WI: The industrial revolution in Britain and the Netherlands could be delayed at the very beginning of the 19th century, when China and India each were still as much industrial powerhouses as the whole of Europe?
Without getting into specific POD yet, as my suggestion there is probably going to have some problems with it, my suggestion is that with wages lower and less access to foreign markets (and thus less incentive or ability to break into India's domination of the world textile market) there would be less of a push for greater automation (this coming from a POV regarding the industrial revolution that it was largely caused by the high wages in Britain and the Netherlands leading those countries to want to automate production more, leading them to develop better steam-engines, leading them to require more coal, leading them to require better steam-engines to drain the mines containing their large deposits of near-surface coal, and from there leading into the similarly linked/positive-feedback-looped development of the steel industry and rail networks). So less of a push for automation leads to less demand for coal leading to less access to coal because coal mines are being drained less efficiently.
With that out of the picture, and putting European imperialism of India and internal weakness of the Qing in China aside for a moment, the main frontiers for the industrial revolution in this leeway period (let's say 1800-1830 until things start to go similar to OTL's path of steam-engines and coal production in Britain and the Netherlands) would be things that in OTL were developed in the West but aren't really tied to any technological or industrial advantages:
- The improved shuttles used in hand manufacture of textiles, developed in Britain.
- Later, the assembly line and specialization of labor.
It strikes me that those are both things that could have been developed in India and China, improvements coming from traditional manufacture methods in a sort of gradual process of industrial natural-selection, and that those are both things that could semi-revolutionize industry even without access to greater sources of power in manufacturing like efficient steam-engines.
I picture assembly lines with conveyor belts powered by human or ox labor in China, and, well here is where things get a little more theoretical with India.
India dominated the textile market because its hand manufacture was productive enough where it didn't need to industrialize. However, if India's monopoly isn't challenged and hand-manufacture methods do gradually improve with new shuttles and so forth being developed in India, even without the desire to break into the market (which they already dominate) or the need to further automate because of high wages (wages would still be among the lowest in the world), I'm hoping it is not implausible or out of the blue that in the 1800-1830 leeway period here that the textile industry in India might see automation simply to produce more in order to keep profits high despite prices being low. This happened with agriculture in Britain between the 17th and 19th centuries, with low prices causing farmers to invest more on better tools and methods in order to increase yields and maximize profits, so I'm hoping it could happen with Indian textiles; so that by the end of our leeway period India has attached textile mills to wind and water mills, for a level of automation possible without the efficient steam-engine.
This could also be the result of the in this ATL Chinese developed assembly line process, or factorization in general, catching on in some of the Indian states.
Now to the controversial part, my suggestion for the POD that could suppress the industrial revolution in Britain and Hollande...
WI: French republican general Lazare Hoch's Expedition to Ireland did not get caught up in that storm, and was successful in assisting the United Irishmen (and perhaps a general Catholic rebellion as well spawned opportunistically once French soldiers are on Irish shores) and forming an Irish republic?
I see greater success of an ATL First Republic or ATL French Empire (I don't want to assume Nappy would still become Emperor with as big a POD as Hoch being successful, but we know from the Empire what military potential France had) allowing, just as in OTL, French domination of the Netherlands. Combine this with a French fleet stationed at the Republic of Ireland, and you have the trade and probably wages of both Britain and the Netherlands considerably suppressed until trade reform for French satellites in Europe and detente between Britain and France (or the collapse of this ATL First Republic or First Empire in France). Thus creating are 1800-1830 leeway period in which the steam-engine and the easily accessible coal of Britain and the Netherlands are not very well improved or exploited.
A period in which India develops the improved shuttle, China develops the assembly line, and both have by 1830 engaged in levels of automation of industry through wind and water mill produced mechanical power (with both not probably being adverse to man and ox powered assembly lines and other machinery either). And, just as importantly, a period in which the status quo of India, Europe, and China having similar outputs of manufactured goods, that was the OTL status quo of the year 1800, remains.
Now, as to colonialism as a factor in this...
Cursory research indicates that if Britain were to be curbstomped in an alt Napoleonic War, that the French seemed poised to replace the British backed weak Maratha leader with French-backed rebel Maratha chieftains. So a French empire in India. My thinking here is that weakness of the Royal Navy, what with a French fleet based in Ireland, leads to the East India Company getting royally screwed, with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the state of Bengal shaking off any foreign influence and assisting/capitalizing on anti-Company rebellions, perhaps inspired by the Polygar rebellions of a few decades earlier, in the main territory directly administrated by the EIC: The Madras Presidency. And instead of weak independent statelets, more or less the Madras Presidency getting divided among the Nizam and Bengal, at least in terms of influence among new Polygar local rulers.
Couple this with the rise of the Sikh Empire, perhaps capturing Delhi and overthrowing the powerless Mughal peshwa and getting the prestige of Delhi as their capital, and the Durrani Empire having a freer hand and you have an India that, even with a French empire in it, is free enough to make its own economic destiny rather than one that serves the industry of Europe.
As for China...
My initial thoughts are the Qing successfully being overthrown in the White Lotus revolutions of the turn of the century, with a new ethnically Han dynasty claiming the name of the Ming but really just being a new dynasty that isn't Manchu coming into power and seeking to capitalize on the grandiose legacy of Ming soft-power in the Pacific marketplace and feats of engineering (like the Treasure Fleet and the Great Wall).
Spinning off from the specific POD's I've suggested...
- If Ireland does become a Republic (or even later a Kingdom if Napoleon or someone else does make an alt French Empire), then perhaps Scotland might secede in the first half of the 19th century, with the many Enlightenment thinkers of that region leading to a republic founded on Enlightenment ideals, though with a lot more romanticism than the French First Republic I imagine.
- If France dominates the Netherlands and the Iberian peninsula, could we see the Dutch East Indies and the Spanish Philippines consolidated into the French East Indies?
- This POD doesn't butterfly away Eli Whitney being in America or having already proposed standardization of parts to a firearm manufacturer in a letter, so we can assume the cotton gin still happens in America. So America would also be poised to be on the forefront of the Little Industrial Revolution I'm proposing here.
In fact, let's point this out more thoroughly -
Essentially what I am proposing here is the suppression of wages and market access leading to less demand for automation in Britain and the Netherlands leading to a delay in the development of efficient steam engines and heavy exploitation of their easily accessible coal deposits that require better and better steam-engines to drain, thus requiring more and more coal. Suppressing that negative feedback loop that led to the steel industry getting big and to railroads, instead of that Big Industrial Revolution, led by Britain and the Netherlands, we get a Little Industrial Revolution:
The Little Industrial Revolution is led by India (developing the improved shuttle in textiles early on in this period), China (developing the assembly line and specialization of labor that combined is factory-style manufacturing), and America (developing the cotton gin and interchangeability of parts).
These advances are readily copied by Europe, nothing is preventing that from happening after all, but it are these regions that are the pioneers, the leading edges in them.
Without getting into specific POD yet, as my suggestion there is probably going to have some problems with it, my suggestion is that with wages lower and less access to foreign markets (and thus less incentive or ability to break into India's domination of the world textile market) there would be less of a push for greater automation (this coming from a POV regarding the industrial revolution that it was largely caused by the high wages in Britain and the Netherlands leading those countries to want to automate production more, leading them to develop better steam-engines, leading them to require more coal, leading them to require better steam-engines to drain the mines containing their large deposits of near-surface coal, and from there leading into the similarly linked/positive-feedback-looped development of the steel industry and rail networks). So less of a push for automation leads to less demand for coal leading to less access to coal because coal mines are being drained less efficiently.
With that out of the picture, and putting European imperialism of India and internal weakness of the Qing in China aside for a moment, the main frontiers for the industrial revolution in this leeway period (let's say 1800-1830 until things start to go similar to OTL's path of steam-engines and coal production in Britain and the Netherlands) would be things that in OTL were developed in the West but aren't really tied to any technological or industrial advantages:
- The improved shuttles used in hand manufacture of textiles, developed in Britain.
- Later, the assembly line and specialization of labor.
It strikes me that those are both things that could have been developed in India and China, improvements coming from traditional manufacture methods in a sort of gradual process of industrial natural-selection, and that those are both things that could semi-revolutionize industry even without access to greater sources of power in manufacturing like efficient steam-engines.
I picture assembly lines with conveyor belts powered by human or ox labor in China, and, well here is where things get a little more theoretical with India.
India dominated the textile market because its hand manufacture was productive enough where it didn't need to industrialize. However, if India's monopoly isn't challenged and hand-manufacture methods do gradually improve with new shuttles and so forth being developed in India, even without the desire to break into the market (which they already dominate) or the need to further automate because of high wages (wages would still be among the lowest in the world), I'm hoping it is not implausible or out of the blue that in the 1800-1830 leeway period here that the textile industry in India might see automation simply to produce more in order to keep profits high despite prices being low. This happened with agriculture in Britain between the 17th and 19th centuries, with low prices causing farmers to invest more on better tools and methods in order to increase yields and maximize profits, so I'm hoping it could happen with Indian textiles; so that by the end of our leeway period India has attached textile mills to wind and water mills, for a level of automation possible without the efficient steam-engine.
This could also be the result of the in this ATL Chinese developed assembly line process, or factorization in general, catching on in some of the Indian states.
Now to the controversial part, my suggestion for the POD that could suppress the industrial revolution in Britain and Hollande...
WI: French republican general Lazare Hoch's Expedition to Ireland did not get caught up in that storm, and was successful in assisting the United Irishmen (and perhaps a general Catholic rebellion as well spawned opportunistically once French soldiers are on Irish shores) and forming an Irish republic?
I see greater success of an ATL First Republic or ATL French Empire (I don't want to assume Nappy would still become Emperor with as big a POD as Hoch being successful, but we know from the Empire what military potential France had) allowing, just as in OTL, French domination of the Netherlands. Combine this with a French fleet stationed at the Republic of Ireland, and you have the trade and probably wages of both Britain and the Netherlands considerably suppressed until trade reform for French satellites in Europe and detente between Britain and France (or the collapse of this ATL First Republic or First Empire in France). Thus creating are 1800-1830 leeway period in which the steam-engine and the easily accessible coal of Britain and the Netherlands are not very well improved or exploited.
A period in which India develops the improved shuttle, China develops the assembly line, and both have by 1830 engaged in levels of automation of industry through wind and water mill produced mechanical power (with both not probably being adverse to man and ox powered assembly lines and other machinery either). And, just as importantly, a period in which the status quo of India, Europe, and China having similar outputs of manufactured goods, that was the OTL status quo of the year 1800, remains.
Now, as to colonialism as a factor in this...
Cursory research indicates that if Britain were to be curbstomped in an alt Napoleonic War, that the French seemed poised to replace the British backed weak Maratha leader with French-backed rebel Maratha chieftains. So a French empire in India. My thinking here is that weakness of the Royal Navy, what with a French fleet based in Ireland, leads to the East India Company getting royally screwed, with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the state of Bengal shaking off any foreign influence and assisting/capitalizing on anti-Company rebellions, perhaps inspired by the Polygar rebellions of a few decades earlier, in the main territory directly administrated by the EIC: The Madras Presidency. And instead of weak independent statelets, more or less the Madras Presidency getting divided among the Nizam and Bengal, at least in terms of influence among new Polygar local rulers.
Couple this with the rise of the Sikh Empire, perhaps capturing Delhi and overthrowing the powerless Mughal peshwa and getting the prestige of Delhi as their capital, and the Durrani Empire having a freer hand and you have an India that, even with a French empire in it, is free enough to make its own economic destiny rather than one that serves the industry of Europe.
As for China...
My initial thoughts are the Qing successfully being overthrown in the White Lotus revolutions of the turn of the century, with a new ethnically Han dynasty claiming the name of the Ming but really just being a new dynasty that isn't Manchu coming into power and seeking to capitalize on the grandiose legacy of Ming soft-power in the Pacific marketplace and feats of engineering (like the Treasure Fleet and the Great Wall).
Spinning off from the specific POD's I've suggested...
- If Ireland does become a Republic (or even later a Kingdom if Napoleon or someone else does make an alt French Empire), then perhaps Scotland might secede in the first half of the 19th century, with the many Enlightenment thinkers of that region leading to a republic founded on Enlightenment ideals, though with a lot more romanticism than the French First Republic I imagine.
- If France dominates the Netherlands and the Iberian peninsula, could we see the Dutch East Indies and the Spanish Philippines consolidated into the French East Indies?
- This POD doesn't butterfly away Eli Whitney being in America or having already proposed standardization of parts to a firearm manufacturer in a letter, so we can assume the cotton gin still happens in America. So America would also be poised to be on the forefront of the Little Industrial Revolution I'm proposing here.
In fact, let's point this out more thoroughly -
Essentially what I am proposing here is the suppression of wages and market access leading to less demand for automation in Britain and the Netherlands leading to a delay in the development of efficient steam engines and heavy exploitation of their easily accessible coal deposits that require better and better steam-engines to drain, thus requiring more and more coal. Suppressing that negative feedback loop that led to the steel industry getting big and to railroads, instead of that Big Industrial Revolution, led by Britain and the Netherlands, we get a Little Industrial Revolution:
The Little Industrial Revolution is led by India (developing the improved shuttle in textiles early on in this period), China (developing the assembly line and specialization of labor that combined is factory-style manufacturing), and America (developing the cotton gin and interchangeability of parts).
These advances are readily copied by Europe, nothing is preventing that from happening after all, but it are these regions that are the pioneers, the leading edges in them.