Growth and change: a comment on the Crafts-Harley view of the industrial revolution

Abstract

The aim of our article 'Rehabilitating the industrial revolution' was to broaden the debate about the extent and nature of change in the economy and society of the industrial revolution.' In 'Output growth and the British industrial revolution'2 Crafts and Harley reassert their position on the beginnings of modern economic growth, and dismiss our criticisms as confused and misleading. In doing this they have misconstrued a number of our arguments for a broader treatment of the industrial revolution in order to score clever debating points. A number of these can be answered very briefly. We did suggest reasons for thinking that their estimates may have understated industrial growth, but we nowhere argued for a return to Hoffmann or Deane and Cole.3 We also suggested that the contributions of a whole series of industries, from metalwares, chemicals, glassmaking, and pottery to food processing were not considered. They were not in the Crafts and Harley industrial sample, primarily because evidence of output growth was lost with the records of the small firms which dominated these industries. It is not obvious, as Crafts and Harley assert, that the historical record became more complete as time passed;4 we know much more of Ambrose Crowley in the seventeenth century than of the typical early nineteenthcentury manufacturer of metals in Birmingham, or of textiles in south Lancashire or Yorkshire. Crafts and Harley did not answer our point on the impact of product innovation.5 Gordon's research on the impact of quality and product changes on the US economy after the Second World War has demonstrated a doubling of former estimates of the growth of producer durables, and lesser though significant adjustments for consumer durables.6 Such effects are just as likely, if not more so, to appear in the early stages of industrialization, as patent data for the eighteenth century demonstrate. The major distortion of our arguments by Crafts and Harley lies in their view that the inclusion of female and child labour inputs which we advocate