I came across an interesting blog post today: https://growthecon.com/blog/When-Growth/
The author argues that economic history research suggests that in Western Europe wage growth starting around 1650 not late in the 19th century as is commonly held. This argument is based around the idea that previous studies of consumption made incorrect assumptions about amounts of compensated work and the type of compensation (we should pay less attention to money and more to in kind payments).
This strikes me as ideas that would drastically alter my understanding of history if true. It would suggest that the industrial revolution was not the thing that produced a virtuous economic cycle but was rather the product of a virtuous economic cycle already in progress. The 1600s simply do not have any remotely plausible mechanical inventions for an economic transformation like with the steam engine at the start of the 19th century. Perhaps economic growth was due to the availability of new crops? Perhaps better economics from the cultural changes in Europe at the time?
Some random thoughts of things that could relate:
Temin's research on the Roman empire suggests that there was a sustained increase in consumption during the Pax Romana until the crisis of the 3rd century. So this could be a repeated pattern of pre-mechanical societies having growth.
This would do away with the strange paradox of why western Europe was apparently so poor compared to China but still had enough surplus to make such massive expenditures.
It's frequently noted that social unrest doesn't come from people who have never known prosperity, it comes from people who knew prosperity then lost it. The american and french revolutions could fit into this paradigm if in fact the rise in living standards predated those revolutions not post-dated them.
The relative abundance of 17th century artifacts could be not just because they had less time to be lost but also because there was more handicrafts being made then in previous centuries.
If this hypothesis is true it could change the answer to the question "could ancient Rome or Tang China or whereever have started the industrial revolution?" It could be that they in fact were several centuries into the economic transition but were derailed.
The author argues that economic history research suggests that in Western Europe wage growth starting around 1650 not late in the 19th century as is commonly held. This argument is based around the idea that previous studies of consumption made incorrect assumptions about amounts of compensated work and the type of compensation (we should pay less attention to money and more to in kind payments).
This strikes me as ideas that would drastically alter my understanding of history if true. It would suggest that the industrial revolution was not the thing that produced a virtuous economic cycle but was rather the product of a virtuous economic cycle already in progress. The 1600s simply do not have any remotely plausible mechanical inventions for an economic transformation like with the steam engine at the start of the 19th century. Perhaps economic growth was due to the availability of new crops? Perhaps better economics from the cultural changes in Europe at the time?
Some random thoughts of things that could relate:
Temin's research on the Roman empire suggests that there was a sustained increase in consumption during the Pax Romana until the crisis of the 3rd century. So this could be a repeated pattern of pre-mechanical societies having growth.
This would do away with the strange paradox of why western Europe was apparently so poor compared to China but still had enough surplus to make such massive expenditures.
It's frequently noted that social unrest doesn't come from people who have never known prosperity, it comes from people who knew prosperity then lost it. The american and french revolutions could fit into this paradigm if in fact the rise in living standards predated those revolutions not post-dated them.
The relative abundance of 17th century artifacts could be not just because they had less time to be lost but also because there was more handicrafts being made then in previous centuries.
If this hypothesis is true it could change the answer to the question "could ancient Rome or Tang China or whereever have started the industrial revolution?" It could be that they in fact were several centuries into the economic transition but were derailed.
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