Explaining the first Industrial Revolution: two views

Abstract

This review essay looks at the recent books on the British Industrial Revolution by Robert Allen and Joel Mokyr. Both writers seek to explain Britain's primacy. This paper offers a critical but sympathetic account of the main arguments of the two authors considering both the economic logic and the empirical validity of their rival claims. In each case, the ideas are promising but the evidence base seems in need of further support. It may be that eventually these explanations for British economic leadership at the turn of the nineteenth century are recognized as complementary rather than competing.

Twentieth Century Growth

“…Allen's hypothesis is prima facie plausible and theoretically defensible although more research is required to establish that it stands on really solid empirical foundations. For example, Crafts (2011) presents evidence suggesting that it may have been high machinery costs, rather than low wages, which impeded the adoption of the spinning jenny in France. Strikingly, it also appears that it would have been very profitable to invent and adopt the jenny in the high--wage United States.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2011

“…Allen's Tawney Lecture to the Economic History Society's annual conference in 2009 is reproduced in the Economic History Review and offers a comprehensive summary of his explanation for precocious British industrialization. Complementing Allen's article is Crafts's very useful review both of Allen's recent book, The British industrial revolution in global perspective , and Mokyr's Enlightened economy . After placing these works in broad historiographical context, Crafts evaluates the findings of the two authors, pointing out, in particular, where there is a need for further quantification to strengthen claims.…”

“…Complementing Allen's article is Crafts's very useful review both of Allen's recent book, The British industrial revolution in global perspective , and Mokyr's Enlightened economy . After placing these works in broad historiographical context, Crafts evaluates the findings of the two authors, pointing out, in particular, where there is a need for further quantification to strengthen claims. While offering a cogent critique of both books, Crafts acknowledges that they do provide valuable additions to the historiography and suggests that the two works may in time come to be seen as rather more complementary than their authors currently acknowledge.…”

Anonymity, efficiency wages and technological progress

“…However, the precise nature of the links between the Commercial Revolution and the Industrial Revolution has remained unclear. Furthermore, it must be emphasized that an older view that saw wages rising only in response to higher productivity resulting from technological progress, which was prevalent amongst a previous generation of economic historians, can no longer be sustained in the presence of the overwhelming evidence that Britain was already a high wage economy before the Industrial Revolution (Crafts, 2011;Allen, 2009;Mokyr, 2009). …”