Throughout most of the late twentieth century, the Industrial Revolution was conceived of as caused by a structural change in the relationship between capital and labour, but as Cannadine (Reference Cannadine1984) described, each generation finds its own features in the mirror of the Industrial Revolution. In an age of tech start-ups and rapid growth trajectories in new markets, historians and economists of the last two decades have approached the Industrial Revolution as a case of technological innovation-led growth, and sought the origins or cause of that innovation as a kind of “Holy Grail” (Crafts Reference Crafts2010), the origins of modern economic growth itself. Douglass North called for cognitive science to serve as the basis for breakthrough in economics and social sciences almost a quarter of a century ago (North Reference North1996), so it is surprising that it has taken so long for someone to present a coherent thesis for the psychological origins of the innovation-led Industrial Revolution. The Baumard thesis is, in many ways, a natural progression of much literature in economic and social history, and the article itself describes the close fit between Life History Theory's predictions for behaviour and much of that influential literature.
The thesis as presented relies on the given fact of the relative greater wealth of the English by the dawn of the eighteenth century. As Baumard acknowledges, although there is a rich literature that asserts this, it is not considered proven, and there is currently an increasing body of new research from all over Europe challenging its traditional foundation – comparative wage data (Humphries & Schneider Reference Humphries and Schneider2019; López Losa Reference López Losa2016; Mocarelli Reference Mocarelli, Hatcher and Stephenson2019; Stephenson Reference Stephenson2018). The focus on relative wealth and its psychological effects raises at least three important and unanswered questions about the occurrence of industrialisation. The first is that of location: Although the Dutch Republic is mentioned, the anomaly of the lack of Dutch industrialisation, or technological innovation, through the Golden Age when clearly Dutch wealth outstripped that elsewhere in northwestern Europe is not addressed, nor are the concomitant questions about what the psychological development and effects of that Golden Age, and decline, might have been.
Second is the level and kind of wealth or income, and whose it was that led to innovation. As recent research indicates (Stephenson Reference Stephenson, Hatcher and Stephenson2019) unskilled men in London may have had incomes of merely half what Allen (Reference Allen2009b) calculated. This raises the question of the distribution of wealth, income and capital, and its psychological effects, particularly because inequality is also such an important contemporary question (Piketty Reference Piketty and Goldhammer2014). Was there a difference between the wealth or income and psychological motivations of “inventors” and the artisans and apprentices who “tinkered”? Did their relative wealth matter? How does inequality impact on reward orientation, materialism, and cooperation? If innovators arose only in a particular class or group, then is the greater overall wealth of England necessary for the theory to hold? Moreover, if that were the case might there be other institutional and social factors beyond wealth which would cause the psychological progressions? This is essentially the subject of McCloskey's bourgeois theses cited which have proven so hard to model or confirm. It should be pointed out that the histories of actual innovators who created new technology, machines, and ways of working like Richard Arkwright tell a story of very different behaviour to that predicted by Life History Theory (LHT) (Styles Reference Styles2016).
Third is the major question of timing. It is possible that the model Baumard advances does not require that England was the wealthiest state but its presentation here does. The essential question of why the affluence mindset occurred to bring about innovation in England in the eighteenth century rather than elsewhere is not addressed other than by the (shaky) fact of England's predominant wealth at that time. In not being able to predict the timing of innovation, nor explain a lack of it elsewhere the theory fails to make a contribution to the causes of the industrial revolution, rather the paper makes some well-founded and well-researched speculative associations between LHT's predictions and what is known of England's eighteenth-century trajectory. It should be noted that current research on the actual level of growth in output shows that the timing question may render the thesis irrelevant. England's growth in the eighteenth century was slower than that of the seventeenth, with changes in output rates only beginning to take off after 1821 (Crafts and Mills Reference Crafts and Mills2017).
There is an obvious gap in the classic economic history literature discussed: de Vries's Industrious Revolution (Reference de Vries2008), which although touched on is only so in relation to working hours. The essence of the deVries thesis is that household behaviour, consumption, and individual actors’ choices changed. Surely the household would be a better agar plate in which to test LHT against economic behaviour – if only for the probate accounts? The other glaring absence here is that of the eighteenth-century history of the emotions, a growing field, but one where the rich social and cultural history of the eighteenth century can already offer many cases and sources (Hewitt Reference Hewitt2017; Reddy Reference Reddy2001).
If necessity is not the mother of invention after all – as LHT seems to say – then there is probably no better century than the eighteenth in England in which to try and test the thesis. The paradoxes of eighteenth-century wealth and destitution, militarisation and enlightenment, revolution, and persistence will undoubtedly be forever produced and reproduced by historians. It remains to be seen whether innovation and well-being will be one of them, however.
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Throughout most of the late twentieth century, the Industrial Revolution was conceived of as caused by a structural change in the relationship between capital and labour, but as Cannadine (Reference Cannadine1984) described, each generation finds its own features in the mirror of the Industrial Revolution. In an age of tech start-ups and rapid growth trajectories in new markets, historians and economists of the last two decades have approached the Industrial Revolution as a case of technological innovation-led growth, and sought the origins or cause of that innovation as a kind of “Holy Grail” (Crafts Reference Crafts2010), the origins of modern economic growth itself. Douglass North called for cognitive science to serve as the basis for breakthrough in economics and social sciences almost a quarter of a century ago (North Reference North1996), so it is surprising that it has taken so long for someone to present a coherent thesis for the psychological origins of the innovation-led Industrial Revolution. The Baumard thesis is, in many ways, a natural progression of much literature in economic and social history, and the article itself describes the close fit between Life History Theory's predictions for behaviour and much of that influential literature.
The thesis as presented relies on the given fact of the relative greater wealth of the English by the dawn of the eighteenth century. As Baumard acknowledges, although there is a rich literature that asserts this, it is not considered proven, and there is currently an increasing body of new research from all over Europe challenging its traditional foundation – comparative wage data (Humphries & Schneider Reference Humphries and Schneider2019; López Losa Reference López Losa2016; Mocarelli Reference Mocarelli, Hatcher and Stephenson2019; Stephenson Reference Stephenson2018). The focus on relative wealth and its psychological effects raises at least three important and unanswered questions about the occurrence of industrialisation. The first is that of location: Although the Dutch Republic is mentioned, the anomaly of the lack of Dutch industrialisation, or technological innovation, through the Golden Age when clearly Dutch wealth outstripped that elsewhere in northwestern Europe is not addressed, nor are the concomitant questions about what the psychological development and effects of that Golden Age, and decline, might have been.
Second is the level and kind of wealth or income, and whose it was that led to innovation. As recent research indicates (Stephenson Reference Stephenson, Hatcher and Stephenson2019) unskilled men in London may have had incomes of merely half what Allen (Reference Allen2009b) calculated. This raises the question of the distribution of wealth, income and capital, and its psychological effects, particularly because inequality is also such an important contemporary question (Piketty Reference Piketty and Goldhammer2014). Was there a difference between the wealth or income and psychological motivations of “inventors” and the artisans and apprentices who “tinkered”? Did their relative wealth matter? How does inequality impact on reward orientation, materialism, and cooperation? If innovators arose only in a particular class or group, then is the greater overall wealth of England necessary for the theory to hold? Moreover, if that were the case might there be other institutional and social factors beyond wealth which would cause the psychological progressions? This is essentially the subject of McCloskey's bourgeois theses cited which have proven so hard to model or confirm. It should be pointed out that the histories of actual innovators who created new technology, machines, and ways of working like Richard Arkwright tell a story of very different behaviour to that predicted by Life History Theory (LHT) (Styles Reference Styles2016).
Third is the major question of timing. It is possible that the model Baumard advances does not require that England was the wealthiest state but its presentation here does. The essential question of why the affluence mindset occurred to bring about innovation in England in the eighteenth century rather than elsewhere is not addressed other than by the (shaky) fact of England's predominant wealth at that time. In not being able to predict the timing of innovation, nor explain a lack of it elsewhere the theory fails to make a contribution to the causes of the industrial revolution, rather the paper makes some well-founded and well-researched speculative associations between LHT's predictions and what is known of England's eighteenth-century trajectory. It should be noted that current research on the actual level of growth in output shows that the timing question may render the thesis irrelevant. England's growth in the eighteenth century was slower than that of the seventeenth, with changes in output rates only beginning to take off after 1821 (Crafts and Mills Reference Crafts and Mills2017).
There is an obvious gap in the classic economic history literature discussed: de Vries's Industrious Revolution (Reference de Vries2008), which although touched on is only so in relation to working hours. The essence of the deVries thesis is that household behaviour, consumption, and individual actors’ choices changed. Surely the household would be a better agar plate in which to test LHT against economic behaviour – if only for the probate accounts? The other glaring absence here is that of the eighteenth-century history of the emotions, a growing field, but one where the rich social and cultural history of the eighteenth century can already offer many cases and sources (Hewitt Reference Hewitt2017; Reddy Reference Reddy2001).
If necessity is not the mother of invention after all – as LHT seems to say – then there is probably no better century than the eighteenth in England in which to try and test the thesis. The paradoxes of eighteenth-century wealth and destitution, militarisation and enlightenment, revolution, and persistence will undoubtedly be forever produced and reproduced by historians. It remains to be seen whether innovation and well-being will be one of them, however.