‘Historians have paid insufficient attention to technological diffusion and adoption in seeking to understand the industrial revolution.’ – Discuss
Any casual observer of the eighteenth century would likely notice that ‘’about 1760, a wave of gadgets swept over England’’, as a student of Ashton remarked (Ashton, 1955). These included famous macro-inventions such as the steam engine, the spinning jenny and the water frame, which set in motion long terms changes in productivity. Such technological inventions, and subsequent innovations, were clearly key components in the Industrial Revolution between 1760 and 1840. Allen goes as far as to say that the essential characteristic of the Industrial Revolution was technological innovation (Allen, 2009, p. 135). Technological innovation was significant because it improved productivity: it allowed more output to be produced from a given amount of input, often at a faster rate, than it had been previously. This in turn would lead to supply-side economic growth, as the increased quantity of produce would lead to a fall in price. However, increased growth of productivity accounts for only approximately 30% on increased growth of total output during the English Industrial Revolution (Sullivan, 1990, p. 349). This may imply that historians have paid too much attention to technology in seeking to understand the Industrial Revolution, or at least that they have appraised this aspect in a predominantly unhelpful manner, by drawing attention to certain aspects of the technology debate at the cost of others.
R.C. Allen draws significant attention to technological diffusion and adoption in his explanation for the time and place of the first Industrial Revolution. He examines what stimulated the technological breakthroughs associated with famous inventions which then triggered off sequences of technological innovation (Crafts, 2011). In accordance with Edison’s claim that ‘’invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration’’ (Allen, 2009, p. 136), he then concentrates on innovation and R&D, which is predominantly determined by economic factors, as opposed to the sudden flash of inspiration associated with invention. His conclusion is that ‘The Industrial Revolution was invented in Britain in the eighteenth century because it paid to invent it there’ (Allen, 2009). Ultimately, his argument rests upon Britain’s apparent success in the early modern global economy. As a result, wage levels were high and energy was cheap relative to international levels. In 1725 a London labourer would earn the equivalent of 10 grams of silver per day on average, relative to 1 gram per day in Florence (Allen, 2009, p. 34), and energy was cheap due to the abundance of coal in areas of easy access, such as Durham Coalfields. This high wage economy, underpinned by cheap energy, therefore incentivised the invention, and subsequent continuous innovation, of labour-saving tech in order to reduce costs. Allen also draws attention to how high wages would lead to a higher standard of living in Britain relative to other European countries, since workers would have more disposable income to purchase necessities and even luxury goods and services, including a superior education. This in turn would lead to higher literacy and numeracy rates, providing a supply side stimulus for invention and innovation. Allen uses the Steam engine as a case study, tracing its invention from 1712 when it was invented by Thomas Newcomen and used to dredge coal mines in Dudley. Allen draws attention to the inefficiencies of the original machine, and describes how a protracted R&D process, conducted my multiple individuals such as James Watt, allowed the engine to diffuse into other industrial sectors where it was adopted, such as textiles. This was a long drawn out process of improvement, as the steam engine only had a modest impact in the eighteenth century (Von Tunzelmann, 1978). However, as a result of the economic climate which encouraged R&D, by the mid-nineteenth century steam technology accounted for 2/5 of the growth in British labour productivity (Crafts, 2004). Considering Allen’s high profile in this debate, this therefore illustrates how technological diffusion and adoption have been given significant attention as we seek to understand the Industrial Revolution.
However, while technological diffusion and adoption have been given much attention, it has proved insufficient for furthering our understanding of the Industrial revolution. This is shown by the flaws in Allen’s argument, which practically epitomises the approach which focusses on technology and places them in the centre of the narrative. Firstly, Allen’s wage data is exclusively drawn from the South-West, as implied by the earlier London statistic, which he then uses to support judgements encompassing the entire country, therefore failing to consider regional variation (Humphries, 2013). Furthermore, there is little evidence that inventions were incentivised specifically by the need to save labour in order to cut costs. Allen points to the anti-machine riots of the eighteenth century as proof that workers knew and resented this intention to save labour, but it seems just as likely that they were triggered by irrational fears, and patent applications rarely specified ‘saving labour’ as the goal (MacLeod, 1988). Patents are another factor which Allen largely dismisses, preferring to focus solely on pure economic context. A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention, and Britain was the first to develop a favourable patent system. This in turn incentivised many inventors to create efficiency enhancing machines to in order to make profits. While Britain’s patent system was nothing new during the Industrial Revolution, making its first appearance in Statue law in 1624 under the Statue of Monopolies, it facilitated the diffusion and adoption of ideas significantly. Although they could also be a limitation on innovation, as shown by Watt’s vigorous enforcement of his patent on the ‘separate condenser’ used in steam engines: threat of legal action dissuaded Hornblower from pursuing his idea of a potentially more efficient ‘compound engine’ (Allen, 2009, p. 167). Nevertheless, these flaws in Allen’s argument highlight how while technological diffusion deserves attention, it should be seen in the broader context of the Industrial Revolution.
In order to gain an appreciation of the significance of technological diffusion and adoption in the broader context of the industrial revolution, it is helpful to look at patents in further detail. This in turn will reveal whether or not historians have given it insufficient attention, and importantly if this attention is both useful and justified. In the recent past, the consensus favoured a ‘leading technological sector’, in which the vast majority of inventions were concentrated. These inventions then diffused into other industries, where they were adopted on an ever widening front (Landes, 1969). However, the patent record casts doubt on this (Sullivan, 1990). Firstly, patents were not highly concentrated in any one of the 6 top industries over the period. Textiles accounted for the largest share of the 13,023 patents issued, but this only amounted to 15% (Sullivan, 1990, p. 352). This indicates that the ‘leading technological sectors’ were not unique in their creativity. Furthermore, if these ‘leading technological sectors’ were responsible for an acceleration of inventions, then the growth rate of invention in these sectors must have been greater than the growth rate of invention in other industries. However, the evidence suggests that this doesn’t occur. The proportion of patents granted remains remarkably stable between industrial sectors, the exception which proves the rule being the railway due to the application of the steam engine, and only 22% of ‘classification categories’ were created between 1761 and 1790 (Sullivan, 1990, p. 357). We do not see the increased share of patents in ‘leading technological sectors’ that would be associated with an extraordinary increase in invention, which in turn diffuses through to other sectors. Rather, it would appear that while invention did increase between 1760 and 1830, it was widely dispersed across all industries. However, this isn’t to say that the diffusion and subsequent adoption of various technologies between industries did not occur, as it most certainly did. It seems likely that advances in the textile production of the 1760s provided the incentive for the chemical industry to develop bleaching chemicals in the 1770s. Furthermore, advances in power transmission, such as when Watt invented and patented the means to convert reciprocating to rotary motion, made the steam engine commercially viable, which in turn allowed Boulton and Watt’s company to prosper. Similarly, MacIntosh obtained naphtha as a by-product of producing alum, which he discovered could be used to waterproof fabrics. A process which he subsequently patented in 1823 (Sullivan, 1990, p. 356). It is clear that technologies did diffuse between sectors in the economy, and that they were modified and applied to many different tasks accordingly. The crucial point is that there were no ‘leading technological sectors’ from which these technological inventions originated. Diffusion of technology and continuous innovation occurred between all industries in accordance with their size. Therefore, this shows that in the recent past, historians had given insufficient attention to the diffusion of and adoption of technology in terms of ignoring the evidence provided by patent records.
Alternatively, Mokyr emphasises technological invention, as opposed to innovation and diffusion, and the majority of his attention is focussed towards the influence of ‘The Enlightenment’. Mokyr argues that the key to understanding the technological developments which contributed to the Industrial Revolution lie in the application of information to the production process in such a way as to increase efficiency (Mokyr, 2009, p. 6). In other words, knowledge, and the ability to use it, are essential for producing that ‘eureka’ moment of invention, and that only then can innovation occur. Cultural changes in education and outlook, encompassing enlightenment thought and the scientific approach, were therefore the most significant factors which caused the Industrial Revolution for Mokyr, as they generated an atmosphere of technological reactivity. However, this ‘Industrial Enlightenment’ thesis is given relatively less attention than that of Allen, which is probably due to how it is less grounded in economic logic, which Mokyr realises and admits. As Mokyr says, theories of technological change based on quantitative factors are ‘’easy to concoct and hard to reject’’ (Mokyr, 2009). On the other hand, qualitative interpretations such as that of Mokyr seem hard to prove, while being vulnerable to criticism. After all, it is hard enough to determine what people thought, let alone what thoughts drove them to make decisions relative to other factors. Furthermore, in Allen’s 10th Chapter, he uses a sample of 79 inventors, of whom 10 created macro-inventions that drove the Industrial Revolution, to attack Mokyr’s argument. Allen finds that half of these people had ‘links with the Enlightenment’, and that therefore ‘’the Industrial Enlightenment did not matter much’’ (Allen, 2009, p. 252). Whether this is true of not, it highlights that perhaps insufficient attention has been given to technological invention and creativity.
It would appear that historians have paid sufficient attention to technological diffusion and adoption, in terms of time and effort spent focussing on this aspect of the Industrial Revolution. However, this attention has been insufficient in providing us with a complete understanding of the Industrial Revolution. It would seem, as largely illustrated by Allen, that there has been a tendency to analyse the development of technology in isolation. To meticulously track the advancement of specific technologies and to attribute economic growth to them alone. This ignores the context in which the technologies themselves operate, and therefore risks missing other factors, such as population growth. A rising population led to a larger work force, which put downward pressure on wages and greater output of produce, leading to economic growth. Furthermore, increasing population would create more demand for output, and therefore also demand for productivity enhancing inventions. This illustrates how national economies are extremely complex, since every relevant factor is interconnected with other factors. The task of understanding the Industrial Revolution is in turn made even more challenging due to incomplete data and evidence. Therefore, an appreciation of the wider context as more of a more holistic approach would appear to be ideal. For instance, it may be possible to combine the essential features of both Allen’s and Mokyr’s arguments, despite each historian being set against the other, and to appreciate that every factor at work in the Industrial Revolution influenced the advancement of technology in some way, and that to some extent technology then impacted these factors in turn, in a cyclical self-reinforcing relationship. Furthermore, in order to reach a more accurate and satisfactory conclusion, further knowledge and analysis of the historiography of technology is required. Nevertheless, it would appear that historians must attend to the study of technology with great care, and that technological diffusion and adoption is necessary, but not sufficient, in seeking to understand the Industrial Revolution.