Proto-industrialization

Proto-industrialization is the regional development, alongside commercial agriculture, of rural handicraft production for external markets.[1] The term was introduced in the early 1970s by economic historians who argued that such developments in parts of Europe between the 16th and 19th centuries created the social and economic conditions that led to the Industrial Revolution.[2] Later researchers suggested that similar conditions had arisen in other parts of the world. Most aspects of the theory have been challenged by other historians.[2]

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History

The term was coined by Franklin Mendels in his 1969 doctoral dissertation on the rural linen industry in 18th-century Flanders and popularized in his 1972 article based on that work.[2][3] Mendels argued that using surplus labor, initially available during slow periods of the agricultural seasons, increased rural incomes, broke the monopolies of urban guild system and weakened rural traditions that had limited population growth. The resulting increase in population led to further growth in production, in a self-sustaining process that, Mendels claimed, created the labour, capital and entrepreneurial skill that led to industrialization.[2]

Other historians expanded on these ideas in the 1970s and 1980s.[4] In their 1979 book, Peter Kriedte, Hans Medick and Jürgen Schlumbohm expanded the theory into a broad account of the transformation of European society from feudalism to industrial capitalism. They viewed proto-industrialization as part of the second phase in this transformation, following the weakening of the manorial system in the High Middle Ages.[5] Later historians identified similar situations in other parts of the world, including India, China, Japan and the former Muslim world.[6][7]

The applicability of proto-industrialization in Europe has since been challenged. Martin Daunton, for example, argues that proto-industrialisation "excludes too much" to fully explain the expansion of industry: not only do proponents of proto-industrialisation ignore the vital town-based industries in pre-industrial economies, but also ignores "rural and urban industry based upon non-domestic organisation"; referring to how mines, mills, forges and furnaces fit into the agrarian economy.[8]

Indian subcontinent

Some historians have identified proto-industrialization in the early modern Indian subcontinent,[9][10] mainly in its wealthiest and largest subdivision, the Mughal Bengal[11][12] (today's modern Bangladesh and West Bengal), a major trading region which had been in commercial contact with global markets since the 14th century. The Indian subcontinent singly accounted for 40% of Dutch imports outside Europe.[13] Mughal India became the world's largest economy, valued 25% of world GDP by 1750,[14] having better conditions than 18th-century Western Europe, prior to the Industrial Revolution.[15]

See also

References
  1. Coleman, D. C. (1983). "Proto-Industrialization: A Concept Too Many". The Economic History Review. New Series. 36 (3): 435–448. doi:10.2307/2594975. JSTOR 2594975. pp. 436–437.
  2. Ogilvie, Sheilagh (2008). "Protoindustrialization". In Durlauf, Steven; Blume, Lawrence (eds.). The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. 6. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 711–714. ISBN 978-0-230-22642-5.
  3. Mendels, Franklin F. (1972). "Proto-industrialization: the first phase of the industrialization process". Journal of Economic History. 32 (1): 241–261. doi:10.1017/S0022050700075495. JSTOR 2117187.
  4. Ogilvie, Sheilagh C.; Cerman, Markus (1996). "The theories of proto-industrialization" (PDF). In Ogilvie, Sheilagh C.; Cerman, Markus (eds.). European Proto-Industrialization: An Introductory Handbook. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–11. ISBN 978-0-521-49760-2.
  5. Kriedte, Peter; Medick, Hans; Schlumbohm, Jürgen (1981) [1979]. Industrialization Before Industrialization. Translated by Schempp, Beate. Cambridge University Press. pp. 6–8. ISBN 978-0-521-28228-4.
  6. Ogilvie, Sheilagh (1993). "Proto-industrialization in Europe". Continuity and Change. 8 (2): 159–179. doi:10.1017/S0268416000002058. n. 6, p. 178.
  7. Koyama, Mark (2017-06-15). "Jared Rubin: Rulers, religion, and riches: Why the West got rich and the Middle East did not?". Public Choice. 172 (3–4): 549–552. doi:10.1007/s11127-017-0464-6. ISSN 0048-5829. S2CID 157361622.
  8. Daunton, Martin (1995). Progress and Poverty: An Economic and Social History of Britain 1700-1850. New York: Oxford University Press Inc. p. 169. ISBN 0-19-822281-5.
  9. Sanjay Subrahmanyam (1998). Money and the Market in India, 1100–1700. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780521257589.
  10. Perlin, Frank (1983). "Proto-industrialization and Pre-colonial South Asia". Past & Present. 98 (1): 30–95. doi:10.1093/past/98.1.30. JSTOR 650688.
  11. Giorgio Riello, Tirthankar Roy (2009). How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500-1850. Brill Publishers. p. 174. ISBN 9789047429975.
  12. Abhay Kumar Singh (2006). Modern World System and Indian Proto-industrialization: Bengal 1650-1800, (Volume 1). Northern Book Centre. ISBN 9788172112011.
  13. Om Prakash, "Empire, Mughal", History of World Trade Since 1450, edited by John J. McCusker, vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 2006, pp. 237–240, World History in Context. Retrieved 3 August 2017
  14. Maddison, Angus (2003): Development Centre Studies The World Economy Historical Statistics: Historical Statistics, OECD Publishing, ISBN 9264104143, pages 259–261
  15. Lex Heerma van Voss, Els Hiemstra-Kuperus, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk (2010). "The Long Globalization and Textile Producers in India". The Ashgate Companion to the History of Textile Workers, 1650-2000. Ashgate Publishing. p. 255. ISBN 9780754664284.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Further reading
  • Hudson, P. (1990). "Proto-industrialisation". Recent Findings of Research in Economics and Social History. 10: 1–4.


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