Politics
Political distinctions that occurred before and during the Industrial
Revolution would set the trend that would follow in the next hundreds of years.
Snooks (1994: 15) believes Britain was the first to industrialise as a result of
its "improvement in organisational form". This included the shift from
feudalism to capitalism, involving the emergence of factor markets and the
widening of commodity markets after mid 18 century. The expansion of trade was
another reason. A large part of Britain's state action distinguished its market
environment from that of other European countries. The main trend of British
legislation was "precisely in the direction of a continued dismantling of
the structural, fiscal and economic barriers to the mobility of men and
resources". (Cipolla et. al., 1976: 320) Governing classes in Britain were
sympathetic and representative of the commercial and financial interests which
helped transform Britain's economic institutions and opportunities from the late
seventeenth century onwards. In the 1800s, British tariffs were reduced and
significant duties on imports were virtually abolished. Britain's laissez-faire
leanings were "an important part of the emerging economic ideology"
that was to influence modern industrial society. (Cipolla et. al., 1976: 301)
Another distinguishing characteristic of Britain's politics was trade. Britain's
exports rose greatly from the technological revolution. The rising output,
recorded by Cipolla et. al. (1976, 215) as multiplying four times in the
eighteenth century, "boosted industrial profits, which provided additional
capital for still further changes". (Stearns, 1993: 30) From fifteen
century onward, Western European nations, including Britain, had won increasing
control over international commerce. Stearns (1993: 35) states,
"increasingly, a hierarchy emerged in the international economy in which
Europeans acquired minerals and agricultural goods from other areas (including
their colonies in the Americas, India, and elsewhere) and in return sold
manufactured goods".
The price of these goods included the cost of production / processing, and thus
firms were in general able to profit from the exchange. Precious metals, sugar,
and tobacco were the main commodities exported from the Americas; India and
South East Asia exchanged spices, tea, and gold. Hence, these nations were made
aware of the economic benefits of industrialisation. As Cipolla et. al. (1976:
351) concludes,
"one can certainly say that the basic framework of [British] state
action was capitalist economic development and to that extent the role of
governments was either to stimulate and encourage private enterprise (by
tariffs, subsides, the provision of information, ect.) or to replace it in key
areas in order to encourage it more generally".
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