Roman industrial revolution

While the days of the Roman Empire in the popular consciousness are considered for the time development of European civilization, in fact, it was a time of technological stagnation. The reason was the nature of the Roman economy based on slave labor. It made that technological innovations are unprofitable. In addition, political stability and population growth during the Pax Romana also not conducive to the development. In the Malthusian economy, such as the Roman, the average income of the people are always the same, because technological progress is so slow that it causes only population growth. So, war and epidemics in the economy, paradoxically, contributed to the increase in the standard of living (more natural resources for a single person). In this way, the Black Death was an impulse that pushed the economy of medieval Europe to capitalism and the industrial revolution. The increase in wages in England after the epidemic gave rise to the accumulation of capital, and on the other hand, triggered the demand for technological innovation. Had an equally large epidemic occurred in the Empire around 100 AC, it would give a similar effect?
 
There are many possible causes for the Industrial Revolution that go beyond just the Black Plague. One reason was the surplus of natural resources to be found in the American colonies of many European countries. This explains why many of the countries that were landlocked or who colonized last were the last to industrialize. Though there were countries like Spain who had large colonial empires but were too early (pre-1750) or too absolutist too industrialize. When you add a lack of worldwide colonies to provide resources and not enough scientific advancement that makes the possibly of a modern-scale industrial revolution very low.
 
There are many possible causes for the Industrial Revolution that go beyond just the Black Plague. One reason was the surplus of natural resources to be found in the American colonies of many European countries. This explains why many of the countries that were landlocked or who colonized last were the last to industrialize. Though there were countries like Spain who had large colonial empires but were too early (pre-1750) or too absolutist too industrialize. When you add a lack of worldwide colonies to provide resources and not enough scientific advancement that makes the possibly of a modern-scale industrial revolution very low.

Well, Hellenistic science was quite high, and in Roman times is not developed because there was no demand for inventions. Labor shortages and the rapid increase in wages can change.
 
Can't have an industrial revolution without fossil fuels, and fossil fuels are useless if you don't understand the gas laws that apply to the atmosphere.

I don't think slavery or absolutism is necessarily incompatible with industrialization, but you need real, deep scientific understanding to make more than trinkets.
 
Among other things, you need a middle class to buy third party goods in mass, property rights to reward innovation, a business class (educated, interested in commerce, but not traders), and you probably need little competition with slave labor.
 
Among other things, you need a middle class to buy third party goods in mass, property rights to reward innovation, a business class (educated, interested in commerce, but not traders), and you probably need little competition with slave labor.


A patent office would also help.

In a world without patent laws, the only way to profit from an invention was to keep it (or at least vital parts of it) a closely guarded secret. So as soon as a father died before getting the chance to instruct his son, the secret was apt to be lost. In such circs, it's no surprise that technical advance was glacially slow.
 
Can't have an industrial revolution without fossil fuels, and fossil fuels are useless if you don't understand the gas laws that apply to the atmosphere.

I don't think slavery or absolutism is necessarily incompatible with industrialization, but you need real, deep scientific understanding to make more than trinkets.


The disparity between North and South in the 19C would suggest that at the very least slavery didn't help.

As for absolutism, it is perhaps significant that the first countries to industrialise - Britain and Belgium - were both constitutional states, and the really absolute monarchies, like Russia and the Ottoman Empire, lagged way in the rear.
 

Oceano

Banned
Roman Industrialization doesn't seem believable to me.
I could buy Greek Industrialization, but Roman?! Nah.
 
Had an equally large epidemic occurred in the Empire around 100 AC, it would give a similar effect?
The Antonine Plague occurred. Then, a bit later, the Decian Plague. So, the answer to this question is no.

Can't have an industrial revolution without fossil fuels
I doubt that. An industrial revolution based on waterpower seems fairly doable to me. Waterpowered sawmills, oil presses, textile mills... there`s a lot of room for productivity development.

Among other things, you need a middle class to buy third party goods in mass, property rights to reward innovation, a business class (educated, interested in commerce, but not traders), and you probably need little competition with slave labor.

A patent office would also help. In a world without patent laws, the only way to profit from an invention was to keep it (or at least vital parts of it) a closely guarded secret. So as soon as a father died before getting the chance to instruct his son, the secret was apt to be lost. In such circs, it's no surprise that technical advance was glacially slow.
1. You don`t need a Roman Imperial patent office. Just look at how slowly innovation travelled even without such impediments in those times, which comes hardly as a surprise given the slowliness of any kind of travel in those days. The water-powered double sawmill at Hierapolis with crank and connecting rod was barely imitated throughout Anatolia, let alone the rest of the Roman Empire. The heavy plough was invented in Gaul and was barely copied for other suitable places like Noricum or Germania Inferior. So, no, no patent laws required.
2. I would argue that a business class existed and very much dominated Roman politics. Problem is, they did not conceive of their world as a fast-changing place where everything can be turned upside down. They rather assumed things would stay as they were. They valued land ownership, and although they loved to get richer and richer, they tended not to experiment a lot in the ways of new marketable products. So, no, even more of a business class won`t help.

As for slavery and a middle class, I think those are indeed important factors.
To them, we should add loads of artisan innovations from the Middle Ages upon which industrialisation IOTL built, and which the Romans did not yet possess. If you look at textile production only, there`s so much that had to happen before you could run a textile factory, that had nothing to do with who owned it or if there was coal and steam engines and a science of physics. I´m thinking of progress in carding and spinning as well as in looms. And it´s similar in other technological domains, too.

One conclusion could be to combine all these things into one solution:
Create an artisan middle class.

You wouldn`t even have to create it from nothing. It existed, but the conditions for its expansion were bad. If I wanted to write another Roman timeline with an industrialisation, I´d have to include this somehow.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
The best time for an industrial revolution is 13th century China, it was about 20 years from one. Then hey, hey, hey, here comes Genghis.

I don't think the social ideas were in place for a lasting IR in the Roman Empire, communications weren't very good, books were rare and expensive, no printing, severe limits on the movement of labour, population growth limited by excessive profits and insufficient wages, crap ships. Then there's massive political instability and constant danger to core territories.
 
Try Greece/the Hellenistic world.

Rather than having all your politicians be soldiers and your economy be based on a plunder economy (not good for industrial/scientific advances), you have a multitude of city states who are in continuous competition over everything. The Greeks managed to make poetry a competition!

Actually, all you really need is one fairly influential philosopher type to become interested and successful in empirical science (as opposed to natural philosophy). The earlier you go back, the easier it is, but let's start Classical for now.
Specifically, imagine a third 'successor' to Socrates. Whilst Plato was almost purely logic, Aristotle mixed in some empirical observation too - his disciple Theophrastus wrote the enormously influential History of Plants working from these ideas. So perhaps we can imagine either a contemporary of Aristotle at Plato's Academy or one of his students taking these ideas further - perhaps he even ends up in charge of Aristotle's Lyceum?

Such a personage (perhaps even Aristotle's son Nicomachus, who apparently died young? If a PoD gave him both the opportunity to survive whatever battle killed him and the impetus to seek to outdo his father in this new field...) could easily drag a new field of purely empirical science and experiments into the world, maybe he manages to make a few interesting things work... and then we get to Ptolemy's Musaeum. if our scientific fella (Nicomachus for convenience) either gets invited to teach there or just his ideas move across, you could very quickly have a dramatic upsurge.
 
The best time for an industrial revolution is 13th century China, it was about 20 years from one. Then hey, hey, hey, here comes Genghis.

I don't think the social ideas were in place for a lasting IR in the Roman Empire, communications weren't very good, books were rare and expensive, no printing, severe limits on the movement of labour, population growth limited by excessive profits and insufficient wages, crap ships. Then there's massive political instability and constant danger to core territories.
Please read The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama. It will enlighten you as to why that is a myth and why China was not going to have an industrial revolution. This China could have industrialized (and accomplished anything else apparently) mythos is popular on AH.com but utterly false.
 
The best time for an industrial revolution is 13th century China, it was about 20 years from one. Then hey, hey, hey, here comes Genghis.


Twenty years away from what, specifically?

FTM, about when would you say that Britain or Belgium was "twenty years away" from the IR?
 
Top