Hanging with History

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. The first of a six episode arc on the Early Enlightenment.  We emphasize the clash of ideas, then the content of ideas, then biography. This episode lays out the 3 way battle for the dominant philosophy between the  Aristotelian Scholastics, the dominate group in 1600, the moderate Enlightenment (which itself consisted of 3 battling elem...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. The Fiscal Military State concept is a valid tool for analyzing the role of government in this era, not to imply it's an ideal form of analysis.  British central government employees, well, 90% had a taxing or fund raising function.  And 90% of funds raised were spent on war and to pay debts from previous wars. And of course we summ...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. We finish up the crime issues, the bloody codes, private prosecution of crime, transportation to Australia, that we began last episode.  Then we move into the consequences of the Glorious Revolution, legitimacy and the changing role of Parliament, and Parliament as a meta institution.   We get a flavor of Joel Mokyr's coverage of in...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. We take a close look at local government during the 1700-1850 period.  What work happened at the parish level?   The Poor Laws, a unique British institution, are examined for their possible contribution to the Industrial Revolution.  Also, the private provision of public goods. We also look at whether a more agentic population, free to a...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 80% of criminal prosecutions are brought privately by the victims, with over 450 associations established to support criminal prosecutions. There is a lack of specie and small notes to settle accounts between tradesmen and entrepreneurs.  Therefore, there are a lot of small amounts owed back and forth. There aren't enough geniuses w...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. Paradox abounds when we look at entrepreneurs.  Expected returns are negative, but this doesn't really matter and we explain why.  Bankruptcies are common, but they only take your assets, they can't take what's between your ears and in your heart.  We look at some bankrupts and note that these are not failures at life.   W...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. Alternative Title: Families, Firms and Factories.  Half the episode is a deep dive into the trio of Samuel Bentham, Marc Brunel, and Henry Maudsley and how they worked together to magnify British advantages over Napoleon and the French in the first fully automated steam powered factory.   We look at the changes brought about by the creat...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. A novel theory of the distribution of consumption during the end of the 2nd hundred years war is developed. We explain the problems of relying on changing productivity numbers, but we still tend to accept them because the rest of our context suggests that they were truly increasing. In an episode focused on economic statistics and financ...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. Finance and medicine may seem like a mismatched pair. They wrap up our coverage of the Service Sectors in the Industrial Revolution. We cover the rise of the country banks, the history of the Bank of England, the 3 insurance sectors (yes, there were only 3)  and  the growth in skills of the securities industry.  Medicine is sometimes bru...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. Service sectors were a key part of the British economy, even in the 18th century..  This shows that the Industrial Revolution was more than merely improvements in textiles, steam and metals.  Transportation improvements, pre railroad, reveal Britain's organization flexibility in a wide variety of crucial arenas. Some key facts, in 1...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. We finish integrating the story of Britain's 3.5X rise in population from 1700-1850 by explaining how they all got fed.  In complete contradiction to Malthusian theory, the British diet got richer and more varied as the population exploded.  And it all happened despite the fact that the climate continued to be fairly terrible during...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. To what extent does foreign trade contribute to the Industrial Revolution. There is certainly some entanglement and a weak case can be be built for the idea that it was important.  A strong case that foreign trade was vital to the Industrial Revolution or causal in some sense, can not be made. There is also a explanation of the effects o...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. Balloons and lighting rods.  Platinum, not gold.  Ceramics and Lighting.  Chlorine bleach. We take a look at often neglected technological advances. The social consequences create the modern world.  Is that a materialistic approach to history???

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. To what degree does technological change depend on science in the Industrial Revolution.  We look at the paradigmatic cases of Steam Power and textiles. And we look at howe we know what we know.  And finally, this brings up something I've threatened to discuss many times, the flaws in using time series when there is a technological...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. This is one of the less intuitive ideas about the origins of the Industrial Revolution.  An historically unique concentration of skilled workmen were available in pre miracle England to translate the ideas of early modern science and technology into real industrial products and processes that worked. The apprenticeship system with weak g...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. We explore a couple 100 year cycles to move from Enlightenment ideas to practical products cheap and reliable enough for a large market to use. We explore first sewing machines and then electricity, leading to the telegraph.    I discuss how I had to change my mind about the way scientists and inventors moved easily between the Enlighten...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. The British Enlightenment was slightly different in character from the French Enlightenment.  Britain had already accomplished many of the goals the French Enlightenment was seeking. We start off with academic economic ideas of institutions and access costs.  Moving on to how the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution interpenetrate...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. During the enlightenment there are profound differences of opinion.  But there is a sense that human progress and social progress for the vast majority was both possible and desirable. There is the Baconian program with many scientists working in its name.  There is the Lockean idea that wealth is the product of human creativity and that...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. We look at the destructive forces that hold back all societies from achieving the miracle - modern economic growth. There are two negative feedback loops that end in violent destruction or evil, but pathetic parasitism.  And a third binding constraint, inadequate knowledge.  We review the history of Britain to show that in our reference...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. We take a closer look at Britain in 1700.  Both for the purpose of setting the stage for the rest of the Enlightenment arc,  but also to examine McCloskey's framing of the Big Question, Little Problem of the Industrial Revolution. Big Question boils down to Why was western Europe able to accomplish an economic lift off in the 19th c...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. We move into the analysis of how the Enlightenment affected the Industrial Revolution.    The Primary text for this arc will be Joel Mokyr's The Enlightened Economy. Science, philosophy and the sharing of information links the Enlightenment in Britain to the Industrial Revolution.  But...really?

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. We take a look at the advent of steam power and its deep historical origins. The first steam engines in China were imported from Britain, so we are finally up to a technology not invented in China! The first steam engines we know about are described by Heron (or Heron) of Alexandria in his book Pneumatica from the first century.  And tho...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. The first major advances in ironmaking were the byproducts of industrial espionage and whiskey. We get into a more detailed look at the early days of Iron before and during the miracle.  Along with telling the story of Dud Dudley and Abraham Darby, we go into the economists thought experiment, could the Industrial Revolution have happene...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. This episode focuses on cotton industry advances in the 18th century.  It covers the unique situation of a demand fueled series of inventions that were an answer to both imbalances in the putting out system and imbalances created by early success. We take a look at some other imbalances to, primarily in finance.  We show how and why work...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. The date is 1760.  The Industrial Revolution is about to get underway.  Abraham Darby has already broken the Dutch monopoly of brass.  He has already developed the coke fueled blast furnace.  John Kay has already invented the Flying Shuttle.  There are several jennies out there.   Things are out of balance and are going to have to change...