The Wealth of Nations

Demographic and Economic Growth The New Shape of Industry Innovations and Tradition in Agriculture Eighteenth-Century Empires

Agrarian economy remained dominant in the 18th century The sustained growth of Europes population acted as a stimulus Exploitation of overseas colonies provided another critical stimulus

The colonies offered new markets The Atlantic slave trade and plantation slavery underpinned most of this commerce Dramatic economic changes resulted from industrialization

By the 19th century, fundamental changes in methods of food production spread throughout Europe

This chapter explores: The character of economic development The nature of innovations in agriculture Manufacturing and Trade Social consequences of economic transformation

Demographic and Economic Growth

European life before the 18th century followed a similar pattern An ebb and ow of population increase and decrease The trend: poor harvest, inadequate food, price of grain, starvation, undernourishment, vulnerability to disease, unemployment, marriage

A New Demographic Era

Population Growth A new era in European population growth developed in the 18th century Between 1730 and 1800, Europes population doubled Estimations place the total growth from 120 million to 190 million

England, Prussia, and Sweden doubled France was the most densely populated region The was not curbed by the 19th century, but continued to climb

Falling Death Rates Populations grew, not because of an increase in birthrates (except in England) but because of those living doing so longer Europe was beginning to enjoy a stabler and better food supply

Improvements in average climate, the ending of the little ice age, encouraged more agricultural growth New agricultural land opened in Poland, Hungary, and Russialeading to increased food supply

Disease still affected the European population: tuberculosis, typhoid, and malaria were the largest problems A better nourished population stood against these illnesses

Prot Ination: the Movement of Prices An increased pace and scale of economic activity occurred in the 18th century Europes overall wealth expanded Signicant economic growth began around 1730 and lasted until 1815

A rise in prices reected the stimulus and pressures of a growing population Gently rising prices and gradual ination stimulated the economy unlike sharp spikes of ination

The Impact of Ination Ination did not affect all products, sectors, or segments of society Cost of grains and food supplies rose slightly Cost of rent rose sharply Real wages increased only 22 percent

The low rise in wages indicates a glut of workers competing for employment This ination enabled merchants and manufacturers to sell goods for more and pay workers relatively less

Protoindustrialization The excess of people meant that many rural peoples could not earn a living from agriculture This led to domestic manufacturing through the putting-out system Merchants distributed raw materials like wool or ax to rural households

The volume of rural manufacturing increased under the putting-out system Families devoted more time to industrial work primarily spinning, weaving, or nishing textiles

Consequences: Economicsmarketing networks, capital accumulation Socialfamiliarized rural inhabitants with industrial processes and cash Demographyloosened restraints on marriage and increased migrations into the cities

The New Shape of Industry

Dramatic changes occurred in the manufacturing of cotton cloth The development of more efcient tools and machines and the exploitation of new sources of energy to drive machines The factory

The free-market doctrines of Adam Smith provided a favorable environment for innovations in textile manufacturing An industrial revolution

Toward a New Economic Order

Economists study through two concepts: Performance: the measured output of a system. The total product and amount produced per individual Structure: the characteristics of a society that support or affect performance

Industrialization required innovations in technology which raised performance social structure, however, produced the technology

Impediments to Economic Innovations One major obstacle was the small size of markets affected by physical barriers, political division, tariffs, laws, units of measurement Small markets dampened the incentive of massive manufacturing

In towns, guilds presented a major obstacle to economic innovation Guild regulations prescribed the techniques and dictated term and conditions of manufacture and sale Guilds favored traditional technology

Adam Smith The seminal work in this new in this new school of economic thought was An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) from the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith

Smith argued that money in and of itself did not constitute to wealth but was merely its marker Wealth derived from the added value in manufactured items produced by the combination of invested capital and labor

laissez-faire the economic theory that lets individuals freely pursue their own economic interests Each individual and nation should be allowed to pursue their own selfinterest

The Roots of Economic Transformation in England England was the rst to develop a social structure that strongly supported innovation and economic growth Excellent balance of resources Water and canal transport of raw materials

Cotton: The Beginning of Industrialization A strong demand for cheap goods was growing The market for cotton goods was particularly signicant Cotton goods were durable, washable, versatile, and cheaper than woolen or lined cloth

The organization and technology of the putting-out system had reached its limits It had become cumbersome to pass materials back and forth works could not be adequately controlled or supervised

Machine and Factories The invention of the y shuttle in the 1730s Inventors built new kings of spinning machines that could be grouped in large factories or mills initially run on water power

James Watt had been perfecting the technology of steam enginesmachines originally used to power suction pumps that would evacuate water from coal mines

Richard Arkwright, inventor of the powerdriven cotton machine, employed Watt to create a steam engine that drove spinning machines in his new cotton factory at Cromford The Richard Arkwrights Achievement

Spinning factories disrupted equilibrium between spinning and weaving hand-loom weavers could not keep up with the pace 1784, Edmund Cartwright designed a power-driven loom Boosted output of yarn and cloth dramatically and for far cheaper

Innovation and Tradition in Agriculture

Convertible Husbandry English farmers introduced signicant improvements in their methods of cultivation Repeated harvest on the same land eventually robbed the soil of its fertility The elimination of the fallow period Grass, livestock, and manure

Improving Landlords Soil was improved by adding clays and marl to help bind the soil Selective breeding of animals to improve the quality of pigs and sheep

The Enclosure Movement in Britain *The open-eld system had dominated the countryside in Europe Long strips of land were mixed in with and open to the land of their neighbors The village as a whole determined what routines and products to adopt

The Impact of Enclosure

A new system of *enclosures were sought to organize and standardize land This was the enclosing of properties in a village The redistribution of the land deprived the poor of their traditional rights to the village common land Blocks of land, the expansion of privatization

Serfs and Peasants on the Continent Peasants continued to work their small plots of land in the villages of their ancestors In Eastern Europe a system of serfdom similar to that of the Middle Ages still prevailed

Lords and Serfs in Eastern Europe Serfs could not marry, move away, or enter into trade without their lords permission Labor service often took up three days a week, and even more during the harvest time

The status of the serf scarcely differed from that of a slave peasants could not be expelled from their plots so long as they paid all their dues and rendered all the services they owed

Lords and Peasants in Western Europe In western Europe, by contrast, serfdom had wanedthey could buy land There was not enough land to satisfy the needs of all peasants

In many nations, *seigneurialism still held swaypeasants owed their lords various dues and obligations on their lands, even though the peasants owned it Because of these dues, many were satised with time-tested methods of cultivation

Peasant Survival Strategies But most peasants did not own as much land as they needed and were obligated to rent additional plots rural handicrafts, weaving cloth, poaching game and smuggling salt

The Family Economy In their precarious situation, peasants depended on strong family bonds Men looked for physical vigor and domestic skills in their prospective brides Many villages possessed common lands open to all residents

Eighteenth-Century Empires

Europes favorable position as a generator of wealth owed as much to its mercantile empires across the seas Colonial trade became an engine of economic growth in Britain and France West African slave trade provided sugar, tobacco, and cotton

Mercantile and Naval Competition The three pioneers in overseas expansion had by now grown passive: Portugal, Dutch, and Spain The stage of active competition was left to the two other Atlantic powers, France and Britain

The Decline of the Dutch In the seventeenth century the United Provinces (Dutch Netherlands) had been Europes greatest maritime power The war with Louis XIV left the Dutch in a weakened position The Dutch shifted their activities to credit and nance

The British and French Commercial Empires The French and English competed in four regions: West Indies (sugarproducing islands), West Africa (slave-producing), North American, India and Asian lands Both applied mercantilist principles to the regulation of colonial trade

Mercantilism Mercantilist doctrine supported the regulation of trade by the state in order to increase the states power Net inow of gold and silver Colonies provided valuable raw materials or staple crops for the parent country

Europes governments sought to exploit overseas colonies for the benet of the parent country and not simply for the prot of those who invested or settled abroad

The Prots of Global Commerce

By the 1770s commerce with their colonies accounted for almost one-third of the total volume of both British and French foreign trade The West Indiestobacco, cotton, sugar

Triangular Trade Numerous variations of *triangular trade revolved around the West Indies Cargo of manufactured productspaper, knives, pots, blankets New England: sh oil, sh, beef Jamaica: sugar and British luxury goods

Slavery, the Foundation of Empire Much of this dynamic global trade rested on slavery Without slavery there would be no French colonial commerce 88,000 blacks were removed annualhalf in British ships, a quarter French, the rest Dutch, Portuguese, and American

The Ordeal of Enslavement Trafcking in slaves was competitive and risky but highly protable They did not actually colonize established forts or factories

In this period, Europeans scarcely penetrated the interior of the continent The actual enslavement took place in the interior at the hands of aggressive local groups whose chiefs became the intermediaries Some perished on the forced marches from the interior to the coast

They maximized their prots by jamming as many captives as possible onto the ships Medium-sized ships carried up to 500 hundred slaves on a voyage 10 to 50 % death rate