Ping Pong 33; Going Industrial
When was the Industrial Revolution? The question is surprisingly hard to answer as the ‘When’ of this (r)evolution is tied up with the problem of ‘What’ it was. - So that one can have as many ‘when it was’ answers as there are answers to ‘what it was’, and vice-versa. However there are clearly within all these whats and whens two critical problems. On the one hand there is the Industrial Revolution as it was in itself. That is as it related to material progress, and to the rhythm of invention and innovation. On the other hand there is the understanding of these changes, then and now, an understanding which has a rich and varied history of its own.
What is more, the second of these elements is effectively divided in numerous ways. Firstly, one might look at a history of the idea as it related to the time period (early nineteenth century), and how people were attempting to understand or coordinate the changes of that time. Secondly, one might look at the history of the idea of this revolution in the latter half of the nineteenth century (when the idea had a far firmer footing). In this latter case one would be looking at the history of a historical re-write. That is, how one time reached back into another time, and used it to ground its own reality. Thirdly, one might look at how the revolution was treated by other countries and other times. Fourthly one might look at how the idea of the revolution became confused with other ideas about other revolutions (such as capitalism or the French Revolution) which were theoretically distinct from it, and yet appeared caught up with it. That is, one might worry about the entire idea of a revolution, and whether or not the political event par excellence can really be applied to slow historical change. Fifthly there is the problem that ideas conjoin with one another very readily. Ideas that were created at the same time are likely therefore to become confused and conjoined. Industrialism and capitalism, created around the same time therefore become infused with one another, and seem to us one and the same idea. Finally one might look at how we use the idea of the Industrial Revolution now to pattern ours (in the West’s) and everyone else’s life.
Each of these ingredients needs to be identified, and assessed, when one considers the true power of the ‘Industrial Revolution’, actuality and concept, which conjoins them all. The rest of this Rant will examine each of these seven elements in turn, before assessing the ways in which we blend them together in the next Rant.
What or when was the actual Industrial Revolution? This is a question that has recently been re-examined by industrial historians. They (not that surprisingly) found that the old tale of a sudden advance in manufacturing industry at the end of the eighteenth and start of the nineteenth century was misguided. The advance was rather patchy. The famous cotton mills of Manchester were not that profitable (one went bust). Where there were changes in the production process, it is was just as often due to changes in the journeyman system (that is the way in which the stuff was bought and sold) as it was to major manufacturing advance. However there was very little pattern here. Certain manufacturing processes, such as cotton production, were highly mechanized, while others such as cutlery production were not.
Nor really should all this disorder surprise us very much. Any time of innovation is likely to be uneven. The point is to experiment with different systems and different ways of doing things (Brunel originally had tracks much wider than Stevenson, all of which needed re-laying). The kind of change that a ‘re-evolution’ in manufacturing involves, is a complex equation. Each separate industry must look to its immediate environment, its organization, but also to its history, to the changes that others (rivals and other industries) are doing, the resources that it has, to the market it is likely to have, to what could be done, and what then would be its ideal. Each element of this equation is then constantly shifting, and with it, what exactly it means to be producing the goods changes and evolves. The result might be messy to understand, but then is that not just because it involves real people, and real lives, and not just neat ideas?
Secondly the history of the idea of the Industrial Revolution, from within is likely to be just as complex. Firstly there is no real reason why the idea of the Industrial Revolution ought to be strongest in the places where change was more prevalent. On the contrary one might expect it to be strongest somewhere else (perhaps in the government) which is desperately attempting to understand what is occurring within the myriad changes of its time. The Industrial Revolution from this angle is not a narrative (that is, an imposed necessary order, in which to put things), but rather a locus or nexus for holding a whole sequence of changes within it. As such its task is less to impose an order from without (the task of the ideal-narrative), but rather to open communication between elements within the system. This ‘feeling across different places and processes’, needs to be seen in the context of a world where transport is becoming cheaper and easier (coaches and trains). The country started being able to look at its various regions, and both worry about what was happening there, but also think about how one might set up one area as the standard for the others. That is, one might take what had happened in one region of the country and apply it as the yardstick of change for all the others. The idea of a series of industrial changes (call it a revolution if one must) was then merely one such yardstick. It was one way to understand how a country, which was becoming coordinated within itself, understood that coordination (in the same way that environmentalism is tied to globalization).
Thirdly, it is not coincidence that the phrase ‘Industrial Revolution’ gained popularity after the 1870’s (when Arnold Toynbee used it). This was at the start of a period of great confidence (for certain portions of Britain) and at the height of imperialism. The Industrial Revolution appeared then a great tag to describe what had changed, in the preceding time period in Britain both on the domestic and international level. That is, it provided a useful handle on the series of changes that had openned out the communications between different regions of Britain, and allowed the entire country to look at other parts of itself (the train). But also it provided a paradigm for understanding that drastic change that had seen Britain move over the space of two centuries from a bit player in Europe, to a major world power. Britain felt itself to be different from everywhere else, it felt itself to be peculiarly blessed, and the Industrial Revolution, the idea that we somehow were more efficient at what we did, and better at organizing it, fitted neatly into this feeling.
It is at this point, and in the name of this confidence, that the idea of the Industrial Revolution became a genuine historical narrative. This narrative ceased to care about the details and fussy textures of the change that had produced the societies of the late nineteenth century. On the contrary it wanted to back-date the new found confidence of the age, and understood the change that produced that confidence in terms of the destiny of historical development. A narrative then was constructed that circled around those facts (mills, the jemmy wheel, the steam engine) which supported this destiny. It is the confidence, and the story that it spawned, which has come to haunt us all.
Fourthly, other countries looked at Britain, and the fact that it was now a world power, and sought to emulate its rise; the narrative of the Industrial Revolution became the one that other countries felt duty bound to follow and honour. They applied it, as if it were historical fact, to their own circumstances, forcing their countries into the narrative, irrespective of local customs or traditions. A move then that had two very deep effects. On the one hand Britain was soon eclipsed as the major industrial power; it simply could not compete with the resources of America or Germany. On the other hand, industrialization became yet another way in which nations competed with one another. That is it entered the cannon of elements such as wars or large-scale building, within which rival nations expressed their power to one another. This is of course a legacy which we all still live with. Countries are felt to be under-developed unless they are industrial. The implication here is obvious: the industrialized world has gutted local customs, ignored the value of diverse practice (and so impoverished a large portion of the world’s population, a fact which we simple accept), and started to seriously undermine our own position on the planet, in the name of an imposed narrative and a desire to compete with other nations.
Fifthly, the idea of an industrial revolution is of course itself a very problematic one. The very idea of a revolution ought to be of an event or series of events, which while very destructive in themselves, bind together to make a series of deep and lasting changes (often political). This was after all, how the term was first used, and how it was used correctly to describe the changes in America and France. However it is far from clear on the face of it at least, whether the word ‘revolution’ really ought to be applied to a gradual process that took many decades to effect. That the phrase was applied to the ‘Industrial Revolution’, was probably a historical accident. Thinkers in Britain were looking for a reason to explain why it was that Britain had resisted the French (or American) calls for revolution. The argument which they then made was that Britain had had its own revolution, one which meant that other (foreign?) revolutions were not really necessary (the same argument was applied to the English Civil War).
Be that as it may, what is clear is that the use of the word ‘revolution’ to describe the sequence of changes linked to the growth of factories had two deep effects. On the one hand it legitimized the amount of social disruption and disorder involved within such revolutions. The French Revolution had its Terror, the English Industrial Revolution had its poverty. Moreover no country could then expect to industrialize without such changes, and disruption. Global poverty was then legitimized in the name of revolution. Or even more insidiously, a pretext was found for the fact that much of this poverty was actually created by the richer countries moving in and seizing the assets of the ‘poorer’ countries (think diamonds and emerald mining here). We could even pretend that the poverty which we spread in the name of our greed, was really part of a master plan! On the other hand it was no coincidence that the first use of the phrase ‘industrial revolution’ was by Marx. The phrase politicised the revolution, and opened out a possibility. It in effect suggested that maybe the Revolution in France and the slow changes in Britain were really a part in the same affair(?). Maybe the one revolution was the gateway to the other, politics following industry (or the other way around). Very different changes collide and coalesce in the names of revolution and socialism (but also many species of capitalism) and thrive in the cross breeding.
Sixthly, the Industrial Revolution was from its inception confused with capitalism. The two processes were however clearly initially different. Adam Smith thinks that one of the advantages of his theory is that it will allow workshops to triumph over factories! Likewise the other two great early theorists of political economy - Malthus and Ricardo, while they certainly consider industrialization, saw it as secondary to the great issue of land and rents. There is no fixed and clear relationship between industrialization and capitalism. Of course one needs markets for what one produces, but markets might come in a variety of ways. Likewise one needs money to set up factories, but again exactly how that money is raised could differ. Indeed it is very often the case that countries when they are industrializing are rather restrictive in their practices, favouring their goods over foreign imports and maintaining rather strict codes and limitations on their population (China but also Singapore). This is not to say that there is no link between capitalism and industrialization. On the contrary there clearly is some connection. However it is not simple exactly what that connection is, or whether it need be stable; different forms of capitalism might have different links with different forms of industrialization. What is always certain though, is that the two can easily pull apart. Or perhaps it is more true to say that it is far easier to preserve capitalism than industrialization. One might therefore rescue the banks from oblivion, but one cannot stop the fact of one’s country going into recession.
Finally it is clear that there is no really simple link between all these factors. Or rather the link that can always be made, that of a historical narrative is the falsest of friends. Such a narrative will for a certain time, stitch what has happened to that time up in a course that reflects the sentiments of that time. It will not explain anything (and cannot be used as a paradigm for others to follow). It will moreover itself then be pitched into history, and will come to be replaced by (or itself stitched into) other narratives which must account for other times, and other sentiments. Narratives as ideas become utterly caught up in a history of themselves, and overwhelmed by it. The problem of really understanding the nature of industrialization is that of how to allow more productive and complex exchanges to happen between these elements. Exchanges that must attempt to communicate something of the complexity and shifts in range and elements that the idea of industrialization involves. That is, an analysis that attempts then to follow some of the ways in which the different elements in the idea of the Industrial Revolution became caught up in one another. It is to this analysis that the next Rant will turn.
