Moykr/McCloskey's makes the most sense as the spark that launched the fire (I lean more to Moykr but McCloskey does have some decent points). But I do think we need to also look at the Gregory Clark hypothesis as laying the groundwork that would enable the eventual fire to catch. Clark's hypothesis around cultural (and yes, *gack*, biological) evolution in certain polities/areas creating the population preconditions for the eventual growth.
(McCloskey's dismissal of it in the book was embarrassing for McCloskey, betraying a basic misunderstanding of evolutionary facts and thinking 'reversion to the mean' somehow ruled it out. Greg Cochran called out this mistake rather sharply in a blogpost https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/economists-and-biology/ )
Clark's theory helps explain for instance why Germany, Northwest Europe, Japan and other East Asian countries later were able to also adopt the industrial revolution far more easily and achieve high growh rates while say, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, Latin America struggled and continue to struggle far more. It's not the entirety, but it explains a lot and makes the world much easier to understand than in the absence of it.
I'm not sure if it's true that "there is no distinguishing factor" between Ancient Rome and IR Britain; if you look at ideas/philosophy as determining actions and history - well, Britain (maybe expanded to France and even Greater Europe) had Enlightenment philosophers right? Adam Smith, Dave Ricardo etc.
So my question would be, did Romans have anything like a philosopher who put it all together? Rights, trade, freedom (to create)? It's tough to find prominent philosophers NOW who think those are Good (which also does not bode well for the future).
I know this comment is rather late; however, I had only stumbled upon this article today. I first want to say it was interesting but there were a few things I noticed:
It had reminded me of the historian, specialised in the military of the Roman Republic, Bret Devereaux' claim that a 'Roman Industrial Revolution' was impossible because of the limits of Roman metallurgy: (https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/). Early Modern Europe had centuries of experience in making 'explosion-resistant pipes' from building cannons to, hopefully, not explode; and even despite this the first steam engines still had an annoying tendency to explode; thus building non-exploding steam engines would have been beyond Roman metallurgy. Though I don't know what that historians of metallurgy think of that argument...
That still leaves wind and water power, though those might not be sufficient for a 'real' industrial revolution.
Also absent had been any mention of the printing press and early modern north-western Europe's high literacy rate and great production of books. Which I, as a layman, suspect had also been important factors in the industrial revolution.
Or demography/family formation. Early modern north-western Europe also had a relatively late age of marriage for women, what a double digit percentage of women remaining unmarried; which as far as I am aware was absent in Ancient Rome. Which leads to problems if we assume that both the high wage theory of the British Industrial Revolution and Malthus had been, at least partially, correct; then Ancient Roman demography would in response to 'peace and prosperity' simply expand until wages are low again, or at least more than early modern north-western Europe would have done in the same situation.
There are some more things I feel to mention*; however, as it is already late here I'd best stop here.
* For example, the article had stated that 'Christianity with its prohibition on dissecting'; however, I recall from Tim O'Neill's blog that there had never been a general ban on dissection in Catholic Europe, only a specific bans forbidding specific religious orders, but not others, from engaging in dissection.
Not to mention the demonization of credit and financial markets, making investment and capital use for economies of scale virtually impossible. Good luck connecting talent and money when it's considered a deadly sin and punished as such.
One factor that still holds true in modern times is the degree of religious obligation. Islamic countries never industrialized because people are required to pray 5 times a day. Pagan Rome had frequent feasts and holidays, and medieval Catholic Europe continued the tradition. Ideally a believer should receive Mass daily, and there were feast days and fast days almost every week. The industrializers needed to break holidays and reduce church to one session per week before they could obligate people to slave 16 hours a day for 6.5 days per week. Conveniently, Protestant churches accomplished just what the sweatshops needed.
Moykr/McCloskey's makes the most sense as the spark that launched the fire (I lean more to Moykr but McCloskey does have some decent points). But I do think we need to also look at the Gregory Clark hypothesis as laying the groundwork that would enable the eventual fire to catch. Clark's hypothesis around cultural (and yes, *gack*, biological) evolution in certain polities/areas creating the population preconditions for the eventual growth.
(McCloskey's dismissal of it in the book was embarrassing for McCloskey, betraying a basic misunderstanding of evolutionary facts and thinking 'reversion to the mean' somehow ruled it out. Greg Cochran called out this mistake rather sharply in a blogpost https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/economists-and-biology/ )
Clark's theory helps explain for instance why Germany, Northwest Europe, Japan and other East Asian countries later were able to also adopt the industrial revolution far more easily and achieve high growh rates while say, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, Latin America struggled and continue to struggle far more. It's not the entirety, but it explains a lot and makes the world much easier to understand than in the absence of it.
I'm not sure if it's true that "there is no distinguishing factor" between Ancient Rome and IR Britain; if you look at ideas/philosophy as determining actions and history - well, Britain (maybe expanded to France and even Greater Europe) had Enlightenment philosophers right? Adam Smith, Dave Ricardo etc.
So my question would be, did Romans have anything like a philosopher who put it all together? Rights, trade, freedom (to create)? It's tough to find prominent philosophers NOW who think those are Good (which also does not bode well for the future).
I know this comment is rather late; however, I had only stumbled upon this article today. I first want to say it was interesting but there were a few things I noticed:
It had reminded me of the historian, specialised in the military of the Roman Republic, Bret Devereaux' claim that a 'Roman Industrial Revolution' was impossible because of the limits of Roman metallurgy: (https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/). Early Modern Europe had centuries of experience in making 'explosion-resistant pipes' from building cannons to, hopefully, not explode; and even despite this the first steam engines still had an annoying tendency to explode; thus building non-exploding steam engines would have been beyond Roman metallurgy. Though I don't know what that historians of metallurgy think of that argument...
That still leaves wind and water power, though those might not be sufficient for a 'real' industrial revolution.
Also absent had been any mention of the printing press and early modern north-western Europe's high literacy rate and great production of books. Which I, as a layman, suspect had also been important factors in the industrial revolution.
Or demography/family formation. Early modern north-western Europe also had a relatively late age of marriage for women, what a double digit percentage of women remaining unmarried; which as far as I am aware was absent in Ancient Rome. Which leads to problems if we assume that both the high wage theory of the British Industrial Revolution and Malthus had been, at least partially, correct; then Ancient Roman demography would in response to 'peace and prosperity' simply expand until wages are low again, or at least more than early modern north-western Europe would have done in the same situation.
There are some more things I feel to mention*; however, as it is already late here I'd best stop here.
* For example, the article had stated that 'Christianity with its prohibition on dissecting'; however, I recall from Tim O'Neill's blog that there had never been a general ban on dissection in Catholic Europe, only a specific bans forbidding specific religious orders, but not others, from engaging in dissection.
Not to mention the demonization of credit and financial markets, making investment and capital use for economies of scale virtually impossible. Good luck connecting talent and money when it's considered a deadly sin and punished as such.
One factor that still holds true in modern times is the degree of religious obligation. Islamic countries never industrialized because people are required to pray 5 times a day. Pagan Rome had frequent feasts and holidays, and medieval Catholic Europe continued the tradition. Ideally a believer should receive Mass daily, and there were feast days and fast days almost every week. The industrializers needed to break holidays and reduce church to one session per week before they could obligate people to slave 16 hours a day for 6.5 days per week. Conveniently, Protestant churches accomplished just what the sweatshops needed.