A New Look at the Industrial Revolution

Why did the industrial revolution begin in Britain?  And why did it begin in the decades before 1800?  Economist Gregory Clark in A Farewell to Alms has thinks he has divined the answer from centuries-old data on births and deaths and wills.  Nicholas Wade (Before the Dawn) reviews his book in the New York Times.

What happened was the the rich in Britain had more children and the violent poor were slowly squeezed out of society.  Thus British society became more peaceful and cooperative.  Over the centuries leading up to the industrial revolution the population slowly exhibited more and more of the “middle-class values of nonviolence, literacy, long working hours and a willingness to save.”  The rest is history.

Because they grew more common in the centuries before 1800, whether by cultural transmission or evolutionary adaptation, the English population at last became productive enough to escape from poverty, followed quickly by other countries with the same long agrarian past.

Before the growth of this middle-class culture, mankind was unable to escape the Malthusian Trap of overpopulation.  And indeed, agriculturalists were probably poorer and worked more hours than hunter-gatherers. 

But the result has ben a Great Divergence.  The peoples who have followed the British example have become unimaginably wealthy.  Those that have not have got poorer than ever.