[Manuel]

I've established the causes of the Industrial Revolution to be:

• Agrarian society, with nothing to do during winter months, leading to home businesses.
• Urbanization
• Banking system
• Stability
• Large amount of capital
• Relative free market
• Population growth
• Vast empires, and access to natural resources

So, looking at this, Rome had plenty, if not all, of these. Was the vast extent of slave labor in Rome enough, on its own, to prevent an Industrial Revolution from happening?

[Einherjar]

The same material/economic conditions do not necessarily yield the same result without also having identical cultural conditions. I'd turn to Weber, rather than Marx, to understand the answer to this question.

[Paradigm]

The destruction of the Library of Alexandria may have played a large part. There was a Greek inventor who had invented a primitive steam engine, but his designs were lost to history when the library was destroyed.

[Potemkin]

There was a Greek inventor who had invented a primitive steam engine, but his designs were lost to history when the library was destroyed.

Actually, no. It was Hero of Alexandia, and his designs were not lost - temples used his invention to 'steam-power' statues of the gods to impress the great unwashed; the design did not just exist on one copy of a scroll in the Library.

Besides, it was not a lack of technology which hampered the industrial revolution in ancient Rome - in Britain it was the industrial revolution which drove technological innovation, not the other way around. There were cultural and political factors which prevented the industrial revolution from taking off in Rome, despite all the elements for it seeming to be in place. Not least was the ready availability of cheap bonded labour in the form of slaves. The Roman proletariat found itself unable to sell its own labour power in the marketplace, hence the state provided them with free bread and circuses to prevent a revolution. As Marx put it, in modern Europe society lives at the expense of the proletariat, whereas in ancient Rome the proletariat lived at the expense of society. It is this factor more than any other which I think prevented an industrial revolution from taking off in ancient Rome.

[Einherjar]

The Arabs preserved most of Hero's works. Pneumatica, in which the aeolipile is described, was translated by Leibniz.

The Roman proletariat found itself unable to sell its own labour power in the marketplace, hence the state provided them with free bread and circuses to prevent a revolution. As Marx put it, in modern Europe society lives at the expense of the proletariat, whereas in ancient Rome the proletariat lived at the expense of society. It is this factor more than any other which I think prevented an industrial revolution from taking off in ancient Rome.

And this factor is due to different cultural circumstances to those pertaining modern times.

[Ombrageux]

I have an inkling the lack of great seafaring world trade, which only really got going with the exploitation of the Americas, had something to do with it.

[Potemkin]

I have an inkling the lack of great seafaring world trade, which only really got going with the exploitation of the Americas, had something to do with it.

The slave trade between Africa and the Americas certainly helped to capitalise the rise of industrial capitalism in Britain. In fact, that was one of the main reasons it happened in Britain before any other nation - the slave trade gave us access to huge amounts of capital. However, the ruling class of ancient Rome also had access to huge amounts of capital, as taxes and tribute from the Empire, so that doesn't really explain it either.

[Einherjar]

It happened in Britain before anywhere else simply because it was in the interests of its plutocratic post-Glorious Revolution ruling elite. I fail to see the relevance of slave trade. British industrialisation mainly affected English peasants driven from their lands. Enclosure had been taking place long before the slave trade became significant. Industrialisation in other parts of Northern and Western Europe, also having rich bourgeois elements, soon followed whereas the Habsburg lands and Southern Europe in general were too much embedded in their aristocratic, Counter-Reformationist, Baroque culture to be able to do something of that sort.

[noemon]

An "industrial" revolution took place and that was Alexander and Rome. The ratio of difference in scale and scope that was brought in the economic, political and technological world after Alexander is in size about as much as the difference brought by the British industrial revolution when compared to the previous stage.

The British industrial revolution was simply an advancement of capitalism in scale and scope made possible through advanced technology. And more particularly a simple advancement in shipping technology that was utilized systematically, succesfully and efficiently. Nothing more.

Besides, it was not a lack of technology which hampered the industrial revolution in ancient Rome - in Britain it was the industrial revolution which drove technological innovation, not the other way around. There were cultural and political factors which prevented the industrial revolution from taking off in Rome, despite all the elements for it seeming to be in place. Not least was the ready availability of cheap bonded labour in the form of slaves. The Roman proletariat found itself unable to sell its own labour power in the marketplace, hence the state provided them with free bread and circuses to prevent a revolution. As Marx put it, in modern Europe society lives at the expense of the proletariat, whereas in ancient Rome the proletariat lived at the expense of society. It is this factor more than any other which I think prevented an industrial revolution from taking off in ancient Rome.

Why do you think that? Sincerely, why, other than because Marx imagined it, and shared his imagination with his followers? Tell me a)how do you jump to this conclusion of the Roman proletariat? b) Even if this statement is true, why would this stop an "industrial revolution" from taking place?

[Potemkin]

It happened in Britain before anywhere else simply because it was in the interests of its plutocratic post-Glorious Revolution ruling elite. I fail to see the relevance of slave trade. British industrialisation mainly affected English peasants driven from their lands. Enclosure had been taking place long before the slave trade became significant. Industrialisation in other parts of Northern and Western Europe, also having rich bourgeois elements, soon followed whereas the Habsburg lands and Southern Europe in general were too much embedded in their aristocratic, Counter-Reformationist, Baroque culture to be able to do something of that sort.

Indeed. And in Eastern Europe, serfdom actually became more severe and exploitative just as the Western European nations were industrialising; this was the origin of the split between Western and Eastern Europe which reached its zenith during the Cold War.

The relevance of the slave trade was to supply the capitalisation required during early industrialisation. The slave owners and slave traders had a surplus of capital which they needed to invest in something. Profit margins in industry were much higher then than they are now, so that's where they put their money.

[The Antiist]

Seems like an absurd question, actually. They didn't have the technology, the cohesion, the population density nor the sources.

# Agrarian society, with nothing to do during winter months, leading to home businesses.

Over the centuries agriculture had improved a lot. The Commercial Revolution (starting in the 14th century up to the 18th century until the Industrial Age) took off in Europe, because farmers were able to produce far more per square acre and because they were getting increasingly free from their aristocratic landlords. Thus, farmers were able to produce a surplus of agricultural resources and sell them.

Before a society can even make a transfer from the one sector to the next (agriculture to industrial), there should at least be a significant portion of the society capable of occupying themselves with other jobs. The Commerical Revolution brought (though not immediately), for the first time since the neolithic revolution, a society not based primarily on agriculture.

This, in turn, created an increasingly powerful middle-class which directly stimulated investments, etcetera. It was the beginning of capitalism and also the beginning not of a town-centered economy, but a nation-centered economy.

# Urbanization

I think urbanization is rather a consequence of industrialization than a cause. Factories were built in the cities, thus creating jobs there. Besides, the Roman Empire may be impressive in size, but it was still an empire primarily based on agriculture and it wasn't that cohesive. Historians believe people living on the periphery were probably not even aware that they were living in such a giant empire.

# Banking system

I don't really want to go into this too much, but banking, stocks and those kind of phenomena were only really developing after the middle ages. Banks were operating on a western European scale, had great authority and the system in itself was becoming more involved in the European economies as capital was drawn from the colonies overzeas and increasing wealth was used to invest, thus take out loans, etc.

Also, if I remember correctly, in Rome there was rather a kind of patron-system instead of an all-encompassing banking mechanism. People loaned from aristocrats and they paid them back in labor or even sometimes sold their children.

# Stability

What do you exactly mean with this? I think most societies are stable for most of the time.

# Large amount of capital

As I explained above, wealth came from the colonies, investors, a nation-based economy, free trade, more cohesion, a wealthier middle-class, etcetera.

# Relative free market

The word 'market' isn't a good word for describing the economy at that point, in my view. There were some things sold here and there, but peasants produced little or no surplus. Merchants were present of course, but one cannot speak of a market economy. The first market economy in the world was beginning to emerge in China around the tenth century or so, but before that there was no known civilization running an economy driven by overall supply and demand.

# Population growth

Population growth is again something which is almost always going on in a society. The question is at what level? There wasn't as much population density at that time of course. There were as much as 40-60 million people living in the Roman Empire at its territorial maximum while around 1800 Europe had a population of about 200 million people.

Besides the numbers itself, it were the economic and scientific conditions of Europe which steered this population growth in the direction it needed to be to maintain itself with the help of the rise of the market economy.

# Vast empires, and access to natural resources

There are tons of reasons why the commercial trade-post empires and the Spanish empire created more wealth for Europe while the Romans, which were after all as a society in an incredible amount of aspects less advanced, didn't have all of that. They did maintain commercial relations with Asia and Africa, but not on the scale or level as the Europeans did later on.

[nilof]

Yeah. I believe that one of the biggest reasons for the industrial revolution is advances in agriculture. The Roman agriculture was hopelessly unproductive, and produced roughly half as much or less per acre and per labourer as the british agriculture during the industrial revolution, judging from the techniques used. In this aspect, Rome wasn't too different from Ireland in terms of a delayed Industrial revolution.

The upper class and the farm owners had a reliable income already and had no interest in investing in new techniques. Since this led to a much smaller surplus, which was used to prevent a proletariat revolution with taxes as an intermediary, to allow the rich to get even richer through old, conservative means, or to fund large building projects, the Industrial revolution never happened in Rome.

[noemon]

Bah, what they did, was in fact an industrial revolution for the Era's standards. It is like in 100-200-X years time, when technology allows us to colonize space...people will look back and ponder why didnt the British have a space revolution?

And then a marxist dude, will begin to blather that the proletariat was living on welfare, and that is actually the reason, that they didnt have a space revolution, and that technology had nothing to do with it. Or the other posters who seriously, try to fathom that they could have made the jump from what they were before Alexander and Rome, to the 18th ACE British , this is what happens when historians like Gibbon, and the marxists take on the popular perceptions.

[Vladimir]

noemon
"industrial revolution" isn't a loose term but specifically means the switch to an industrial mode of production.

[noemon]

You have got the point. Because i have explained it above:

An "industrial" revolution took place and that was Alexander and Rome. The ratio of difference in scale and scope that was brought in the economic, political and technological world after Alexander is in size about as much as the difference brought by the British industrial revolution when compared to the previous stage.

Industrial is merely an advancement of productivity and output through the use of machinery(technology).

For the Greeks and the Romans, that advancement was through the use of a well-established network of urban cities that would consume and trade the products, that would have the ability to do that economically and culturally(a primitive sense of consumerism found in the urban areas(bourgoisie once again)) through the use of roads and so on. Their technological advancement allowed them the weaponry to conguer, stabilize, produce and consume an increased amount of output(that theoretically is about the same size that the industrial revolution produced if compared with the previous stage) that drove their humoungous armies(armies that in mere size have not been seen again in the face of human history) due to the fragmentation of the centrality of the Empires into numerous nations, which is also what happened after the industrial revolution, we had the age of nationalism, because more people acquired the means to emancipate themselves. In the case of the antiquity that was the shield, the sword, and the phallanx, after the industrial revolution that was the rifle. And the bourgoisie(the Hippeis, Equestrians...) have always been there exploiting these advancements, and actually producing these advancements for their own benefit.

[Copernicus]

I think the main driving force for industrialisation was capitalism. New technology is always very expensive and highly risky, which deters peasants (who can't afford it) and aristocrats (who are highly risk-averse).

It was only with the development of concentrated wealth in the hands of a new mercantile class that led the Dutch (initially) and then the British to build an economy based on investment which could support the high initial costs of industrialisation.

[Vladimir]

noemon
Development of productive forces is not industrialisation.
Industrialisation is a specific change whereby production becomes collectivised and mechanised.
No doubt both Alexander's empire and the roman empire had progressed in the development of productive forces, but their production never became collectivised or mechanised, and remained individual agrarian/artisan, based on slavery.

You are just using the word to describe advances in productive forces, but you forget the word is very specific.

[noemon]

No doubt both Alexander's empire and the roman empire had progressed in the development of productive forces, but their production never became collectivised or mechanised, and remained individual agrarian/artisan, based on slavery.

Repeating my own words, is not an argument. The mechanized engines allowed the industrial revolution to take place by advancing productivity in scale and scope. The technological advancements of Alexander and Rome did exactly the same, when compared to the previous stage. Creating a demarcation line between consientious native workers and slaves(the equivalent of illegal immigrants) does not explain industrialization in any coherent sense. The Empires mentioned were based on slavery as much as todays capitalism is based on the proletariat, illegal immigration and slave workers in Asia and Africa. "Collectivization" was as much as technology allowed it to be. Nothing related to slave or prol theory.

You are just using the word to describe advances in productive forces, but you forget the word is very specific.

You are just trying to evade the obvious by reminding us here, that in every stage of human history different terms are used to define what took place in that specific time and place, and using this as an argument to support your false demarcation lines, whose falsity has been illustrated and your semantic specification is irrelevant to the argument as specified. You do not attack the argument, you attack my choice of industrial, if it makes you feel better, i will only use it like this "industrial".

[Vladimir]

There's a difference between just an advance in productivity and a change of the system of production. Industrialisation, as I said, is the specific advance from artisanism to collectivism in production.

The production methods of Rome were not collectivised or industrial. Yes they were a step forward from previous methods, yet they were not industrial.

You must understand very real differences between artisan and industrial methods of production, because the former is individual and very few people are involved in production of a commodity. The latter is collective and many thousands of people are involved in production of a commodity.

It's not even about productivity, as it is an effect not a cause, it's about a method of labour organisation and industrialisation is the switch to that method. No such switch took place during roman times, a different type of switch occurred.
I am just pointing out how you should be careful with specific words, because using them loosely leads to confusion. If you said "Rome was industrialised" to someone, they would imagine large factories, hired workers, heavy machinery which is operated by hundreds of people, etc -- which does not correspond to the truth.

--

Also proletarian wage slavery is NOT actual “roman” slavery, and your parallel is moot.

[noemon]

It's not even about productivity, as it is an effect not a cause, it's about a method of labour organisation and industrialisation is the switch to that method. No such switch took place during roman times, a different type of switch occurred.

The same type of switch occured in principle. Lesser due to lesser technology. Organizing, and collectivising was as much as technology allowed it to be, much like industrial capitalism allows it to be today, and as much as space capitalism will allow it to be in the future. It is not dependant on marxist slave or prol theory, it is dependant on technology.

Also proletarian wage slavery is NOT actual “roman” slavery, and your parallel is moot.

Again, on principle it is. Trying to find one difference that can be found due to the era difference is not an argument. Proletariat wage slavery might not be precisely the same in everything, but it certainly is in practise. And illegal immigrant slavery is the same in everything. Asian child-labour is the same again in everything, one can argue that it is actually worse, or the Black slavery which was worse indeed than roman slavery.

Listen, the fact, that marx, and none of the marxists have located any actual legal developments inside the Legal framework taking place on a large-scale(as much as the theory postulates) exactly during the demarcation lines in between the theoretical eras, is the most tangible proof, that the whole theory is pure imagination, amounting to horse-shit.

Until clear-cut, legal developments are submitted to fit at exactly the demarcation lines, for the exact amount of domain theorized, this marxist theory holds no water, whatsoever.