Page 164 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

industrial technologies 983

God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west...
keeping the world in chains. If [our nation] took to similar economic exploitation,
it would strip the world bare like locusts. • Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948)

improved techniques were tried and found to be feasible, water power without hydraulics, dye making without
they often disappeared because their owners kept them organic chemistry, and medical practice without micro-
secret or the new technique simply was too localized and biology and immunology. Not enough was known to
disappeared when its inventors died, before it could generate sustained economic growth based on techno-
become widespread. The modern age, with its competi- logical change.
tive globalized economy, has a number of mechanisms In view of all this, it is amazing how much techno-
available through which new techniques can spread rap- logical change actually did occur in the world before
idly (even if their use is limited in the short term by 1750. In different periods, the Chinese and the Euro-
patent protection), but none of these existed, for exam- peans took turns producing innovations in agriculture,
ple, in classical antiquity. Secondly, most societies of the textile manufacturing, shipbuilding, iron making, and the
past were far more conservative and tradition-bound harnessing of energy sources. Wind and water power
than those of today. Respect for the knowledge of past grew in importance, machines and instruments of vari-
generations permeated most societies, and an act of ous kinds were devised, animals were bred better and
invention was always and everywhere an act of rebellion, used more effectively, and new products such as paper,
displaying disrespect for one’s ancestors and elders.This eyeglasses, and eventually printing made the diffusion
technological conservatism, however rational it may have and retention of useful knowledge itself easier and
seemed at the time, ensured that many new ideas were cheaper.All these advances took centuries to accomplish,
nipped in the bud. By specifying production processes in but it cannot be doubted that in 1750 industrial tech-
meticulous detail and being intolerant of any deviation, nology was far more sophisticated than it had been in
guilds and similar organizations became an instrument the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great.
of the technological status quo.
It is also indisputable that the vast bulk of industrial The Industrial Revolution
technology before 1750 lacked almost entirely an under- and the Modern World
standing of the physical and chemical processes involved The industrial revolution was driven by an acceleration
in manufacturing.The “epistemic base” of the techniques of the process of innovation.While technological change
was exceedingly narrow. It was a world of engineering did take place in the premodern age, it was both slow
without mechanics, iron making without metallurgy, and exceptional. None of this is true for our modern age:
farming without soil science, mining without geology, we basically expect continuous improvement in every
area of our material existence. Many reasons have been
put forward to explain this technological takeoff. Some
have focused on the improved institutional environment
in which industrial technology operates: New techniques
are often protected by patents, and the capital goods in
which they are used are reasonably safe from predators
and tax collectors.While resistance to new technology is
still rampant in some areas such as genetic engineering
and nuclear power and a few special-interest organiza-
tions such as labor unions have exerted a braking influ-
ence on continuous progress, by and large technological
conservatism has been pushed into a corner. Modern
society has discovered the idea of industrial R&D, in
A fanciful drawing of a 1629 steam turbine. which large firms deliberately engage in trying to