Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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An article in the New York Times discusses a forthcoming book called 'A Farewell to Alms' by an economic historian, Geoffrey Clark, of the University of California, in which he posits the theory that the Industrial Revolution and the affluent age can be explained by a radical change in the population's behaviour and attitudes
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/science/07indu.html?
He begins by a sweeping statement that the majority of people lived in dire poverty and then became wealthy overnight as it were, I seem to recall that there was huge suffering as a result of the Industrial Revolution
| For thousands of years, most people on earth lived in abject poverty, first as hunters and gatherers, then as peasants or laborers. But with the Industrial Revolution, some societies traded this ancient poverty for amazing affluence. |
He hasn't read the Jane Jacobs' book then.
| The middle-class values of nonviolence, literacy, long working hours and a willingness to save emerged only recently in human history, Dr. Clark argues. |
These "middle class values" are very reminiscent of the Jews, not to mention seventeenth century Dutch burghers, and a list of other candidates no doubt.
| By 1790, the average person�s consumption in England was still just 2,322 calories a day, with the poor eating a mere 1,508. Living hunter-gatherer societies enjoy diets of 2,300 calories or more. |
Rather contradictory, the 'poverty' of hunter-gatherers is quite a comfortable state to be in it seems.
| The tendency of population to grow faster than the food supply, keeping most people at the edge of starvation, was described by Thomas Malthus in a 1798 book, �An Essay on the Principle of Population.� This Malthusian trap, Dr. Clark�s data show, governed the English economy from 1200 until the Industrial Revolution and has in his view probably constrained humankind throughout its existence. The only respite was during disasters like the Black Death, when population plummeted, and for several generations the survivors had more to eat. |
This bears out Dan's observation that a decrease in population means an increase in living standards. Population figures at the beginning of the nineteenth century were relatively low.
Dr. Clark takes Darwin's theory of natural selection and applies it to the population as a whole, suggesting that resistance to disease might be an explanation for the rise in population and increased productivity but found, unsurprisingly, that the rich are more likely to survive than the poor
| �The modern population of the English is largely descended from the economic upper classes of the Middle Ages,� he concluded. |
which means this "middle class" became the labouring class and brought its values with it. This downward mobility is at odds with what we know about impoverished gentry.
I assumed that the Industrial Revolution came about due to technological advances. Dr. Clark advocates a sort of evolutionary adaptation to account for industrialisation being accepted.
| Dr. Clark says the middle-class values needed for productivity could have been transmitted either culturally or genetically. But in some passages, he seems to lean toward evolution as the explanation. �Through the long agrarian passage leading up to the Industrial Revolution, man was becoming biologically more adapted to the modern economic world,� he writes. And, �The triumph of capitalism in the modern world thus may lie as much in our genes as in ideology or rationality.� | |
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