Macroinventions, economic growth, and‘industrial revolution’in Britain and France

Abstract

In his I993 Tawney Lecture, Landes returned to the issues raised by an article of mine published in I977.' In that article I argued that Britain's primacy in achieving the decisive inventions in cotton textiles which precipitated the 'industrial revolution' did not of itself show that there was a higher ex ante probability of these events occurring in Britain rather than in France and that it was important to recognize the stochastic elements in technological progress. I also suggested that the literature of the time was in danger of making unwarranted inferences concerning a laundry list of alleged advantages of the British over the French eighteenth-century economy supposed to have been the origins of the first industrial revolution. Landes disagrees. His view is that 'Given the composition and growth of the British industrial sector, it is not an accident that Britain produced the inventions and innovations it did; that France did not; and that even after the British had given the good example, the French . . . had trouble keeping pace.' . . . 'If Britain was first, if France was slower . . . these things have their reasons. '2 I am more than happy to accept that the arguments which I put forward nearly 20 years ago are in need of updating and some modification. Indeed, although Landes does not say so, my position has been refined and revised in a large number of subsequent publications.3 Nevertheless, I believe the central thrust of my old argument, properly stated, is still valid and has indeed been strengthened by further research. The central issues hinge on the concept of 'industrial revolution' and, before turning to a detailed reply to Landes, it is necessary to explore this point. The definition of 'industrial revolution' adopted in the article to which Landes objects was