00:00:50
in the 18th century when it all began
00:00:54
um an overwhelming majority of europeans
00:00:56
tended to live in the countryside
00:01:00
it is estimated that in eastern europe
00:01:03
about 90 percent of all the people lived
00:01:06
in the countryside and were associated
00:01:09
with their occupations
00:01:11
like agriculture and a little husbandry
00:01:14
western europe which was relatively more
00:01:17
developed in terms of commercial and
00:01:19
urban organization
00:01:21
it is estimated that not more than 25 to
00:01:23
30 percent of the people at any one
00:01:25
point of time lived in the towns
00:01:29
in terms of the cities that actually
00:01:31
existed if one looks at
00:01:34
the amenities that went with it
00:01:36
uh not many things that one normally
00:01:39
takes for granted in urban life today uh
00:01:42
used to uh feature in 18th century
00:01:45
europe
00:01:46
there were problems to do with health
00:01:48
and hygiene there were problems of
00:01:51
sanitation
00:01:52
and all other sorts of uh medieval
00:01:56
hangovers of a number of people living
00:01:59
in a dingy place um
00:02:02
heavily concentrated heavily populous
00:02:04
was fairly regular
00:02:06
even transport used to be fairly
00:02:09
primitive
00:02:11
it used to be said that it was easier to
00:02:13
commute between
00:02:16
two countries rather than a country to
00:02:18
its countryside
00:02:26
this entire picture changed almost
00:02:29
entirely within the next century
00:02:32
as the towns began to grow in size and a
00:02:37
large cluster of urban conurbations
00:02:40
began to develop all across western
00:02:42
europe
00:02:43
and
00:02:44
new small towns or even villages
00:02:47
in britain and france began within the
00:02:50
course of a decade or two to transform
00:02:53
into large urban connervations
00:02:56
the dramatic change that this came to
00:02:59
signify in european life
00:03:03
primarily around the changes in
00:03:06
industrial economy
00:03:08
a large number of
00:03:11
a large number of factories and
00:03:13
workshops began to grow
00:03:15
which
00:03:17
relocated the main frame of production
00:03:20
industrial production from artisanal
00:03:22
houses the production the cottages of
00:03:25
the artisans who were actually
00:03:27
involved in the labor that goes into the
00:03:29
making of an industrial product
00:03:31
two
00:03:32
a workshop which is invested in where
00:03:35
the capital is provided by a merchant
00:03:38
and
00:03:39
where people come to sell their labor
00:03:41
rather than their skills
00:03:43
the
00:03:45
changes that followed as a result
00:03:48
in european
00:03:50
society
00:03:51
have variously been identified as the
00:03:54
either the
00:03:55
beginnings of the modern capitalist
00:03:57
order or even as beginning of modern
00:04:00
society
00:04:08
there are by and large
00:04:10
some
00:04:11
agreements about what exactly
00:04:14
constitutes modern life
00:04:16
one of these is that the vortex of
00:04:19
social and economic prowess social and
00:04:22
economic power in society in modern
00:04:24
society
00:04:25
is located in ownership of industrial
00:04:29
capital as against ownership of
00:04:31
agricultural wealth which used to be the
00:04:33
pre-modern stage of society
00:04:36
the second
00:04:37
is that in the modern society
00:04:40
the reliance on
00:04:42
technology and machinery which saves
00:04:45
labor uh is ah
00:04:47
this reliance is much greater much more
00:04:50
considerable and technology is generally
00:04:53
uh held at a premium which means of
00:04:56
course that
00:04:58
two dominant features of modern society
00:05:01
are that industry is the pivot of
00:05:05
economic activity rather than
00:05:06
agriculture
00:05:08
subsistence is no longer the predominant
00:05:13
objective of economic activity rather
00:05:15
trade generation of capital and
00:05:18
investment of that capital in
00:05:20
technological innovation which makes
00:05:22
life easier over a period of time
00:05:32
till the 19th century
00:05:34
the overwhelming majority of the
00:05:38
economic activity tended to revolve
00:05:40
around subsistence tended to revolve
00:05:42
around food
00:05:44
in more developed economies such as in
00:05:46
western europe commerce had certainly
00:05:49
begun to play a major uh part in the
00:05:52
series in the clusters of activities
00:05:55
that makes an economy
00:05:57
nevertheless as historians like fernand
00:06:00
brodel have pointed out
00:06:01
that there was quite a heavy emphasis on
00:06:05
um agricultural commodities even when it
00:06:08
came to commerce
00:06:10
in the 19th century this shift that took
00:06:13
place
00:06:14
in terms of epicenter of economic
00:06:16
activity from the agricultural to the
00:06:19
industrial sector
00:06:21
this
00:06:22
transformed human society
00:06:25
it transformed human society because a
00:06:28
large number of people began to be
00:06:30
employed in
00:06:31
industrial production so it has
00:06:36
this the set of changes then that begin
00:06:38
uh have been variously classified
00:06:41
into three broad heads
00:06:44
in the first place
00:06:46
once the shift takes place from
00:06:48
agriculture to industry once the locale
00:06:52
shifts from a local of production shifts
00:06:55
from the artisan's cottage to
00:06:58
the workshop
00:06:59
the
00:07:01
relative significance of the labor that
00:07:04
is exerted the human element
00:07:07
of production begins to decline
00:07:10
as the skill of the artisan begins to
00:07:12
decline he is
00:07:15
moved from the artisanal cottage to the
00:07:17
workshop in order to operate a machine
00:07:20
which becomes the second factor um in
00:07:24
conjunction with this uh change with
00:07:27
this revolutionary transformation of the
00:07:29
product of the process of production
00:07:32
the
00:07:34
growing reliance on machine the
00:07:36
machinery necessarily
00:07:39
requires a heavy input of technology
00:07:43
also occasionally a heavy endowment of
00:07:46
capital resources in fact this was one
00:07:49
of the major reasons why the
00:07:51
local of production had to be shifted
00:07:53
from the cottage of the artisan to the
00:07:56
workshop run by the entrepreneur who
00:07:59
makes the investment
00:08:00
and the third and perhaps the most
00:08:03
important uh intervention or the most
00:08:05
important factor in the
00:08:08
rise of industrial societies happens to
00:08:10
be the shift
00:08:12
in uh the for the purpose of agriculture
00:08:15
industrial production from
00:08:18
in any from uh animate sources of energy
00:08:21
to inanimate sources of energy
00:08:23
to give an example
00:08:25
if a mill had to be operated it could be
00:08:28
operated by animal power you could run
00:08:31
the you know the the the mill
00:08:34
with
00:08:35
bullocks uh drawing uh the uh the load
00:08:39
or horses drawing the load
00:08:42
in in the realm of transport for
00:08:44
instance if you would go to if you had
00:08:46
to go from point a to point b
00:08:48
you need a horse drawn carriage where
00:08:51
the energy that is required for the
00:08:53
movement for the displacement as it were
00:08:56
was to be given by animal power it could
00:09:00
also where animals are not in supply or
00:09:03
good supply or where animals are
00:09:06
not capable of performing the task it
00:09:08
could also be the human endeavor
00:09:12
these changes the effect of these
00:09:14
changes was to overhaul the entire
00:09:18
economic and urban organization in
00:09:20
europe the dramatic transformation
00:09:24
that industrial production and change
00:09:26
industrial production brings about
00:09:28
is
00:09:29
seen in terms of the cities that begin
00:09:33
to grow a large and larger number of
00:09:35
people
00:09:36
begin to find livelihood
00:09:39
in these new industrial centers
00:09:42
on the other hand with more and more
00:09:44
people earning livelihood more and more
00:09:47
people were able to generate demand for
00:09:50
manufactured goods for industrial goods
00:09:53
and that further stimulated the european
00:09:56
economy
00:10:04
historians have debated variously about
00:10:07
the aspects of india
00:10:09
about the emergence of industrial
00:10:10
revolution i mean
00:10:13
to start with
00:10:14
was the origin actually to be located in
00:10:17
the 18th century or even before that
00:10:20
if it was in the 18th century then why
00:10:22
was it in the 18th century a still more
00:10:24
important uh question is
00:10:27
when industrialization began why did it
00:10:29
begin in britain why not anywhere else
00:10:32
there were other countries that were
00:10:33
equally
00:10:34
developed in terms of economic
00:10:37
their economic character in terms of the
00:10:39
industrial organization in terms of the
00:10:42
commercial reach france is a very good
00:10:44
example why did it happen in britain and
00:10:46
not in france
00:10:48
there is a there is another very serious
00:10:50
argument that is read frequently by
00:10:53
historians of the colonial world saying
00:10:55
that european industrialization was made
00:10:58
possible by the exploitation of the
00:11:00
colonial markets
00:11:02
is that the case
00:11:03
was european colonial empire the
00:11:06
determining factor in the making of the
00:11:08
industrial revolution or was it merely a
00:11:11
contributory factor did it simply make
00:11:13
it convenient did it simply facilitate
00:11:16
an industrial uh transformation that
00:11:19
would have happened anyway
00:11:21
the
00:11:23
the questions in fact point to a much
00:11:26
larger question that
00:11:28
was the industrial revolution really
00:11:30
much of a revolution or was it somewhat
00:11:33
of an evolution
00:11:42
the first time the term
00:11:44
industrial revolution was actually
00:11:46
broached was in 1837
00:11:49
when august blocky
00:11:51
was looking at the changes that were
00:11:53
that were taking place in european
00:11:56
social life he had primarily the french
00:11:58
in mind and he spoke of
00:12:01
um the revolutionary transformation uh
00:12:03
the transformation as revolutionary and
00:12:05
he coined the term industrial revolution
00:12:09
two uh renowned german exiles working in
00:12:13
england uh engaged with this term a
00:12:15
little more friedrich ingalls and karl
00:12:17
marx
00:12:18
looking at the manner in which european
00:12:20
society was changing the manner in which
00:12:23
radicalism was fast becoming an option
00:12:26
and the old political order was no
00:12:28
longer representing
00:12:29
the aspirations of europeans
00:12:34
marx and ingalls began to identify
00:12:37
the industrial capitalist
00:12:39
system the industrial capitalist
00:12:40
organization as the pivotal factor in
00:12:44
this transformation of european society
00:12:46
and they too therefore spoke of the
00:12:49
revolutionary character of the
00:12:51
industrial organization
00:12:53
and the manner in which it changed from
00:12:55
the
00:12:56
second half of the 18th century in
00:12:58
britain and increasingly in the uh first
00:13:01
half of the 19th century elsewhere in
00:13:03
europe
00:13:05
but the person who
00:13:07
coined this term in historical discourse
00:13:10
was arnold
00:13:12
in course of a care speech in the
00:13:15
cambridge university
00:13:16
when
00:13:17
he argued that the industrial revolution
00:13:19
began in britain towards the close of
00:13:21
the 18th century bringing about a
00:13:23
revolutionary change
00:13:25
because it brought to an end
00:13:27
the centuries-long system of
00:13:30
guilt-dominated industrial production
00:13:33
and were the
00:13:35
market-centric competitive industrial
00:13:38
economy which would not be regulated by
00:13:40
any guild of artisans
00:13:44
in the 1930s however another english
00:13:47
historian
00:13:49
john harold clapham dismissed this
00:13:52
hypothesis of revolution
00:13:54
and he put forward instead the argument
00:13:58
of an evolutionary transformation he was
00:14:01
drawing his argument from the research
00:14:04
done by
00:14:05
other continental historians at this
00:14:06
point of time people like paul mantu
00:14:10
who argued that
00:14:12
the
00:14:12
character of change
00:14:15
has to be located not simply in britain
00:14:17
it has to be located elsewhere else
00:14:19
elsewhere in europe as well
00:14:21
and
00:14:22
once one looks at it the continuities
00:14:26
in terms of the evolution are more
00:14:28
pronounced than the breaks that were
00:14:30
occasioned by the revolution the
00:14:33
so-called revolution of the 1770s
00:14:36
in the decade of the 1930s and 40s
00:14:39
people like historians like j.u neff
00:14:42
further strengthened the argument by
00:14:43
showing
00:14:44
that owing to the expansion of global
00:14:46
commerce in the 16th and 17th centuries
00:14:49
the manufacturing sector of all the
00:14:51
european societies across the world all
00:14:53
western european societies across the
00:14:55
board had gone transformation continual
00:14:59
transformation
00:15:00
as
00:15:01
the market horizons began to expand more
00:15:04
and more european industrial
00:15:07
sectors were looking at markets overseas
00:15:10
and in order to capture that market they
00:15:13
would tend to
00:15:14
undergo changes as and when required
00:15:17
junef argues that the wars that were
00:15:20
occasioned by the french revolution and
00:15:23
even before that um by european
00:15:26
political situation
00:15:28
uh
00:15:29
the ravages caused by the war
00:15:31
tended to
00:15:33
sort of disturb the normal trajectory of
00:15:36
economic growth as countrysides were
00:15:38
ravaged as normal economic demand began
00:15:41
to be disrupted
00:15:43
european industry begins to begin to lag
00:15:46
behind in the 18th century
00:15:48
by contrast britain which did not have a
00:15:52
single war affecting
00:15:54
its
00:15:55
physical environment of industrial
00:15:57
production in the 18th century managed
00:16:00
to make the transformation make the leap
00:16:03
from a pre-modern guild dominated system
00:16:06
to a modern industrialized system and
00:16:10
the main uh thrust of his argument
00:16:13
laying the fact that this evolution was
00:16:16
taking place for over a period of three
00:16:18
centuries so
00:16:20
it would argue it was not much of a
00:16:22
revolution
00:16:24
later in the 1970s and 80s
00:16:27
historians like peter creator came to
00:16:30
endorse this argument
00:16:31
creta
00:16:33
in his very
00:16:35
heavy
00:16:37
emphasis on the significance of proto
00:16:40
industry argued that between 16th and
00:16:42
18th century european industrial
00:16:45
production had tended to move away from
00:16:49
the guild dominated industrial
00:16:51
production the toy and we had spoken of
00:16:53
when he had mentioned the industrial
00:16:55
revolution
00:16:56
krita argued that because of social and
00:16:59
economic factors that were fairly common
00:17:02
all over western europe a large number
00:17:04
of uh people
00:17:06
living in the countryside had actually
00:17:09
switched to proto-industry meaning
00:17:11
industrial activity as substitute for
00:17:14
their agricultural activity
00:17:16
uh and
00:17:18
this they did in order to generate more
00:17:20
income more sources of income in the
00:17:22
countryside but the bottom line is that
00:17:25
there was a
00:17:26
subset of skills a reservoir of skills
00:17:29
and industrial capability developing in
00:17:32
the countryside over a period of more
00:17:34
than 200 years
00:17:36
and creta argued that this relentless
00:17:39
advance of european industry from the
00:17:41
16th century onwards
00:17:44
expanding uh caused by the expanding
00:17:46
horizons of european commerce uh
00:17:49
propelled the emergence of a
00:17:50
manufacturing sector in the west
00:17:52
european countryside
00:17:54
which almost everywhere in west europe
00:17:56
had the potential of transformation
00:17:59
by bypassing the guild-dominated
00:18:01
traditional system
00:18:03
this pre-industry creator argued
00:18:06
was the bedrock on which
00:18:09
subsequent industrialization was to take
00:18:11
place
00:18:13
however
00:18:14
other historians came up with equally
00:18:17
powerful arguments by suggesting that
00:18:20
clapham nep and krita when they argued
00:18:23
about the continuity of the phenomenon
00:18:26
ignored the breaks that actually took
00:18:28
place
00:18:29
so w w rostow in the 1960 in 1960 when
00:18:33
he wrote his stages of economic growth
00:18:36
compared
00:18:38
the two the pre-modern and the modern
00:18:40
industrial production as like an
00:18:43
airplane taxiing on runway and an
00:18:46
airplane actually taking off
00:18:49
his his p he spoke of a takeoff
00:18:52
for industrial economy
00:18:54
to bring about to highlight the
00:18:56
significance of the breaks that took
00:18:59
place
00:19:00
that it's it's almost the difference
00:19:01
between a plane taxiing on the ground
00:19:03
and a plane really taking off flight
00:19:07
he argues that there was a real
00:19:10
qualitative difference between
00:19:12
the two stages in terms of the market
00:19:14
that was addressed in terms of the
00:19:16
industrial technology that was deployed
00:19:19
and in terms of the significance that
00:19:21
labor came to play he began he he argued
00:19:24
that the market addressed by the
00:19:26
industry by the
00:19:27
modern industrial system was much larger
00:19:30
it was much more capital intensive it
00:19:33
was much more technology driven and
00:19:35
definitely it was much more labor
00:19:37
displacing than what it used to be
00:19:39
earlier so the differential roster would
00:19:42
argue was that the significance of the
00:19:44
labor input in industrial production
00:19:47
began to change dramatically in the 18th
00:19:49
century and no amount of emphasis on
00:19:52
evolutionary transformation could take
00:19:54
care of that argument
00:19:56
towards the end of the 1970s
00:19:58
david landis
00:20:00
reinforced this argument further in
00:20:02
favor of a revolution transformation by
00:20:05
looking at the
00:20:07
the the the phenomenal changes that took
00:20:10
place in
00:20:12
in technology in terms of um industrial
00:20:15
production and it shows that the shift
00:20:18
that took place from animate sources of
00:20:21
energy to inanimate sources of energy in
00:20:23
britain in the 18th century
00:20:26
cannot be explained by any amount of
00:20:29
evolutionary
00:20:30
explanation of the revolution
00:20:33
because
00:20:34
in terms of continuities then charcoal
00:20:37
should have continued
00:20:39
to furnish to power the blast furnaces
00:20:41
in
00:20:43
all over western europe there should
00:20:44
have been no shift to coal
00:20:47
the shift from charcoal to coal the
00:20:49
shift from horse drawn carriages to
00:20:52
steam-powered railways david landers
00:20:54
suggests
00:20:56
is case enough for a revolutionary
00:20:58
transformation
00:21:00
almost around the same time e.j hobbs
00:21:03
bomb endorsed the argument in favor of a
00:21:06
revolutionary transformation by
00:21:08
highlighting on the phenomenal
00:21:10
socio-economic changes that were brought
00:21:12
about by this restructuring of european
00:21:15
industry there used to be a time when
00:21:17
european industry was dominated by
00:21:20
master craftsmen
00:21:22
who would impart their skills to
00:21:24
journeymen who would then take in
00:21:26
apprentices in order to educate um them
00:21:29
into the art of industrial production
00:21:32
that thing changes completely
00:21:35
the significance the social significance
00:21:37
of the artisan who could weave
00:21:40
cloth well
00:21:41
began to be replaced by a person who
00:21:44
could run a machine better
00:21:47
also the artisan who used to
00:21:50
cultivate the soil
00:21:52
during agricultural seasons and would
00:21:54
shift to proto-industrial activities in
00:21:56
the non-agricultural season that binary
00:21:59
bifurcation of economic activity also
00:22:02
changed and people began to be now more
00:22:05
full-time in in
00:22:07
involved more full-time in industrial
00:22:09
production
00:22:10
in the decade of the 1960s itself
00:22:13
however the most serious challenge to
00:22:16
the rostonian theory of stages of
00:22:18
economic growth come from alexander
00:22:20
gershon kron
00:22:21
geshenkron argued
00:22:23
that by the very fact that britain
00:22:26
happened to industrialize in the second
00:22:28
half of the 18th century it could no
00:22:31
longer being the first industrial
00:22:33
economy it could no longer serve as a
00:22:36
model for any other
00:22:38
economy anywhere else in the world
00:22:41
roster's argument was that all economies
00:22:44
have to go through
00:22:45
definite changes in terms of their
00:22:48
economic organization in order to reach
00:22:51
the industrial stage
00:22:53
cron argued that the moment one economy
00:22:56
has industrialized everyone else has to
00:22:58
follow suit otherwise they would be just
00:23:01
swept out of the market
00:23:03
so gersh and cron began to argue that
00:23:06
this there was indeed a relentless
00:23:08
course of industrial advancement in
00:23:11
europe between 16th and 18th centuries
00:23:14
but once britain made the the leap
00:23:18
once britain reached the critical mass
00:23:20
and then suddenly
00:23:22
witnessed a dramatic transformation
00:23:25
no other society in europe or elsewhere
00:23:27
could afford
00:23:29
to go through this natural trajectory of
00:23:31
industrial advancement
00:23:34
in the 1980s
00:23:35
nfr crafts mounted a far more
00:23:38
substantive challenge to the argument
00:23:40
about revolutionary change
00:23:42
taking into account the
00:23:45
uh the the volume of total volume of
00:23:47
industrial capital a technology and
00:23:49
social overhead capital that comes into
00:23:51
being around the industrial revolution
00:23:54
crafts argued that dean cole and later
00:23:57
hobbs bomb had exaggerated the
00:24:01
scale of economic growth in british
00:24:03
economy and that british economy in
00:24:05
general and british industry in
00:24:06
particular had grown at a far less
00:24:08
dramatic scale than earlier believed
00:24:11
crafts contended the transformation of
00:24:14
and growth of british industry was
00:24:17
nowhere near as dramatic as it appeared
00:24:19
uh to the contemporary people in britain
00:24:21
as well as europe
00:24:22
uh that the
00:24:24
the the it was more by way of evolution
00:24:27
that the industrial organization changed
00:24:36
to conclude
00:24:38
one needs to make this one final point
00:24:41
that the
00:24:42
historians approach to whether the
00:24:45
transformation was revolutionary or
00:24:47
evolutionary depends on which particular
00:24:50
society which particular economy was
00:24:52
looking at
00:24:53
american and british historians like
00:24:55
clapham neph dean hobsbaum landis
00:24:59
focusing primarily on the case study of
00:25:02
the british industrialization and
00:25:04
looking at the dramatic breakthrough
00:25:07
insisted that this was a revolutionary
00:25:09
transformation
00:25:10
by contrast people like creda and
00:25:13
gershon cron looking at the continental
00:25:15
cases
00:25:16
were more concerned with the
00:25:18
continuities that could be noticed in
00:25:21
terms of industrial evolution over the
00:25:23
two centuries that went before and they
00:25:25
insisted that the transformation was not
00:25:28
quite revolutionary it was much more
00:25:30
general and as a part of a general
00:25:32
trajectory that happened so the break
00:25:35
that did take place was not actually a
00:25:37
revolutionary break it was merely an
00:25:40
acceleration it was a break in terms of
00:25:42
the scale rather than the quality of the
00:25:45
change that mattered
00:26:05
so
00:26:36
you
