Bottom-up or top-down? The origins of the Industrial Revolution

Was technological progress during and after the Industrial Revolution top-down or bottom-up? The technology that created the great inventions was driven by a combination of pathbreaking ideas and the dexterity and skills of trained artisans. While those forms of human capital were quite different, t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of institutional economics Vol. 14; no. 6; pp. 1003 - 1024
Main Author MOKYR, JOEL
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.12.2018
Subjects
Artisans
British history
Capital distributions
Economic growth
Economic theory
Education
Elites
Enlightenment
Human capital
Incentives
Industrial Revolution
Inventions
Inventors
Modernity
Philosophers
Political power
Political systems
Scientific technological revolution
Scientists
Tacit knowledge
Technological change
Technological progress
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Summary:Was technological progress during and after the Industrial Revolution top-down or bottom-up? The technology that created the great inventions was driven by a combination of pathbreaking ideas and the dexterity and skills of trained artisans. While those forms of human capital were quite different, they both came out of small elites of intellectuals and craftsmen, what are rapidly becoming known as “upper-tail human capital.” I analyze the institutions that drove the incentives for both, and show that they came together to produce the Great Enrichment. These incentives were both material and social: between 1500 and 1700, the search for financial security and reputation cooperated in producing a unique institutional environment in which the elites in Western Europe produced the three legged-stool of European modernity: the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment. Once these three movements had succeeded, the foundation for modern economic growth had been laid.
ISSN:1744-1374
1744-1382
DOI:10.1017/S174413741700042X