Firstly, technological innovation was of primary importance in precipitating the increase in agricultural productivity which made capable the transcendence of the limits of the organic economy and thereby removed the reliance on land as a factor of production for economic growth. New agricultural techniques improved per capita agricultural productivity, most notably the ‘Norfolk rotation’ of crops, which significantly increased the productivity of agricultural land by reducing the proportion of land that was fallowed. The proportion of agricultural land planted with turnips and clover was five times higher in 1850 than in 1700, and the amount of land that was fallowed annually declined by half in the same period of time. Assuming a broadly constant calorific intake between 1600 and 1800 it can be inferred that the productivity of British agriculture roughly doubled, due to a stasis in the number of agriculturally employed workers which corresponded with a doubling of the population. More efficient agricultural practices that increased the per capita productivity of British agriculture were also put into wide use during the 18th century, largely as a consequence of the enclosure of land previously held in the public commons. Improvements in agricultural productivity necessitated high levels of investment in fixed capital which the enclosure of land allowed for, in contrast to the public commons which contained neither a mechanism or incentive for fixed capital investment. In the view of Landes the enclosure of land previously held in the commons was the most important factor in increasing agricultural productivity: “The increase in British farm output was due in large measure to enclosures and the improvements they made possible: concentration of holdings, elimination of fallow, more productive choice and rotation of crops, selective breeding of livestock, better drainage and fertilization, more intensive cultivation.” For example, controlling for factors such as tithes and inflation enclosure has been estimated to have increased agricultural productivity by 40%. While enclosure provided the mechanism for the implementation of more efficient agricultural practices, technological innovation must still be seen as of primary import in raising the productivity of British agriculture, and thus consequently, enabling the transcendence of the limits of the organic economy.
While still the preponderant factor in prompting the transcendence of the limits of the organic economy, the importance of technological innovations in increasing per capita productivity must be modified in recognition of the importance of investment in more efficient agricultural practices by the comparatively wealthy agricultural workers of Britain; with average wages in London standing at twice the value of those for a worker in Amsterdam and almost 6 times that of a worker in Florence. Increases in agricultural labour productivity, for example, occurred because of the high proportion of livestock to agricultural labourers. In 1860, the ratio of cattle to agricultural workers in Britain stood at 2.46 in comparison to a ratio of 1.59 in France, while the ratio of sheep to agricultural workers was 11.35 in Britain but stood at only 3.14 in France. Moreover, by 1820 agricultural estates in the United Kingdom possessed 5.8 horses for every 100 acres of arable land, significantly higher than in France, where on average 3.6 horses were worked for every 100 acres of arable land in the same time period. These improvements in agricultural productivity were central to the transcendence of the limits of the organic economy, which had necessitated poverty in all previous societies due to the massive requirements of labour to produce in a subsistence level of food. Increasing agricultural productivity per capita allowed for the surplus of marginally inefficient agricultural labour to find alternate employment in the secondary sector of the economy in response to growing aggregate demand. For example, Wrigley estimates that in 1600 the “great majority of the labour force were employed in agriculture by necessity but by 1800, however, only 40% of the workforce in Britain was agriculturally employed”.
However, despite improvements in agricultural productivity per head prompting such a substantial occupational shift in the labour force from the primary to the secondary sector, the limits imposed on long term growth in an organic economy still remained. The transcendence of the limits of the organic economy necessitated the widespread use of an alternative source of energy which could act as a substitute for the excersion of human or animal muscle. Without such an alternative energy source economic activity would still depend ultimately on ‘organic’ produce and therefore the finite nature of land as a factor of production would impose an absolute constraint on long-term economic growth; since increases in demand by industry for ‘organic’ resources such as charcoal would necessarily place pressures on the agricultural sector. It is the argument of Wrigley that it was the use of coal to resolve this otherwise inexorable paradox that was the defining feature of the industrial revolution. Consequently, the most important development in the industrial revolution was the transition from the ‘organic economy’ to a ‘mineral based energy economy’ and the role played by coal must, in Wrigley’s view, be seen as the most important factor in transcending the limits of the organic economy. Coal, an inorganic energy source that was both abundant and easily accessible in Britain prior to the industrial revolution, provided this alternative source of energy for both industrial and domestic uses. For example, the process of firing bricks with coal reduced the dependence on land as a factor of production by providing an alternative to the use of wood for charcoal. The increased utilisation of coal for use in the production of consumable goods allowed for an expansion in the productive capacity of the economy which would otherwise have necessitated a trade-off between caloric intake and industrial production, under the conventional constraints of the organic economy.
However, Wrigley is wrong to take the tacitly deterministic position that the gradual increase in the extraction of coal that had been occurring throughout the early modern period in England guaranteed the transcendence of the limits of the organic economy. The limits of the organic economy were transcended as a consequence of the gradual transformation in industrial modes of production which occurred in response to a series of innovations in industry. Wrigley is therefore wrong in his prioritisation of the role of mineral based energy: the transformation of industrial modes of production was dependent upon technological innovation for its instigation but only upon coal for its continuation. Indeed, without the British culture of technological innovation the economy would have been unable to maintain its process of industrialisation on the basis of mineral based energy inputs. The invention of the first economically feasible atmospheric pump by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 allowed for the extraction of coal from deeper mine seams and consequently for the continuation of the increases in productivity that stemmed from the transition towards a mineral based energy economy. By 1800 828 of James Watt’s steam engines were in use collieries and a further 209 were being used in copper and lead mines by 1800.
Furthermore, Landes supports the importance of technological innovation, arguing how the culture of British technological innovation and the willingness to adapt to change it engendered in British industry was the characteristic of the pre-industrial economy which offered the potential to transcend the limits of the organic economy: “it was not capital by itself that made possible Britain’s swift advance. Money alone could have done nothing. . . What distinguished the British economy, . . . was an exceptional sensitivity and responsiveness to pecuniary opportunity”. Technological innovation was the central factor in the decline in the required input of labour for the production of industrial goods. This can be exemplified in numerous cases such as the cost-reduction of almost two thirds experienced by Scottish iron manufacturers between the introduction of Neilson’s hot blast to Scotland in 1829 and 1840. Textile manufacturing experienced the most significant advances in productivity per worker, but more importantly highlights why the British culture of technological innovation was the central driving force behind escaping the limits of the organic economy. The production of 100 pounds of cotton initially required the investment of 50,000 hours of work using traditional textile working techniques; the invention of the cotton mule reduced the required investment of labour to 300 hours and the invention of the self-actor mule by Richard Roberts resulted in a further reduction to 135 hours. These labour saving techniques resulted in the price of cotton cloth declining by 85 percent between the years 1780 and 1850. Moreover, the case of the textile industry further illustrates the validity of Mokyr’s argument about the self-reinforcing momentum of technological innovation in which “change begat change”. Reductions in the price of manufactured goods prompted shifts along the aggregate demand curve, thereby increasing consumption and incentivising further improvements in industrial efficiency across all sectors of manufacturing in the economy. For example, the price of sulphuric acid, a chemical widely used in the production of cotton textiles, fell from almost £9 to 10 s. per pound. As Mokyr notes a consequence of these general reductions in the price level was a shift along the demand curve of agricultural workers. This is also evidenced in a source from Defoe (1728 ) which highlights the importance of the wealth of “even those we call poor people” in stimulating in industrial manufacturing:
‘we see their Houses and Lodgings tolerably furnished, at least stuff’d well with useful and necessary household Goods: Even those we call poor People, Journey-men, working and Pains-taking People do thus; they lye warm, live in Plenty, work hard, and [need] know no Want. These are the People that carry off the Gross of your Consumption; ’tis for these your Markets are kept open late on Saturday nights; because they usually receive their Week’s Wages late… in a Word, these are the Life of our whole Commerce’
The source highlights a central limitation to both Wrigley’s materialistic and Mokyr’s technological interpretation in so much as both omit the role played by demand in engendering a positive feedback loop of increased productivity resulting in higher consumer demand, further incentivising innovation and investment. This is evidenced most clearly in the twelve-fold increase in cotton consumption from 1770 to 1800. Landes also highlights the importance of the highly financialised nature of the British economy prior to the industrial revolution as a contributing factor to transcending the limits of the organic economy. Modern financial institutions increased the availability of credit for manufacturers investing in new productivity increasing technologies. Moreover, in the macro view the financialised nature of the British economy allowed the surpluses of profit making farms to be invested into new industrial technologies. A source from the period (1778) highlights implicitly the importance of easy availability of credit in the industrialisation of the British economy:
‘the vast consumption of fuel in these engines is an immense drawback on the profit of our mines, for every fire-engine of magnitude consumes £3,000 worth of coals per annum. This heavy tax amounts almost to a prohibition’.
The source directly references the high costs of early steam technology and its inefficiency relative to the profitability of its application. By highlighting the significant financial overheads required for investing in industrial innovations it also illustrates the important role of accessible credit in British industrialisation. The existence in pre industrial Britain of a financial system with the capacity to raise the capital necessary to fund investments in machinery with high initial costs and low returns, at least in the short run, is therefore a significant contributing factor to the transcendence of the organic economy. For example, gross domestic investment as a percentage share of GNP increased from 8% between 1761-70 to 13% in the period 1791-1800, a period of time which corresponded to the increasing availability of labour saving devices in manufacturing. However, it is not legitimate to argue that the existence of the pre-industrial British financial system was the primary cause of industrialisation; instead the highly financialised nature of the British economy should be seen as a mechanism through industrial innovations necessary to improving productivity were transferred into the economy effectively through the availability of cheap credit. The role of capitalist institutions of finance in transcending the limits of an organic economy must necessarily be viewed as secondary: specifically, as secondary to technological advancements.
The transcendence of the limits of the organic economy was, therefore, an economic transformation in the modes of production determined by massive improvements in per capita agricultural productivity and by a series of technological innovations in industry. The view of Wrigley that the achievement of self-sustaining economic growth was the consequence of the widespread utilisation of inorganic energy sources is undeniably accurate as a description of the post-organic economy; that is to say it accurately highlights the centrality of coal in the production processes of modern industry. However, increases in the use and extraction of coal did not provide the impotence for industrialisation in and of itself, instead it occurred as a consequence of increases in the aggregate level of demand for coal during the transition to a mineral based energy economy. The demand for coal was necessarily derived demand and therefore increases in the use of the coal must be attributed to increases in the production of manufactured goods that corresponded with an expansion of consumer demand. Mokyr’s view of causation emphasises the culture of technological innovation as the central driving force behind the transcendence of the organic economy. Despite clear legitimacy of the central claim of Mokyr’s thesis, it fails to appreciate the mechanisms through which potential productivity increasing or labour saving innovations were transposed into the economy. The conclusion that must therefore be drawn with regards to the transcendence of the limits of the organic economy, is that the unique economic character of pre-industrial Britain (the easy availability of economically viable inorganic energy sources, the relative prosperity of its agricultural workers and the financialised nature of its economy) allowed for the widespread transposing of new technology into industrial production. It was in transposing these new technologies, originating from a culture of technological innovation, that the reliance on land as a factor of production was overcome and the limit of the organic economy were transcended.