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Was The Industrial Revolution in England Inevitable
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a rapid economic growth took place in England, what is now called ¡®the industrial revolution¡¯. It gave rise to a sustained increase in the rate of the growth of the output of goods and services. The population also increased in a rather high rate. And a lot of men engaged in agriculture were converted into workers. ¡®This conversion, which has been described generally as industrialization, has vastly increased the resources available to mankind and has allowed (perhaps caused) a population explosion¡¯ (R.M.Hartwell). England was brought into a world of much faster economic growth. And the whole world was brought from a world of agriculture into a world of industry.
For its obvious importance, either historians or economists made great efforts to explain why the industrial revolution occurred. It was not an easy task to take. Many factors related to growth interacted. There was not an explicit model of growth to explain the occurrence of the industrial revolution. Some people thought the industrial revolution occurred by chance. But it is not true. We must take the industrial revolution as a part of the whole long history to discover why it took place at that time at that place.
First of all, the industrial revolution didn¡¯t occur by accident. It had been prepared for at least two centuries before it broke out. ¡®Large-scale enterprise under capitalistic conditions existed from at least the sixteenth century ¡¯(H.Heaton 1933). The changes in technique were ¡®the completion of tendencies which had been significantly evident since Leonardo Da Vinci¡¯ (Usher). The developments between 1760 and 1830 ¡®did but carry farther, though on a far greater scale and with far greater rapidity, changes which had been proceeding long before¡¯ (Ashley). Increased savings from commerce and agriculture formed the original capital accumulations. Low interest rates and increased investment in transport gave strong support to the industrial revolution. So the industrial revolution just happened in the way, which it should be.
Secondly, the expansion of foreign trade and domestic consumption played a very important role in the development of the industrial revolution. ¡®Obviously the factory system within its complicated industrial mechanism can not function profitably without a large and growing demand ready and willing to absorb its products as fast as they are produced¡¯ (Elizabeth Waterman Gilboy 1932).
In the domestic market, increasing population and rising real income had increased demand ¡®beyond the limits which the traditional forms of industry could supply¡¯ (W.Bowden & E.W.Gilboy. Witt. Bowden). Besides that, the innovations in technology made the prices of traditional commodities much cheaper, it also stimulated greater demands.
British trade grew rapidly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: ¡®the European demand expanded; the American colonists provided a growing market for textile and hardware; the door into the Spanish possessions was forced wider open; while Africa, the West Indies, and the Orient provided good markets and profitable materials for [next page]