Aspects Economics Technology Military

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The industrial revolution occurred in the period from 1760 to 1830 in which hand production methods has been transited to new inventions such as steam engine and spinning mule. The industrial revolution started in Britain and spread to other European states in a few decades. Such a revolution changed different aspects of manufacturing and daily life and contributed to an unprecedented economic growth and increase in living standard in Europe. It is believed that this revolution is the main cause of the "Great Divergence" between the East and the West. Although many important inventions in human history were invented in China, for example, compass, gunpowder, papermaking and print, there was never a similar industrial revolution, which could massively improve productivity and living standard in China. In this essay, the ideas of Kenneth Pomeranz and Mark Elvin on why an industrial revolution did not occur in China before the nineteenth century will be discussed.

In the book "Great Divergence", Pomeranz suggested new ideas different from the traditional views that the industrial revolution was mainly credit to internal advantages such as more free and efficient market, better property rights and political system. Pomeranz compared China and England in terms of different aspects, agricultural activities, labour markets, state system, etc. and tried to show that China and the West were very similar before the industrial revolution. The author has raised an innovative perspective that China in fact had indifferent or even better advantages and circumstances to favour an industrial revolution to born. However, there were two exceptions, which led England to succeed. Firstly, England luckily had a more favourable geographical location and features, which provided rich energies and fuels and nurtured the invention of steam engine. Secondly, the New World in American continent provided different important resources, for example, cotton, wood and crops, to reduce ecological limitation in Europe.

Geographical feature of coalmine was a very critical factor in determining the industrial revolution and Great Divergence under the arguments in the book. According to the book, Pomeranz suggested that the climate difference in coalmines between Britain and China in fact was one of the keys for Great Divergence. In Britain, the humidity in coalmines was very higher and there was always water-leak, therefore, a highly efficient water bump was needed in order to keep coalmines run well. This triggered the invention of steam engine for water bumping and at the same time it helped transporting coal and other commodities. The further widespread of steam engine determined the success of industrial revolution in England and Europe and that is why geographical feature in England was an extremely important factor in Great Divergence. In contrast, the coalmines in China were relatively dry and water bump was not needed while only ventilation technology was needed. Furthermore, most of the coalmines in China located in Shanxi where it was far away from main economic district Jiangnan while most of the coalmines in England were easily accessed from the production zones.

Another key to success of industrial revolution in England was the access of resources in the New World. According to Pomeranz, England had faced various ecological limitations, for instance, the growth of total yields and per acre yields from arable land were stagnant during eighteenth century, resources such as cotton, wood and crops imported from colonies in the New World could help save up huge size of lands for other uses especially industrial use as these kinds of recourse required large amount of land to grow. Meanwhile, China did not have such colonies with rich resources for import and needed to produce these resources internally. There were many factors that China could not discover the New World earlier than the West. For example, the wind direction and water current were not advantageous for the Chinese Navy to reach the New World. Eventually, this advantage was taken by England for developing more industrial facilities for the industrial revolution.

Pomeranz also compared the wage level and living standard between China and Europe and he found that they were almost indifferent and it showed that lacking in demand for labour-saving technologies was not a reason for the absence of industrial revolution in China. Besides, Pomeranz suggested that the perception of market inefficiency in China was just an illusion and in fact China had an even freer market than Europe states. For example, in China, slavery and serfdom were not popular compared to Europe. There were also less state enforced monopoly and union in China, which means the government intervention in market was not common. In addition, Pomeranz also claimed that China had a freer land market than Europe’s with large amount of tenants and landlords, which were supposedly hereditary and they were always forced to sell or leave their land. On the other hand, Chinese enterprise always had enough capital to develop their business even with absence of stock market and this would not affect the competitiveness of Chinese merchants in overseas market.

The innovative perspective given by Pomeranz about the importance in geographical feature in coalmine and resources in the New World for determining the birth of industrial revolution and further the Great Divergence has been well appreciated in the academic group. Shi Jianyun, a Chinese professor from the Institute of Modern History in Chinese Academy of Social Science has stated some of the achievements from Pomeranz in his article published in 2003. For example, Pomeranz used new methods in comparing different aspects between the East and the West. In common methods, comparison was always conducted by same state level such as country to country and province to province regardless the size of the states. For this problem, Pomeranz suggested reviewing the trade volume of states when compared two states, for example, the trading volume with other provinces in Shandong was near the trades among European states and therefore he used inter-province trading data in China and inter-states trading data in Europe to do the comparison. Another innovative research method from Pomeranz was analysis in geographical features in coalmines and relationship between those features and the possibility of invention of steam machine. Many historians would simply compare the distribution and location of the coalmines.

Pomeranz has also suggested a new way of comparing, which is mutual comparison. He raised an innovative perspective that we should firstly ask why England did not become Jiangnan before asking why Jiangnan did not follow the step of England. As the latter question had a hidden assumption that economy in Jiangnan had less development than the West where capitalism was applied and this assumption was opposite to Pomeranz’s view that they were almost indifference before industrial revolution. Pomeranz used another way to compare two economies with different real variables such as capital accumulation and labour productivity and found that productivity was not highly affected by feudalism in Imperial China by showing the competitive productivity of female worker at home and outside were indifference. In addition, Pomeranz also criticised the methodology of arguing historical economic development by focusing on a specific "crucial factor" as a determining factor, which was commonly used in the traditional studies. For instance, a lack of scientific society may not be a factor that completely stopped wide spreading of technology in China because Chinese societies did not face an institution like the Church in Europe which may hinder the development of technologies. It meant that "crucial factor" cannot apply to all societies and therefore was not a favourable method to do comparison in some cases.