TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT AS PRINCIPAL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTIONS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (original) (raw)
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This article aims to demonstrate that technological advancement was mainly responsible for the occurrence of the 9 major economic revolutions that changed the world in the history of humanity, described below in chronological order: 1) 1st Agricultural Revolution (6000 BC); 2) 2nd Agricultural Revolution (between the 12th and 15th centuries in the Low Middle Ages); 3) The Commercial Revolution (between the 12th and 18th centuries); 4) 3rd Agricultural Revolution (in the 17th and 18th centuries in England); 5) 1st Industrial Revolution (1780-1830); 6) 2nd Industrial Revolution (1860-1900); 7) 4th Agricultural Revolution (between the 1960s and 1970s of the 20th century); 8) 3rd Industrial Revolution (1970s); and, 9) 4th Industrial Revolution or Informational or Post-Industrial Revolution today.
Historical Perspective of the Role of Technology in Economic Development
The focus of this paper is to investigate technology changes and influence on economies since the First Industrial Revolution. The First Industrial Revolution was the first point in time when both increase of GDP per capita and population occurred at the same time (avoiding the Malthusian trap). Thus the selected point in time. Furthermore, developments of the late 18th and 19th centuries have some common properties with development of new technologies today. Even though the process of technological change changed during this time, there are still some lessons to be learned from distant and near history on how to gauge policies for fostering successful technological advances. Changes that occurred are relevant for respective economies, industries, companies and individuals. On all these levels changes occurred that were unprecedented in history before the First Industrial Revolution. It is not suggested that technological progress of centuries before the First Industrial Revolution ...
The Contribution of Economic History to the Study of Innovation and Technical Change: 1750–1914
Handbook of The Economics of Innovation, Vol. 1, 2010
on receiving credit and recognition for the contribution as part of a signaling game in which the goal is to establish a reputation. Much innovation in the past functioned very similarly. The dichotomy according to which science operated according to open-source systems whereas technology was subject to private property constraints is seriously exaggerated. Equally important in making innovation a unique topic in economic history is the fact that technology is produced under the kind of uncertainty that can be characterized as a combination of unintended consequences and unknown outcomes. In large part this is the case because technology is normally developed when the exact modus operandi of the physical, biological, or chemical processes utilized are at best understood very partially. Many inventions have unforeseeable spillover effects on the environment, human health, or the social fabric. Moreover, many innovations are often combined with other techniques in ways not originally foreseen, to produce wholly novel hybrid techniques that do far more than the simple sum of the components. As a consequence, inventors are often surprised by the eventual outcomes of what seems successful innovation. Such surprises can be, of course, positive or negative. The progress of technology has been explained by both internalist and externalist theories. Internalists see an autonomous logic, an evolutionary process in which one advance leads to another, in which contingency plays a major role, in which the past largely determines the future. Externalists think of technological change as determined by economic needs, by necessity stimulating invention, by induced innovation being guided by factor prices and resource endowments. In the same camp, but with a different emphasis are social constructionists who regard technology as the result of political processes and cultural transformations, in which certain ideas triumph in the marketplace because they serve certain special class or group interests and powerful lobbies. The history of technology since the Industrial Revolution provides support as well as problems for all of those approaches. A more inclusive approach would separate the process into interactive components. For instance, there is no question that economic needs serve as a "focusing device" in Rosenberg's (1976) famous simile, but the popular notion that "necessity is the mother of invention" manages to be simultaneously a platitude and a falsehood. Societies tend to be innovative and creative for reasons that have little to do with pressing economic need; our own society is a case in point. Modern western society is by and large wealthy enough to not feel any pressing "need," yet it is innovative and creative beyond the wildest dreams of the innovators of the eighteenth century. There was no "necessity" involved in the invention of ipods or botox. The social agenda of technology is often set by market forces or national needs, but there is nothing ever to guarantee that this agenda will be successful and to make sure what it will lead to. Technology moves at a certain speed, and in certain directions, and the study of innovation helps us understand these laws of motion. Moreover, to come to grips with why technology changes the way it does, we need to be clearer about the way in which prescriptive knowledge (technology) and propositional knowledge (science and general knowledge about nature) affect one another. Knowledge about the physical environment creates an epistemic base for techniques in use. Technology, in turn, sets the agenda for scientists, creating a feedback mechanism. Why, for instance, 7 steam engines and develop the iron-processing improvements that Britain did on its own. Not all artisans were friendly and conducive to technological progress, as Hilaire-Pérez points out. The armourers' resistance to Honoré Blanc and interchangeable parts in musket making helped derail a potentially promising advance. The Lyon weavers' resistance to the Jacquard loom failed, but only after the innovators were given military protection. The First Industrial Revolution: a New Approach The absence of long-term growth in most societies is thus clearly overdetermined. The real miracle is not that these Malthusian societies grew so slowly, but that they were, in the end, replaced by a society in which rapid growth became the norm. What I have called the Industrial Enlightenment (Mokyr, 2002) was an attempt to recognize this problem and rectify it. The Industrial Enlightenment was an attempt to carry out Bacon's dream that useful knowledge would become "a rich storehouse, for the Glory of the Creator and relief of Man's estate" (Bacon, ed. Vickers, 1996, p. 143). In the New Organon Bacon explained what became almost axiomatic to his followers in the eighteenth century: "If Man endeavor to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe, his ambition…is without doubt a wholesome thing and …noble… Now the empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command Nature except by obeying her" (aphorism 129, cited in Bacon, ed. Sargent, 1999, p. 147). The influence of Bacon on subsequent generations was enormous. Clearly, he had expressed a sentiment that was already in the air at his time, but by expressing it with precision and impeccable logical reasoning, he became, with
III. ASPECTS OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 7 Macroevolution of Technology
2013
What determines the transition of a society from one level of development to another? One of the most fundamental causes is the global technological transformations. Among all major technological breakthroughs in history the most important are the three production revolutions: 1) the Agrarian Revolution; 2) the Industrial Revolution and 3) the Scientific-Information Revolution which will transform into the Cybernetic one. The article introduces the Theory of Production Revolutions. This is a new explanatory paradigm which is of value when analyzing causes and trends of global shifts in historical process. The article describes the course of technological transformations in history and demonstrates a possible application of the theory to explain the present and forthcoming technological changes. The authors argue that the third production revolution that started in the 1950s and which they call the Cybernetic one, in the coming decades, that is in the 2030s and 2040s, will get a new ...
5 Industrialisation and technological change
2017
Technological change was a central component in the industrialisation process of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and thus in the making of the modern world economy. Nevertheless, more than two centuries after the beginnings of industrialisation, our understanding of the factors that impelled and shaped the development, diffusion and impact of the new technologies of early industrialisation remains far from complete. As a consequence, important questions concerning the place and interpretation of technological change in industrialisation remain unresolved. The idea that we know relatively little about the sources and outcomes of innovation in the industrial revolution may seem strange, since there is a large historical literature organised explicitly or implicitly around the idea that technological change and industrialisation are intimately linked. Indeed there are many writers for whom new technologies are industrialisation, and so the emergence of new technique...
A Kind of Revolution The Fourth Industrial Revolution
revolutions have occurred when new technologies and novel ways of perceiving the world trigger a profound change in economic systems and social structures. The profound shift — the transition from foraging to farming — happened 10,000 years ago, and was made possible by the do-mestication of animals. The agrarian revolution combined the of animals with those of humans for the purpose of production , transportation and communication. Little by little, food production improved, spurring population growth and enabling larger human settlements and the rise of cities. The agrarian revolution was followed by a series of industrial revolutions that began in the second half of the 18th century, with the spanning from about 1760 to 1840. Triggered by the construction of railroads and the invention of the steam engine, it ushered in mechanical production. The second, which started in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, made mass production possible, fostered by the advent of electricity and the assembly line. The third industrial revolution began in the 1960s. It is usually called the computer or digital revolution because it was catalyzed by the development of semiconductors, mainframe computing (1960s), personal computing (1970s and 80s) and the Internet (1990s). Today, we are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution that began at the turn of this century and builds on the digital revolution. In this article I will describe the challenges and opportunities it presents for modern business leaders. The fourth industrial revolution is not just about smart and connected machines and systems: its scope is much wider. Occurring simultaneously are waves of further breakthroughs in areas ranging from gene sequencing to nanotechnology, from renewables to quantum computing. It is the fusion of these technologies — and their interaction across the physical, digital and biological domains — that make this revolution fundamentally from its predecessors. Emerging technologies and broad-based innovation are diffusing much faster and more widely than in previous revolutions — which continue to unfold in some parts of the world. The second industrial revolution, for instance, has yet to be fully experienced by 17 per cent of the world, as nearly 1.3 billion people still lack access to electricity. This is also true for the third industrial Technological innovations are fuelling momentous change throughout the world, generating great benefits and challenges, in equal measure.
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND ITS DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
IJARW, 2023
The decision to change the production relations of each country depends on the nature and level of development of the productive forces of that country. Among them, the rapid development of science and technology as a special productive force, the direct production force as a decisive factor in the transformation of production relations. In this study, the author focuses on analyzing the industrial revolution and the development of industrial revolutions, including the dramatic change in the quality of the fourth industrial revolution compared with the previous industrial revolution.
The Impact of Technology from 1700 to 1990
This is a review of a 300-page book that attempts to describe the story of modern technology as an academic subject of history. My purpose here is to show that, contrary to the author's motivation of showing how much of these devices owe their existence to science, rather that it is the retiring attempts of clever, but usually modest inventors and engineers, who have incrementally impacted the world, often for mundane reasons. It is science itself that benefited more from the invention of new devices than vice-versa. Unfortunately, the author is too heavily biased towards British contributions and overemphasizes the links to one science: physics. One massive area, chemical engineering only merits 7 pages, when it has played a major role in generating the modern world-especially in its military applications (explosives). It is worth noting that only in modern western civilization has there been systematic and unfettered exploitation of technological innovation on a vast scale: since we have sown the wind, we are now reaping the whirlwind. This review/essay is part of my current series on warning about the political misuses of technology as it tries to hide behind the social prestige of science in the modern world. A further motivation, as an ex-scientist, is to remind readers that it is technology, not science, that has produced civilization; it is the engineers who have built this world, while the talkers dreamed their fantastic imaginations and wrote the books to praise themselves. Theoretical scientists are too often talkers, not doers, like engineers. Unfortunately, technological innovation now speeds ahead powered by individualistic hopes for profit with little thought of the consequences, so now: with digital technology, vast numbers of people are being put out of work and will not be able to make a positive economic contribution to their community. They and their families will starve as rich people are not motivated to help their fellow citizens. This is a dangerous political situation that has induced violent revolutions in earlier times. The next political explosion will occur on a global scale, as billions of the impoverished try to immigrate to the few shrinking islands of survivability. We can expect terrible times in the near future as we have placed Talkers in positions of Authority and these types of people have no demonstrable tradition of credible action; their dreams will bring nightmares to millions.