
It would be interesting to consider the social and economic effects of this decentralised industrialisation.
One of the major social upheavels of our Industrial Revolution was the crushing of the traditional, small workshop producing manufactured goods, the ending of the Master/Journeyman employment system, and the rapid urbanisation resulting in massive 19th century industrial cities.
This also of course led to the centralisation of capital markets and the emergence of large corporations dominating manufacturiing.
But an electrical industrial revolution could conceivably follow a different path, resulting in a different industrial society and different form of capitalism.
Large firms might be very rare, most production coming from small, local, sepcialised family businesses that sub-contract with each other.
Fewer larger cities and greater suburbanisation.
More even industrial and economic development (no North/South split).
Little development of socialist or communist ideology.
Less powerful central government and more localism.
One of the major social upheavels of our Industrial Revolution was the crushing of the traditional, small workshop producing manufactured goods, the ending of the Master/Journeyman employment system, and the rapid urbanisation resulting in massive 19th century industrial cities.
This also of course led to the centralisation of capital markets and the emergence of large corporations dominating manufacturiing.
But an electrical industrial revolution could conceivably follow a different path, resulting in a different industrial society and different form of capitalism.
Large firms might be very rare, most production coming from small, local, sepcialised family businesses that sub-contract with each other.
Fewer larger cities and greater suburbanisation.
More even industrial and economic development (no North/South split).
Little development of socialist or communist ideology.
Less powerful central government and more localism.
I'm skeptical that such a blindspot could last much into the 20th century. Concepts of industrial efficiency, management, and efficiencies of scale would become apparent.
I think it's more likely that without the press for centralised, large companies the financial and legal framework that supports them would be underdeveloped, thus further delaying and hindering their emergence.
Therfore the primary difference would be that large firms are slower to emerge and fewer in number, rather than almost completely absent.
The logic of market competition is going to produce the same pressures and the same results. It's just that without steam technology to set the scene, the economic pressures for large firms are going to hit later on and face tougher resistance.
The only problem with having an industrial revolution powered by electricity rather than coal and oil is - where does all the electricity come from? Sure, you can get a lot of power from rivers and wind, but water and wind still can't generate nearly as much electrical power on a worldwide scale as burning fossil fuels.
Max Sinister
Banned
That's the question - WI non-fossile sources of electricity had been consequently developed? Tidal power plants, geothermal energy, (does nuclear energy count?), solar energy of course... Better management of energy would help too.
I wonder; are we overestimating the changes? Urbanization began before extensive use of the steam engine.
Why these? Thinking of the north south split, there were plenty of sites for coal mines and steel mills in the south; Birmingham, Alabama springs to mind.
And you'd think that government would still be involved in economic development; it was in the 1790s in America, and that was before we were using steam engines.
Come to think of it, is this a major change? I mean, you've gotta locate your factorie snear places whee there's a way to power your generator; in this case, water.
Hrmm. I wonder if America leads the way in the development of mass production, even moreso than OTL? In America, you didn't really have people spending part of the time farming, and part of the time working in workshops; farming was productive enough to be the main occupation.
"rmm. I wonder if America leads the way in the development of mass production, even moreso than OTL? In America, you didn't really have people spending part of the time farming, and part of the time working in workshops; farming was productive enough to be the main occupation."
Maybe my brains just fizzled right now, but I can't quite see how the one leads to the other... Do you mean that that frees up nonfarmers for all-day work?
Maybe my brains just fizzled right now, but I can't quite see how the one leads to the other... Do you mean that that frees up nonfarmers for all-day work?
Yes, but to a quite small extent. It was industrialisation that led to urbanisation on a large scale.
I mean the British North/South divide between the industrial cities of the North and the financial and administrative centres in the South.
This is just me harnessing the Aether, but...
Here's my thinking.
You see a lot of workships in England where people can sorta just plug a generator in and use it to increase productivity. So, no major changes.
OTOH, America's industrial base starts from scratch, with people who go straight into industry, whereas in much of Europe (I'm thinking France, not sure if it was true in England) you often had people shifting between factory work and farming.
So I'm wondering if America will be one of the first nations where people start working in industries year round.
This doesn't make any sense, does it?
This is hard to picture...
Are we really just skipping the age here, and not really skipping industrialization? If so, I could see it, but if we're skipping industrialization, I don't see microchips ever happening. It's a bit far-fetched to imagine a master and his apprentice integrated circuit maker working together in a shop with it's own built in clean room?) to fabricate silicon wafers.
How does miniaturization arise, not to mention mass production?
If it is just the "age" that is skipped, it really seems like just a slower industrial revolution based on clean energy. I think you can't just get there by having some brilliant guy discover something earlier, and having that cause a "Great Man Domino Effect". You'd probably want a greater respect for the environment from an earlier point, I believe, if nothing else. Perhaps if wind/watermills are made more efficient and the steam engine is drastically delayed, that would help too.
Are we really just skipping the age here, and not really skipping industrialization? If so, I could see it, but if we're skipping industrialization, I don't see microchips ever happening. It's a bit far-fetched to imagine a master and his apprentice integrated circuit maker working together in a shop with it's own built in clean room?) to fabricate silicon wafers.
How does miniaturization arise, not to mention mass production?
If it is just the "age" that is skipped, it really seems like just a slower industrial revolution based on clean energy. I think you can't just get there by having some brilliant guy discover something earlier, and having that cause a "Great Man Domino Effect". You'd probably want a greater respect for the environment from an earlier point, I believe, if nothing else. Perhaps if wind/watermills are made more efficient and the steam engine is drastically delayed, that would help too.
I've been meaning to post in this thread for a while now... didn't realize how long it's been.
I think Max's idea makes for the most interesting ATL world:
Regarding my previous post, I've thought of some ideas regarding miniaturization and mass production. Both miniaturization and mass production depend on standardization of weights, measures, specifications, etc. I think it might be possible to get this sort of standardization to occur despite a lack of mass production (due to the lack of large centralized power sources). It would probably occur as an outgrowth of increased communication.
People who can talk to each other but can't travel easily to each other's location might be more willing to share business knowledge (I may be wrong here, but I'll go with it for now). So, the development of replaceable parts could occur as specifications for individual pieces of an assembly are posted online (or earlier on, transmitted over wire). There will still be competition between standards, but the best designs will win out due to ease of use, ease of duplication, and of course quality.
Things like open source would perhaps catch on sooner, as there is only so much money to be made selling something locally, and the benefits of your design becoming the standard worldwide would possibly outweigh the costs of losing sales in places where shipping costs inhibit profitability anyway. The earliest forms of this sort of information sharing will probably occur between two nearby towns wishing to connect to each other via telegraph... in order to do so, they need to use the same voltage across wires, same code books, same interface design, etc. Ergo, a standard is born as soon as a technology is born.
In this sort of world, something like a "Browning Automatic Rifle" would refer to a rifle built to specifications originally published by Browning, rather than necessarily to a rifle built by Browning's company.
Now let's discuss that master Integrated Circuit maker and his apprentice I posited in my previous post. I now believe that the master/journeyman system probably goes away before IC's are developed, due to increased availability of knowledge. Closely guarded guild craftsman's secrets of the trade are steadily eroded in favor of worldwide standards, not due to the rise of manufacturing and government control as IOTL but rather due to the rise of communication allowing knowledge from faraway places to be as accessible as local knowledge (if not moreso because it is not as tightly gaurded).
I imagine especially journeymen and apprentices will be willing to communicate with each other over long distances in order to further their own learning and careers more quickly than they would be able to otherwise. Pretty soon, guilds start to lose power and are eventually, gradually, replaced, not by corporations and trade unions, but by online communities, tertiary education, even do-it-yourself learning.
I think Max's idea makes for the most interesting ATL world:This would just be a brilliant idea for a timeline, story, or what have you. We're starting to see some of the ideas in OTL that might crop up earlier in such a world... video conferencing, electronic funds transfer, MMORPGs, etc. In a world where you have to be pretty adventurous to leave your home nation, let alone travel across a continent or ocean, virtual meetups become much more attractive.
Regarding my previous post, I've thought of some ideas regarding miniaturization and mass production. Both miniaturization and mass production depend on standardization of weights, measures, specifications, etc. I think it might be possible to get this sort of standardization to occur despite a lack of mass production (due to the lack of large centralized power sources). It would probably occur as an outgrowth of increased communication.
People who can talk to each other but can't travel easily to each other's location might be more willing to share business knowledge (I may be wrong here, but I'll go with it for now). So, the development of replaceable parts could occur as specifications for individual pieces of an assembly are posted online (or earlier on, transmitted over wire). There will still be competition between standards, but the best designs will win out due to ease of use, ease of duplication, and of course quality.
Things like open source would perhaps catch on sooner, as there is only so much money to be made selling something locally, and the benefits of your design becoming the standard worldwide would possibly outweigh the costs of losing sales in places where shipping costs inhibit profitability anyway. The earliest forms of this sort of information sharing will probably occur between two nearby towns wishing to connect to each other via telegraph... in order to do so, they need to use the same voltage across wires, same code books, same interface design, etc. Ergo, a standard is born as soon as a technology is born.
In this sort of world, something like a "Browning Automatic Rifle" would refer to a rifle built to specifications originally published by Browning, rather than necessarily to a rifle built by Browning's company.
Now let's discuss that master Integrated Circuit maker and his apprentice I posited in my previous post. I now believe that the master/journeyman system probably goes away before IC's are developed, due to increased availability of knowledge. Closely guarded guild craftsman's secrets of the trade are steadily eroded in favor of worldwide standards, not due to the rise of manufacturing and government control as IOTL but rather due to the rise of communication allowing knowledge from faraway places to be as accessible as local knowledge (if not moreso because it is not as tightly gaurded).
I imagine especially journeymen and apprentices will be willing to communicate with each other over long distances in order to further their own learning and careers more quickly than they would be able to otherwise. Pretty soon, guilds start to lose power and are eventually, gradually, replaced, not by corporations and trade unions, but by online communities, tertiary education, even do-it-yourself learning.
Bill Cameron
Banned
Anyone give any thought to where the millions of kilometers of wire this timeline's electric generators, transformers, transmission lines, and motors require will come from?
Or where the measuring instruments that standardization and miniaturization require will come from?
Or how this timeline is going to cheaply make hundreds of thousands of parts accurately enough so that they are interchangeable?
Bill
Or where the measuring instruments that standardization and miniaturization require will come from?
Or how this timeline is going to cheaply make hundreds of thousands of parts accurately enough so that they are interchangeable?
Bill
Not to mention the power needed to smelt silicon, aluminum and countless different transition metals for the countless different steam punk artisans.
This gets into the whole tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the product thing. I suspect as group most individuals here have good to excellent historical/socialiology backround but don't have a clue as to how industry works or does things. Just my opinion
Bill Cameron
Banned
Kevin,
It happens to be my opinion too, and I've said as much as recently as this thread. The same "industrial illiteracy" is illustrated in the seemingly monthly threads dealing with Heron's "inventions", especially the aeolipile.
We live in a post-industrial world. Just as people became divorced from how their food is actually raised and processed when they moved from the farm to the city, people in the last quarter century have become divorced from how their goods are actually made as they've moved from manufacturing to service industries.
Shifts in education have a lot to do with it too. Shop, whether wood, metal, auto, or all three, and drafting were automatic parts of any boy's schooling in my day. That hasn't been true in decades sadly.
Bill
I'm fairly sure significant quantities of wire were produced in mills as early as the 1500s. I don't know how hard it would be to ramp up production of wire to levels that could support an "information age" without concurrent industrialization. Is wire something that can be made in many smaller facilities, or does mass production absolutely require more capital-intensive, larger facilities?
I'd have to assume they'd need enough to power arc furnaces, and this energy probably could only come from hydroelectric power without completely reverting back toward OTL and what is basically an "industrial age", with power coming from coal or oil.
Actually, we did have wood shop as a requirement in my high school, and I also took a (funnily enough) wiring/electric class, two technical drawing classes, and a CAD class. And I lived on a dairy farm, so I'm fairly versed in how food is raised and processed. Can't say any of that really helps me consider all the holes in my timeline ideas though. I took several history courses and none of those helps me a whole lot either. An ATL is a complete alternate world, it takes a lot of thought to even start to put together the basics, let alone these sorts of details, for what is basically just a passtime for me. But that's why we have you, right?
Bill Cameron
Banned
Rewster,
I'm definitely sure you're wrong.
Was wire made? Yes, in short lengths that contained varied thicknesses and were roughly spliced together.
Was wire made in the tens, hundreds, or thousands of meter lengths of fairly constant thickness and few splices you'll absolutely need for rotors and stators in motors and generators, not to mention transformer yokes? No.
First, google the term "economy of scale".
Second, check out this page I dug up to explain to you and others the technical difficulties associated with making large quantities of good wire at long lengths.
You need hundreds of meters of wire for one motor alone, wire that must be continuous in an electrical sense, wire that must not have a thickness that varies too greatly, wire that must not have too many splices, wire that you simply cannot produce by hand in the handicraft model you suggest.
Bill
Bright day
Atlanteans come out of hiding
Yeah. My initial thought was alien intervention.