Can “Dignity” Explain the Industrial Revolution: A Review of Deirdre McCloskey’s Economic Ideas
McCloskey’s work focuses on the causes of the Industrial Revolution. She does an excellent job of debunking the idea that capital accumulation or exploitation is the cause of the Industrial Revolution. She has a keen grasp of economic history. Unfortunately, the ability to criticize other ideas is not the same thing as putting forth a coherent theory.
to solve that problem and that is called an invention (manufacturing is reproduction of inventions).
I find nothing wrong but I do want to commend McCloskey's ideas as presented -have not looked at the sources. McCloskey gives interesting arguments some of which are wrong but rebuttals leads to real progress.
I like this concept of Dignity. We can all think of countries and areas where people are poorer but happier cleaner better clothed and sheltered with less crime than surrounding areas. Dignity has many merits, but the link to the Industrial Revolution has not been shown - unless it is in individual and property rights.
I was thinking of British India. At the time, 18C and 19C, the British gained immeasurably from the wealth of India -but it was not a zero sum game with India also gaining. Could that wealth, as capital, have caused or contributed to the Industrial Revolution? Compare with Spain which for a hundred years had a chain of treasure ships carrying the loot from their empire in the Americas, I have seen an argument that each gold laden ship cost Spain the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars. So no, capital was not the cause.
Some British gained but many of their own citizens were used as slaves to gain that wealth. Starting with the sailors on the ships that transported or protected the fleets.
Same for Spain, same for Portugal, same for France etc. And certainly not in the USA. Cleaner? One only has to look at the ground for the litter of cigarette butts, beer cans, and hamburger wrappers. Where's the dignity in an nation that can only produce a Clinton or a Trump as their national leaders.
Are you joking me?
Ni Modo
Think back to the time when you visited a medium to large city for the first time. My example is Seattle (some years ago). Think about the poorer districts. Area B has broken glass on the ground with cig packets, cartons of flavored milk and beer cans, there are broken windows and screaming kids. Area A has no broken windows but badly needs a coat of paint, front yards are small, some have a few flowers and mowed grass. It seems to have older inhabitants, they wear flannel western check shirts and baggy jeans, most would be on soc security but they have less money, there are no community organizers to assist in rorting. More important, they are not on crack and they buy plain milk. Streets and sidewalks are clean.
The difference I think is what McCloskey calls- dignity. Maybe it is self-respect.
Type A people are ok as neighbors, Type B people you would not want two suburbs away.
Surely, you can name countries that are like that?
All this is a side issue as to how we get the creativity/innovation of the kind in the industrial revolution. That's what my 2nd para discussed- windfall wealth does not do it, as dbh says.
-If you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got. -
The only clean country I have ever visited of the probably fifty or so is Singapore. but i take your point. Pride and self respect are certainly lacking in Seattle.
Now I'm on the right track. Thank you.
Just my thoughts...freeing the brain and it's emotions, desires and aspirations from oppression leads one on a path to the Mind and amazing things happen.
Thanks for the thought provoking piece DB.
I would like to add a few observations, even though I do not know what "explains the industrial revolution".
It seems to me an exercise in futility to search for a single thing, a concept, that would explain the occurrence of what we call industrial revolution. I would suggest that it would help to have a precise definition of what we mean by industrial revolution. In trying to define it, the complexity of the concept would become more visible.
I would propose a bit of a different perspective. Human species have been around for say a couple of hundred thousand years. I bet there is no single moment in the Earth's running around the Sun for which you could exclaim: "Eureka! A human is born!" Neither ancient Egyptians, starting, say, six millennia ago, nor ancient Greeks, starting, say, twenty eight centuries ago, had developed anything resembling industrial revolution, however we define exactly what we mean by that concept.
You would agree, I suspect, that there was no hope that industrial revolution could occur in the depth of the darkness we call Middle Ages.
Renaissance advanced the human condition locally, banking certainly existed and arts and philosophy advanced. But the most important contribution, seems to me, was rejecting the previous darkness and recognizing humaneness and minds of individuals as something beautiful and valuable.
If I am not mistaken, industrial revolution began in UK and very soon "infected" the US.
As I said before, there is never going to be one reason for it. But let me try to list some contributing factors, without trying to order them in value or significance: higher levels of mental and manual skills, ease of communication with a common language, relative political and economic freedom, rule of law, relative abundance of food and all sorts of materials all cheaper than could be produced locally, basic scientific knowledge available to at least some, innovations in thinking and doing, partly from necessity and partly from desire for wealth. I hope that this is enough to give you the idea, without any claim of completeness.
In short (I frequently warn people that I am verbose), I think that you will do the best in finding the "explanation" for "industrial revolution" if you just drop the R ... EVOLUTION.
With all due respect, submitted by ... polar bear.
Of course not. But, on the same level. friction does not "explain" inertia, nor does inertia "explain" gravity. My reason to add those observations was to support what I think you expressed: "dignity" does not "explain" industrial revolution. I thought that, implicitly, you also questioned the idea that a single concept or "cause" can "explain" the industrial revolution. At best, a single concept is a contributing factor. As you say, a theory might "explain" it, i.e. impart to all of us a comprehensive understanding of how industrial revolution was brought on.
It is clear that anything that inhibits people's ability to use their mind will inhibit invention and therefore economic growth. Thus liberty is important, but the key is property rights for invention. Technically a proper understanding of liberty would include property rights for inventions, but most people are not logical enough to make the connection.
I agree with you completely. I would add that property rights, taken broadly, not only for the inventor but also for the developer and the applicator, who might be different people, are just as important.
At least in manufacturing but also, I suspect, in many other fields, there is almost continuous flow of "innovations" that improve the productivities of individuals and enterprises, thus adding to the increase in wealth.
It seems to me pretty obvious that science was part of the base of sparking the industrial revolution and the invention in it. But then the birth of industrial enterprises had a "feedback loop" into spurring substantial advancements in material sciences in the latter part of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th.
A classic caricature of the capitalist, to which I was exposed innumerable times in my youth, is that he buys a competing patent and hides in the drawer to prevent the "disruption" of his "monopoly". Certainly, the liberty of the inventor and of the competitors are pretty good protection from the monopolizing. Ever heard of crony capitalism?