The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700-1850 (New Economic History of Britain) [Hardcover]

Joel Mokyr believes the extensive literatures on the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution have remained mostly disjointed from one another. In The Enlightened Economy he seeks to connect them.

Mokyr acknowledges multiple ingredients of the British Industrial Revolution (1700-1850) -- favorable location, mineral resources, a pre-existing middle class, artisans' skills, and so on -- but he argues that "the real factor that transformed the economy was the general drive for progress and not just its various manifestations." He credits what he calls the "Industrial Enlightenment" with creating an environment where technical and practical knowledge was valued and readily disseminated.

He proposes that the Enlightenment abetted economic development on another front, as well: it helped place "rent-seeking" (mercantilist policies of monopoly and privilege) on the defensive, as the ideas of Adam Smith and others filtered into political discourse.

These connecting sinews between Enlightenment thought and economic development seem plausible enough, although one might quibble that Mokyr is stronger at asserting the nexus than he is at demonstrating it compellingly. The bulk of his book, in fact, is not especially dependent on the scaffolding of this theme and could easily stand alone.

Mokyr weighs various debates regarding the relevant economic history and renders a number of judgments which may challenge some readers' prior understandings. He contends, for instance, that much of the economic history of this period had little to do with the Industrial Revolution, that only part of the British economy was affected by mechanization; that the rate of economic growth was relatively slow, accelerating only after 1830; that artisans and mechanics contributed small improvements in existing technology ("microinventions") which should not be lost in the shadow of more dramatic innovations; and that the "enlightened" Industrial Revolution economy was not laissez-faire, that the limitations of the free market were recognized, as well as the blessings.

The Enlightened Economy would be an excellent suggestion for the reading list of a graduate student seeking a thoughtful review of much of the literature on the Industrial Revolution. More casual general readers should be forewarned, however, that this is a work of scholarship, packed with details that may not consistently hold their interest.

This very good book is an effort to solve the "little problem" of the Industrial Revolution, why Britain industrialized earlier than other European nations, and by addressing the "little problem," solve the "big problem" of why Europe industrialized first. Filling out an argument he has sketched out in prior books, Mokyr presents a very good case that the European Enlightenment was a key factor in the genesis of the Industrial Revolution. Mokyr suggests that the Enlightenment dedication to expanding human knowledge, a scientific-materialistic approach to nature, and use of knowledge to improve human existence is a key feature of the Industrial Revolution. He argues well that this Enlightenment propensity was more widely diffused in Britain than in other European nations, and this accounts to a considerable extent for the innovative character of the British economy and technology development. Mokyr is very careful to specify that what he terms the Industrial Enlightenment was a necessary but not sufficient cause of the Industrial Revolution. While he criticizes, in a very thoughtful way, a number of other treatments of the genesis of the Industrial Revolution, he regards the birth of the Industrial Revolution in Britain as a complex, multifactorial process that involved a baseline high standard of living, favorable economic and political institutions, prior existence of a dynamic commercial capitalism, favorable endowments of key resources (coal), and some particularly important technoligical leads.

Mokyr presents a very convincing argument for his thesis. He discusses the nature of the Industrial Enlightenment and studies many different aspects of the British economy across the century and a half of the period to support his arguments. While not a traditional narrative history, this is an impressive survey of many features of the Industrial Revolution and the individual chapters are all quite interesting and written well. An important point is that his view of the Industrial Enlightenment is not strictly restricted to technological development but also features the Enlightenment goals of improving human institutions. He particuarly emphasizes the open, market oriented, liberal political economy advocated by thinkers like Smith and Hume. Mokyr's command of and analysis of the large prior literature on this topic is one of the best features of this book.

There are, I think, some minor weaknesses and perhaps a couple of potentially moderate defects of interpretation. In a book like this, its impossible to get all the details correct. Mokyr differentiates British Enlightenment intellectuals from their continental counterparts as being more accomodating towards religion and existing government. But what about Hume, whose writings on political economy Mokyr cites almost as frequently as Smith? The author of the most corrosive criticism of religion ever published and one of the most important contributors to Republican political theory hardly fits this description. I suspect that Mokyr overemphasizes the impact of the Great Reform Bill of 1832 in one crucial dimension, and its not correct that Himmelfarb's Roads to Modernity is an "eloquent defense of the Enlightenment."

In terms of interpretation, Mokyr sometimes edges into almost teleological discussion of the importance of an open economy. He is quite critical of some scholars who have seen the mercantilist-imperialist nature of the 18th century British state as an important factor in the genesis of the Industrial Revolution. Mokyr's criticism is often on target, for example, his recurrent point that the frequent wars generated by 18th century imperial-mercantilist competition were economically destructive. On the other hand, some of Mokyr's narrative suggests indirect and important ways in which mercantilist policies were (inadvertantly) positive. As he points out (though only in passing), Britain had relatively high tariffs until the Industrial Revolution was well underway. The 1713 Calico Act may have provided crucial protection to the technologically innovative cotton textiles industry and this industry benefited greatly from cheap fiber from American slave plantations. He cites the British shipping industry and Navy as important though indirect sources of technological innovation, and these benefited greatly from mercantilist policies. It may be that another contributing factor to the birth of Industrial Revolution was a fortuitous combination of relatively free market and mercantilist policies. The economic historian Patrick O'Brien has suggested something like this with Britain and its Empire internally open but externally mercantilist in mutually reinforcing ways.

Mokyr also describes the period of 1700 to 1850 as one of progression from mercantilism to an open economy. This is correct in many important ways. But in some important ways, it is misleading. This period is the apogee of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and plantation slavery in the Americas. In 1700, there were an estimated 300,000 slaves in the Americas. By 1850, the number of slaves in the Western Hemisphere was around 6,000,000. The British economy was deeply enmeshed in the slave trade and the plantation economy. As Mokyr himself states, the booming British cotton industry gave American slavery a new lease on life.

Readers who enjoyed this book might look at several other recent books. Margaret Jacob's short book on the influence of the Scientific Revolution on the Industrial Revolution was clearly an important influence on Mokyr's work and is a really intersting book. Robert Allen's recent book is an attempt to solve the "little problem" by invoking more traditional economic factors. His analysis is different but complementary to Mokyr's analysis and Allen's book contains some very interesting detail about the highly contingent features underlying key technological innovations. For an interesting look at the interaction between mercantilism and the Industrial Revolution, the relevant sections of Findley and O'Rourke's Power and Plenty is instructive reading. On plantation slavery and its economic importance (and relative modernity in terms of production organization) see the excellent books of Robin Blackburn. For a broad comparative perspective, Pomeranz' The Great Divergence is exciting reading and the relevant chapter of William Rowe's excellent survey of Qing China provides a concise comparison of 18th century China and Europe.

Superb history of the emergence of Industrial Revolution in Britain, seen now in the context of the (British) Enlightenment, in the period from the Glorious Revolution onward. The Industrial Revolution was a breakthrough in technology, but it was also a set of insights, and a hard-won understanding of 'economies' in the abstract.
It is arguable that the polish put on such histories can blind us to the crude explosion of a few gimmicks, between heat engines, and greed made theoretical, but the bright side of capitalist invention and the invention of capitalism is seen in the higher key of intellectual history, and the keynote of the Enlightenment itself. It is hard to come to an understanding of these events, in part because they show a macrohistorical dynamics that is elusive, and which suggests a kind of 'Axial Age' effect where a cornucopia of effects arrive in a strange temporal mystery. The Age of Adam Smith was one of the most packed eras in world history, packed with innovations not all of them economic. Therefore the full explanation is more than the sume of it parts, and points to the context of the modern transformation as a whole.