HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY, MANUFACTURING,AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:

A REJOINDER

ROGER W. SCHMENNERKelley School of Business, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202

I welcome the opportunity to offer this rejoinder to Kalyan Singhal’s comment on mypaper, “Looking Ahead by Looking Back: Swift, Even Flow in the History of Manufactur-ing,” elsewhere in this issue.

In his comment, Singhal takes me to task on the causes of the Industrial Revolution, inparticular on the interplay between India and Britain. He also criticizes some other featuresof my argument. Let me be absolutely clear that I in no way condone Britain’s conquest ofIndia and its treatment of the Indian people. I am not an apologist for British imperialism.Nevertheless, I remain resolute in defense of my paper, and will contest each of the pointsSinghal raises against it.

Both Singhal and I agree that the origins of the Industrial Revolution are complex. Manyhistorians hold their own particular views on the matter. I am guided by one of the mostrespected, David S. Landes, emeritus professor of history at Harvard, whose book, TheWealth and Poverty of Nations, was the genesis for my paper. My refutation of Singhal leansheavily on Landes as I view him to be in a much better position than I to evaluate the diverseand weighty evidence concerning the Industrial Revolution. All quotations below are fromhis book.

1. On Britain and India

Singhal’s views on Britain’s industrialization at the expense of India are familiar toLandes:

“. . . The Indian economy changed and grew as new technologies, the railway in particular, came infrom abroad. But it was slow to respond to the Industrial Revolution, except as supplier of raw cotton;and the Indian cotton manufacture, once the world’s greatest, shrank almost to vanishing. Indianhistorians blame this on their colonial oppressor, who not only vetoed protective tariffs (long live freetrade!) but taxed the Indian product to equalize access for British yarn and cloth. But that was not theproblem. Both Indian and British entrepreneurs were free to undertake modern forms of manufacturein India, as they did beginning in the 1850s. If they refrained earlier, they presumably had goodreason.” (p. 163)

* Accepted by Robert H. Hayes of Harvard University.

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And, in a more lengthy section, headed “Why Not India?”, Landes spells out hisskepticism for the arguments Singhal advances. Two passages are particularly on point:

“Why no industrial revolution in India? After all, India had the world’s premier cotton industry in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, unbeatable for quality, variety, and cost. This industry not onlysatisfied the large domestic demand but exported roughly half its output throughout the Indian Oceanand indirectly to Southeast Asia and China. To this huge market, beginning in the seventeenthcentury, came the stimulus of European demand–a huge shot in the arm that inevitably aggravated oldand created new supply problems. Why, then, was there no interest in easing these difficulties bysubstituting capital (machines) for labor?

“Indian historians have tended to overlook or reject this omission. Some, especially Indian nation-alists, blame it on the Europeans, and most particularly the British. India had been prosperous andresourceful until these intruders burst on the scene, mixing into Indian politics and fomenting conflict.Some of this speculation is fantasy, and misdirected at that. One historian, for example, looks at theroyal workshops (the karkhanas) of seventeen-century India and dreams wistfully of a technologicalrevolution: ‘One is tempted to speculate if [they] might not have moved in the direction ofmechanization and become the state model factories for the modern industrialization of India, hadthey not been terminated by the British conquest of the country.’ This, of an institution that could buyor command labor at will!” (p. 225)

And,

“Under the circumstances, the move to machinery in India was not to be envisaged. Such a leap wouldhave entailed a shift from hand skills nurtured from childhood, linked to caste identity and divisionof labor by sex and age. It would also have required imagination outside the Indian cultural andintellectual experience. As Chaudhuri puts it: ‘In eighteenth-century India the empirical basis for anIndustrial Revolution was conspicuously lacking. There had been no marked progress in scientificknowledge for many centuries, and the intellectual apparatus for diffusion and systematic recordingof the inherited skills was seriously defective.’” (p. 229)

This calls into question the “de-industrialization” of India, as Singhal puts it.

2. On the Origins of Britain’s Industrial Revolution

Landes is absolutely clear that it was Britain, on its own, that industrialized. He takes painsto observe how other colonial powers–Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands–which precededBritain and amassed huge riches from trade and conquest, were soon “left in the dust” byBritain’s economic growth. Capital alone does not make for an Industrial Revolution.

In answering the question, “why Britain?”, Landes strings together an argument thatcombines science and technology, culture, law and government, and the workings of markets.

“. . . The early technological superiority of Britain in these key branches was . . . the result of work,ingenuity, imagination, and enterprise . . . . Britain had the makings; but then Britain made itself. Tounderstand this, consider not only material advantages (other societies were also favorably endowedfor industry but took ages to follow the British initiative), but also the nonmaterial values (culture)and institutions.” (p. 215)

And later,

“To begin with, Britain had the early advantage of being a nation . . . . a self-conscious, self-awareunit characterized by common identity and loyalty and by equality of civil status . . . . “Britain,moreover, . . . was a precociously modern, industrial nation . . . . the salient characteristic of such asociety is the ability to transform itself and adapt to new things and ways . . . One key area of change:the increasing freedom and security of the people.” ( p. 219)

Singhal took issue with my use of the word “equality,” citing instances of what we todayrefer to as inequality. One can argue, however, that Britain was freer and more equal thananywhere else at the time of the Industrial Revolution.

104 R. W. SCHMENNER

3. On Singhal’s Criticisms of My Hypothesis

Science

Singhal cites Landes (p. 343) to state that “Science was not a major contributor to theIndustrial Revolution.” Let us read all of what Landes says on the topic on page 343.

“What about the relations between science and technology? Did the one matter to the other? After all,science was not initially a major contributor to the European Industrial Revolution, which builtlargely on empirical advances by practitioners. What difference, then, to Chinese technology ifscience had slowed to a crawl by the seventeenth century?

“The answer, I think, is that in both China and Europe, science and technology were (and are) twosides of the same coin. The response to new knowledge of either kind is of a piece, and the societythat closes its eyes to novelty from the one source [closes them to] . . . the other.” (p. 343)

This passage, to my mind, does not carry the connotation that Singhal would suggest.I will grant Singhal’s point about Indian dyes, but, for me, the Industrial Revolution is

about factories and mechanization. The string of inventions that Singhal himself refers to wasnot the result of mere tinkering. As Landes states, “The third institutional pillar of Westernscience was the routinization of discovery, the invention of invention” (p. 204). Consider thatmost important of inventions for the Industrial Revolution, the steam engine.

“. . . To be sure, the scientists of the eighteenth century could not have explained why and how asteam engine worked. That had to wait for Sadi Carnot (1796-1832) and the laws of thermodynamics.But to say that the engine anticipated knowledge is not to say that the engine builder did not drawon earlier scientific acquisitions, both substantive and methodological. James Watt . . . was a friendof professors in Edinburgh and Glasgow, of eminent natural philosophers in England, of scientistsabroad. He knew his mathematics, did systematic experiments, calculated the thermal efficiency ofsteam engines; in short, built on accumulated knowledge and ideas to advance technique.” (p. 206)

In short, both science and technology were critical to the Industrial Revolution.

China, India, and the Textile Industry

Singhal takes issue with my statement that “China and India are only now industrializing,and arguably, in fits and starts.” He cites the dramatic growth that China and India haverecently witnessed. I applaud that growth. My “fits and starts” referred to the political ups anddowns that have occurred in China and India since World War II as different governmentalpolicies have alternately restricted or liberalized commerce and industry.

Time

Singhal, in criticizing the role of time in my paper, explains the cyclicality in Hinduthinking about time. In discussing the cultivation of invention in Europe, Landes referencesseveral reasons offered by different scholars, including:

“The Judeo-Christian sense of linear time. Other societies thought of time as cyclical, returning toearlier stages and starting over again. Linear time is progressive or regressive, moving on to betterthings or declining from some earlier, happier state. For Europeans in our period, the progressiveview prevailed.” (p. 59)

Singhal also describes the Chinese affection for clocks, but there is more to the story.

“The mechanical clock remained a European (Western) monopoly for some three hundred years . . .right into the twentieth century. Other civilizations admired and coveted clocks, or more accurately,their rulers and elites did; but none could make them to European standard. . . .

“. . . Without a basis in popular consumption, without a clock trade, Chinese horology regressed andstagnated. It never got beyond water clocks, and by the time China came to know the Westernmechanical clock, it was badly placed to understand and copy it. Not for want of interest: the Chineseimperial court and wealthy elites were wild about these machines; but because they were reluctant toacknowledge European technological superiority, they sought to trivialize them as toys. Big mistake.”(p. 50)

105REJOINDER

Singhal does not think that I have provided evidence to support the idea that manufacturingwas related to the attitude toward time nor that the British were conscious of time and eagerto save it. Consider the following passage:

“. . . The energy and busyness of this society could be measured by its material achievements, but alsoby its values. I would stress here the importance it gave to time and to saving time, because nothingbetter sums up the priorities. Two pieces of “unobtrusive” evidence: (1) the passionate interest inknowing the time; and (2) the emphasis on speed of transport.

“The British were in the eighteenth century the world’s leading producers and consumers oftimekeepers, in the country as in the city (very different here from other European societies). Theymade them well and pricey; they also batch-produced them and sold them cheap, if necessary on theinstallment plan. . . .

“The coaching services reflected this temporal sensibility: schedules to the minute, widely advertised;closely calculated arrival times and transfers; drivers checked by sealed clocks; speed over comfort;lots of dead horses.” (p. 224)

If time saving was so pervasive an attitude in Britain in the 18th century, I cannot help butbelieve that it affected manufacturing as much as it did the coaching service.

Work ethic

Singhal is unconvinced that the British had more of the qualities of hard work, honesty,seriousness, or the thrifty use of money and time than Asians or Africans. The Weberianthesis of the Protestant ethic is controversial, but Landes argues that:

“. . . it was eventually converted into a secular code of behavior: hard work, honesty, seriousness, thethrifty use of money and time . . . ‘Time is short,’ admonished the Puritan divine Richard Baxter(1615-1691), ‘and work is long.’

“All of these values help business and capital accumulation, but . . . Europe did not have to wait forthe Protestant Reformation to find people who wanted to be rich . . . Protestantism produced a newkind of businessman, a different kind of person, one who aimed to live and work a certain way.”(p. 175)

Britain’s military did not spin the yarn or weave the cloth. Nor did it invent or produce thetechnology that was the hallmark of the factory system. Success did not come from the barrelof a gun; ask the Spanish.

Swift, Even Flow

Singhal argues that swift, even flow is not a necessary condition for successful andcontinued industrialization. Rather, he sees it as an outcome of technology, industrialization,and better management of resources. I fail to see the logic in this. How can swift, even flowbe an outcome of such forces unless it was specifically sought, unless it was the object of thattechnology, industrialization, and management? We do not view just-in-time manufacturingprinciples as a natural outcome of forces acting on Japanese business. How can we not thinkthe same of swift, even flow? The string of invention and management practice thatcharacterized the Industrial Revolution in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere has beentestimony to making things faster and better for larger and larger markets. And, the companiesthat ran the fastest and with the least variation were in the vanguard. Swift, even flow did not justhappen. As Landes observes, “In big things, history abhors accident.” (p. 215)

References

LANDES, DAVID S. (1998), The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, W.W. Norton and Co., New York.SCHMENNER, ROGER W. (2001), “Looking Ahead by Looking Back: Swift, Even Flow in the History of Manufac-

turing,” Production and Operations Management, 10, 1, 87-96.SINGHAL, KALYAN (2001), “History of Technology, Manufacturing, and the Industrial Revolution: An Alternative

Perspective on Schmenner’s Hypotheses,” Production and Operations Management, 10, 1, 97-102.

Acknowledgement: I wish to thank Robert H. Hayes for his suggestions to earlier versions of this rejoinder.

106 R. W. SCHMENNER