Why the west was the first to industrialize?

They are a hell of a lot smarter than people where you come from, dickweed. Clearly, whatever ethnic background you are from is made up of ******* dicks.

They aren't pricks?

Disregarding the rising tide of sectarian fist fighting, Ive always had the sanme question about how the West was "Smart enough" to get a head start on all the effort that resulted in what we all call an "Industrial Revolution".
Part of the answer is our own ethnocentric views of everything and our own ignorance of what actually occurs in the rest of the world at any time in the development of various civilizations.

Rondo Cameron has posited that the growth of "an industrial state" was caused by the interaction of RESOURCES,GEOGRAPHY,TECHNOLOGY, and INSTITUTIONS. The British and estern European models rely heavily upon the gradual devotion of people skills to non-agricultural activities in the early 17th century.

Things like concentrations of power enabled several activities like larger scale wood cutting, grain milling , and wool carding began in Europe because of GEOGRAPHY. There are more "FALL ZONES" in the European subcontinent and in Britain than in all other regions(save the US). Fall zones are natural topographic breaks that have topo breaks and water falls that allowstreams to be either used directly as power or to allow small dams to be constructed for undershot wheels to be positioned. Water wheels, not a European invention, were quickly adapted to the unique Unique European topography and water rich environment that allowed concentrations of power to spur inventions that relied on stationary power sources.
In the early 17th century, water wheels were being used to mine Cornwall tin. These water wheels were then adapted to inventions for other uses like fine milling, fibre processing etc. These became big deals of the early 18th century and beyons.
Devotion of more and more time to non ag inventionswas an evolutionary thing that standing power sources wre responsible for.
Britain fiber processing was basd on wool until the development of water powered machinery like Arkwrights water frame and carders and Cromptons spinning mule took wool spinning took all fiber industries beyond a cottage effort and also got the Brits into production of lrge amounts of cotton fabric. Wool began to take a last place to mpore desirable cotton from trade and conquest

In the meatls industry Quality of products had really little to do with whether an industry flourished . The smelting of iron had been well= known from a mideaval activity called "Iron Bloomery" where ores and fluxes were all piled into a pit fire and the metal reaction of oxidation and adsorption of silicates led to a low grade hunk of spongy iron called "Bloom" The iron was chemically known as "fayalite" which was mostly an iron silicate.
It produced metal tools of various quality (and always subject to breakage becase of all the silica). Iron bloomery was a trick that europeans got from the Levant where bronze was made (but strategic supplies o f tin could be held from the market at its source (ENGLAND) Bronze was ok but not for a reliable hard metal that was durable, Iron was long recognized as the king
Since high quality bronze had always required the tin ore from Cornwall (This stuff was traded with the Romans from day one since the ores at Cyprus were pretty much depleted in the early Bronze age). People discovered that the two part smelting process of making bronze could also be used in smelting and refining Iron Bloom into something later known as Pig Iron (A liquidus of good fairly pure iron that was allowed to run and pool into iron "sausages" that could be worked by reheating and smything).
FAST forward ahead about 75 years
When Darby discovered coking and then coke smelting in 1709. This spurt in technology, interacting with the resources , the production of good quality iron in large quantities became a reality. Then blowing the iron pot with extra air and carbon was discovered by accident and steel was born (In ENGLAND) . WHen rolling and puddling were developed, (again, in UK) these were concepts that were quickly exported to US and quickly adopted (in the North) and mass railroads were a bigger possibility because track didnt bend with heatmand didnt break (like SOuthern rails)

The US industrial revolution followed the same pattern as Europes. e had a nice FAll Zone from New England To North Carolina (Its a line that really connect all the big East Coast cities (They were put there because of ports AND water falls)

Now, what Im not so sure about is CAmerons other vital key to industrialization, that being INSTITUTIONS.

In this case Id posit that private wealth accumulation, distribution of labor and macro economics began their growths as concepts. For after all, most of the philosophy of wealth accumulation were also European (mostly Brit Id wager)

Are your piles burning today contrex. You seem a bit nangy.

Institutions are the key fm. The other stuff had existed long before the Christians got going. I know it's hard to take and all sorts of teleological explanations are fluffed up to try to disguise the quite obvious fact, but there it is.

Take wine for example. The Romans and Greeks had wine but that's all it was--wine. Look at what we have. Where was the champagne. Where was Bishop's Finger beer. Or Old Rosie's Cloudy?

Perspective. Dynamics. Double entry book-keeping. Money as force rather than pieces of things. The mathematics of the infinite. Electricity. Replacement of animal power. All Christian ****.

Religious mumbo jumbo pre dated the industrial rev by a thousand or more years with no real effect except the "institutionalization" of all the negative attributes of humankind.

I can see your point to a degree but they also seem to have institutionalized some of the positive things as well like the hospitals and so forth. I find this to be a great evil where they are profiting off of the well being of citizens. I would not doubt if they also have their hands in pharmaceuticals and insurance companies as well.
Maybe I am wrong about all of this but it sure seems that religious institutions have the rule of law on their side where I live and I find this quite disturbing. It seems like it is about power and the all mighty dollar and not for the best interest of the people. I so often hear conservatives demonizing social science, "it is if they are a majority of sociopaths. Socialism is only good when it benefits the rich but screw the poor seems to be their motto.

I spoke before about England and Flanders, but that was mostly a reaction to the stupidity of the OP. European industry has a much earlier origin. When the Romans conquered a territory by the sword (as opposed to the locals surrendering to Roman hegemony), most of the surviving population, sometimes all of it, were sold into slavery and the land became public land of the state. I will not digress into the political strife of Rome, but essentailly, that land was handed out to members of the order of Patres, the senatorial class. Gradually, these lands were converted into large slave-driven enterprises. Initially, they grew grain, grapes for wine or olives for the oil, or all three. However, most of the empire was not acquired by conquest, so that in many parts of the empire, even the grain and wine and oil of the slave-driven enterprises, the latifundia, couldn't compete with the local prduction. It was for this reason that the eastern portion of the empire remained politically and economically healthy when imperial authority collapsed in the west. This was particularly true in Asia Minor, where the local magnates either requested Roman protection or bequeathed their "kingdoms" to Rome, thereby preserving their peoples' title to their land.

The latifundia were ramped up when the Senatorial class used the relatively new order of Equites, the knightly class, to manage their estates. These were usually hard-driving men who wanted to escape the limitations of their class by amassing wealth, which they could do if the amassed wealth for their masteres. They began to make ceramics, to raise sheep for the wool and then make woolen cloth and even finished woolen goods, glass for bottles and glazing--a variety of what were essentially consumer goods. This was very profitable so long as the empire continued to expand, thereby opening new markets. But there was a limit to that expansion, which was reached early in the current era. The frontiers expanded and contracted for a few centuries, but basically, the markets which the managers of the latifundia relied upon were quickly saturated. At that point, the Senatorial class used their influence to get government contracts. The government, larely for the use of the army, began to buy their woolen goods, their ceramics, their iron mongery, their grain, wine and oil. Little understanding economics, the government didn't see that this was driving small holders and small craftsmen out of business, and they often showed up in Rome to go on the dole. They could find casual labor in construction (you really don't want slaves building the roof which will be over your head), but largely the survived on the government dole. To make up the shortfall between revenues and expenditures, the coinage was debased--but people aren't stupid, so this lead to continual price inflation which was not a product of demand. The economic collapse of the western portion of the empire was far more important than symbolic events like the sack of Rome in 410 CE (it was sacked in 390 BCE, wihtout putting the Romans out of business). Two generations later, Aetius was able to defeat Atilla and his Huns in what is now France--in large measure because of the aid of his Frankish allies. But the ravaged economy of the west just couldn't continue to supply the armies to defend them from the "barbarian" invasions. J. B. Bury, the 20th century expert on the "barbarian invasions," puts the final collapse of the empire in the west at the time of the Lombard invasion of northern Italy.

The Germanic tribes--Goths, Vandals, Franks--had been admitted to the empire as foederati, federated tribes, who provided military service in return for land. This meant that they were not actually in the relationship of conquerors to the populations of the lands they took over, and the tribes long maintained a fiction of being part of the empire. This lead to the birth of feudalism. Although the term feudalism is often applied to other cultures, notably in Asia, none of them had the same structure as European feudalism. The people becaues serfs, but the Germans were still obliged to protect them, and the serfs had recognized rights in property. The Visigoths and Vandals overran North Africa and Iberia, while the Franks took over what we would think of as France, Belgium, Holland and western Germany. The Franks were the best organized, and extended their hegemony as far as northern Italy, where the Lombards were masters, but not strong enough to contest the laurel with the Franks.

With the Muslim invasion of Iberia (they called it al Andalus, a corrpution of Vandal), and their subsequent attempt to invade "France," the authority of the Franks grew. Rightly or wrongly, they claimed to be the masters of the old western Empire. Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) defeated the "Moors" at Tours in 732, and thereby claimed hegemony over southern France.

The Romans had introduced new breeds of sheep into Britain, and while Roman influence held, a modest commerce in British wool grew up which began to enrich the province of Brittania. But with the withdrawl of the legions at the end of the 4th century, the Britons were on their own. Not long after, the Saxons began to raid their shores, and Saxons, Angeln and Jutes began to settle on British land. The Franks had turned to piracy, and trade with the continent dried up.

But in southern France, and in the Vandal and Visigothic kingdoms of Spain, the tribal leaders began to realize that plunder only went so far, and industry could provide a steady source of income. The withdrawl of the Roman navy in Armorica had allowed the Franks to commit their piracies and their raids on Britian, but they began to realize the same thing, and trade gradually returned to Britain. In southern France, in Languedoc, the industry which the old Empire had produced began to revive. Becaue of the climate, they were able to grow grain, wine grapes and olives for the oil, and they began to revive those industries which had died with imperial authority. The people of Languedoc spoke their own, unique language--Occitan (Languadoc means the language of oc, oc being the Occitan word for yes). In northeast Spain people spoke the nearest "cousin" of Occitan, which was Catalan. Occitan was spoken all across southern France and into northwestern Italy, and along with the language and the culture, those regions became the new industrial heartland of Europe. Feudalism fostered this, too. When Hugh Capet became the King of the Franks, the gentry of Languedoc rejected his hegemony, as did the people of Catalonia. Through a dynastic marriage, the Catalans accepted the hegemony of the King of Aragon, and the gentry of Languedoc became feudatories of the King of Aragon. A nobleman could organize the production of wool, grain, wine and olive oil on a large scale, and small holders would sell to him, while he sold his production and theirs on to a wide area. The Mediterranean coast meant that they had good shipping opportunies, and were largely free of piracy as they coasted along shores controlled by the Occitan gentry. This crescent of territory from Catalonia to northwestern Itally became the richest, most productive reagion of Europe.

I mentioned earlier the accidents of history. In Languedoc, what the Church was please to call a heresy arose. This was the movement of the parfaits, the perfects. They rejected the need for priests and refused to recognize the authority of the Pope. When the Pope moved to Avignon, near the heart of the Occitan-speaking lands, the idea of that heresy became intolerable to the Church. However, the Popes couldn't get anyone interested in a crusade against the heretics, until they got the King of France (as the King of the Frnaks was now called) on board. Religious wars never work out very well, unless and until politics and money are involved. The King of France was able to raise an army at the beginnning of the 13th century, on the promise of plunder (of which there was a lot to be had in Languedoc) and the distribution of the lands seized from the heretics.

I won't go into details of that 40 plus year crusade. The King of Aragon did nothing for his feudatories at first, and when he finally did intervene, not only was it too late, but despite his undoubted courage and skill at arms, he got himself killed through military stupidity. Languedoc was laid bare to the avidity of the Franks, although Aragon was still able to protect Catalonia. (To this day, Catalonia is the industrial heartland of Spain.)

This was the historial accident which allowed the English and the Flemish to take over the wool and woolen goods trade of Europe. Languedoc never recovered from the Albigensian crusade, and England got organized to exploit the wool trade. In England, this became a corporate enterprise, with the crown requiring people to export to the continent only through designated ports, the staple ports. The Staple became the means by which the crown could inspect goods and levy taxes, and it also became the means for powerful magnates and merchants to dominate the wool trade. Small holders and small craftsmen could not have afforded to pay royal taxes on their small production, so they sold their wool and woolen goods to the magnates and merchants, who included them in their exports through the Stample, enjoying the advantage of economies of scale in taxation, shipping and negotiating power, both with their potential customers and with the crown.

People see "industrial revolution," and they immediately think of the 18th entury and steam power. While this was an important innovation and represented a dramatic increase in the value of exports, it was not the beginning of industrialization in Europe or in England. The use of fulling mills--water mills where woolen cloth was treated before being sold or made into finished goods--was an important factor in the English taking over the woolen goods trade from Flanders. The geography of England lent itself to water mills. Woolen cloth needs to fulled, or felted, before it can be exported or used for finished goods. For literaly centuries, this had been accomplished b men and women wading into a cold water trough and using "bats" to beat the woolen cloth, to remove dirt and oil, and to shrink it. Fulling mills used standard water mills to rotate huge wooden hammers over the cold water baths, allowing another economy of scale as dramatically larger amounts of wool were fulled, and a lot of it was now felted to produce the English broadcloth which became a very valuable export product.

I'm sure Walter could give us a good idea of how industrialization proceeded in Geramny and central Europe. We are seduced by the rote history of grammar schools to think that industrialization only came about in the 1700s. That's nonsense. England had already made itself wealthy through the Staple, and had then stolen the carrying trade from the Dutch (who had stolen it from Hansa), and produced a large navy to protect trade. Even all that nonsense about "wooden walls" to protect England ignores reality. The Royal Navy was there to proterct trade, which is why Parliament never stinted their supplies to the Royal Navy. (That created even more wealth from individual enterprise, as Admiralty officials and contractors raised theft in office to the level of an art form.)

Don't know much about the practice of "medicine" by the Church in the middle ages, huh?

I do not know a lot about the church in the middle ages but from my understanding they had a grip on medicine for a very long time. I know that they hindered the advancement of medicine and had some very unusual cures for many things.

I would love to hear one of your work ups on it though because I find much of your knowledge of history to be very educational.

If you will insist on pontificating, in the service of your liberal ideas on sexual morality, about things you can't be bothered studying, what can I do?



B.F.Skinner. M.A. (Harvard). Ph.D. (Harvard). Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology (Harvard) for 30 years or so.

When are you going to get your arse in gear and tell us your explicit design alternatives rather than constantly beating your gums about the opposition. We know all about them. We know **** all about your design. Apart from your "re-training camps" for wing-nuts.

Take care rl. Setanta does the history of the written records. Braudel knocked that for six. Or a home run. One swipe.

Relatively temperate weather, resources, water power? The west wasnt always the more advanced civilization, the wheel goes around.

I think you got your education in comic books and by reading the bathroom walls. The English built Stonehenge accurately moving colossal stones 300 miles and uphill, to accurately chart the positions of stars and planets, using nothing but deer antlers and their massively intelligent brains. Now this is a great honor also to the Norsemen they traded ideas, and DNA with, like wave after wave of Germanic Tribes. Have you heard of German Engineering? A German is just a Brit who has not yet gone to Ireland to get some strange stuff. Furthermore, peewee, did you ever hear of the Roman Empire that rose from the Greek Empire. Rome took over England for 100 years, injecting into them, literally, brilliant minds. By that time concrete a Greek technology was reinvented, and war technology arrived from China via Rome, and the Arabic Number system arrived, and the English assimilated all knowledge and technology so GOD ( Elohim or Allah to you ) decided to let England breed with the entire planet, so they did, and the sun never sets on the British Empire, because they are so smart they control all diamonds on the planet, because they love to breed. Women like diamonds, so the English keep a 50 year supply in vaults, so they can always westernize any nation, or industrialize it ... or reduce it to dust, depending on their mood.

I have to say that was well done.

So, hows my Procter and Gamble stock gonna do short term?

Hey set, I finally got a chance to put aside the time to give your reply the reading it deserved. Thanks mucho for taking the time. I see now what your saying and am glad that I don't have to dismiss everything diamond said.

I guess you're saying the political realities of feudal Europe accelerated weaponry development more than any other single factor, and that works for me. Plenty of others had access to the technology but only Europe had so many warring on an equal playing field where advances in weaponry and strategy were crucial for survival and dominance. England had France and Spain, but china, like Rome, the ottomans, had no competitors with equivalent military capabilities, until they got to the edges of their empires.

I've never asked you, are you a historian by trade? I have some friends who are, and they poopoo diamond as a geographical fatalist, ignoring the human and societal factors.

But I don't think that the fact that gunpowder was invented in china means much, discovering something doesn't logically lead to taking the 'best' advantage of it

Henry Ford started it with the assembly line production methods. The rest, as they say, is history.

Started what CI?