If Rome hadn’t collapsed, they might, within a matter of centuries, have advanced to the stage of industrialization. But they would have done it by skipping the Dark Ages and following an incremental course of technological and economic advancement that, if not identical to ours, would probably be not unrecognizable, and perhaps quite familiar.
Doesn’t this then lead us to the question of why no Chinese IR?
My suspicion is that it has to do with cultural-cognitive developments generally filed under “religion”. As it’s little more than a hunch and runs somewhat counter to my impression of LW mores, I hesitate to discuss it in more depth here.
Nick Szabo thinks that Europe’s history of relatively high intensity in use of animal labor helped it undergo the industrial revolution. One of the first uses of the steam engine was pumping water out of mines—at a time when the status quo was to use horses and oxen to do the same thing. He shows street scenes of China in the 1900s where there is a lot of transportation of heavy loads going on—all done by human labor.
The people of northern Europe were not the first to domesticate cows, but they were the first farming (i.e., non-nomadic) people to domesticate cows on a large scale—many millennia ago. Domesticated animals have been important in Europe ever since—more so in northern Europe than southern Europe (getting back to the original question of why no Roman industrial revolution). The Romans had cavalry because it was an important component of military force, and they certainly weren’t going to ignore a significant military factor, but they were much more likely to “outsource” cavalry to non-Romans than to “outsource” infantry, which is a sign that domesticated animals were less important in Roman society than they were in surrounding areas.
Doesn’t this then lead us to the question of why no Chinese IR?
Yes, the famous Needham question. It is tougher to answer. Mokyr offers some thoughts in A Culture of Growth. I’m sure there are other hypotheses but I don’t have pointers right now.
My suspicion is that it has to do with cultural-cognitive developments generally filed under “religion”. As it’s little more than a hunch and runs somewhat counter to my impression of LW mores, I hesitate to discuss it in more depth here.
Nick Szabo thinks that Europe’s history of relatively high intensity in use of animal labor helped it undergo the industrial revolution. One of the first uses of the steam engine was pumping water out of mines—at a time when the status quo was to use horses and oxen to do the same thing. He shows street scenes of China in the 1900s where there is a lot of transportation of heavy loads going on—all done by human labor.
The people of northern Europe were not the first to domesticate cows, but they were the first farming (i.e., non-nomadic) people to domesticate cows on a large scale—many millennia ago. Domesticated animals have been important in Europe ever since—more so in northern Europe than southern Europe (getting back to the original question of why no Roman industrial revolution). The Romans had cavalry because it was an important component of military force, and they certainly weren’t going to ignore a significant military factor, but they were much more likely to “outsource” cavalry to non-Romans than to “outsource” infantry, which is a sign that domesticated animals were less important in Roman society than they were in surrounding areas.