13: Why England?
Another quandary in terms of industrialization is the reason it happened in England, as opposed to other locations such as China, Japan, and India. These other locations were already more populous, and many of them were more sophisticated cultures who were already using more advanced technology than England of the time, and would have seemed stronger candidates for ushering in the industrial era.
Some (Pomeranz) insist that the Industrial Revolution was an abrupt and unexpected departure from preindustrial equilibrium rather than a logical next step on a continuum. This argument traces the source or the break to two "accidents of geography," coal and colonies - which provided the fuel and raw materials to transform the economies of Europe, particularly Britain, and their access to the new world is what made Europe succeed while Asia failed to develop.
The author concedes that the economy of China and Japan differed little from England in respect to land, labor, and capital markets, and there was only a modest difference in productivity and market prices prior to the revolution. The problem is in the assumption that the causes of growth were external to the economies rather than internal to it - and implicit in this assumption is that the availability of resources provided an irresistible imperative to take action.
However, studies of China and Japan emphasize that these were not static or technologically frozen societies, as is traditionally assumed. In fact, they seemed to be developing in the same ways as Europe of the time: education was improving, there were ample material resources, and ample waterways and trade routes, such that these nations had all the necessary external elements to undergo a transformation at the same time - but failed to do so. This suggests the theory that resources compel action is inherently flawed.
How Bourgeois Was Asia in 1800?
In 1800, Japan was the closest of Asian economies to England in terms of its social characteristics. Credit was available, though interest rates were high. Literacy and numeracy levels were likely a bit better, as Asians developed block printing, books were already being printed in editions as large as 10,000, and there were public libraries.
By contrast, India retained more of the traits of a Malthusian economy on the eve of the industrial revolution: it was a large society of "startling poverty" and little literacy. Examinations of Indian architecture at the time also suggested a considerable lack of technological innovation - they built on a much more impressive scale, but using much less sophisticated methods.
China in 1800 seemed to be somewhere between Japan and India. There was a much higher literacy rate, given the existence of public schools, and China seemed an advanced and complex society by some accounts, but in terms of productivity, there is little evidence of advancement and, in fact, a marked decline since the accounts of the 1200s.
In general, Asian societies lagged England in establishing a "bourgeois" society throughout all ranks of the population. They were not static, and were evolving along the same path, but were not as far along in terms of their evolution.
Why Was Asia behind Europe?
One possible explanation that England leapt forward while Asia did not is that the Malthusian constraints were much harsher on England than on Asia. There were population increases in both (though more dramatic in England), and whereas Asia had vast expanses of unutilized land to cultivate, England did not. In essence, the Asians could simply plow more fields and carry on as usual, whereas England had to find another way to get the food it needed for its burgeoning population, and turned to manufacturing and commerce.
Another difference between England and Asia was that income-based differences were much less pronounced, and social mobility was much less common. As such, the rich and poor were well separated, and retained their attitudes and culture - wealthy people did not fall to the working class, bringing with them their values, and working-class people had little opportunity to become wealthy.
A specific example is the Japanese samurai class, who gained their title through lineage. There was absolutely no chance of a Japanese peasant becoming middle class, except in the rare occasions where a samurai had no suitable son and resorted to adoption - a matter of arbitrary choice rather than the consequence of any action a peasant could take.
It's also noted that fertility rates among rich and poor in Asia showed less disparity: whereas the wealthy English had more children (surviving to adulthood) than the English poor, the rich and poor reproduced at roughly the same rate in Asia, ensuring a static society in terms of the ratio of rich to poor. As such, the "wave of downward mobility" in England was a mere ripple in Asia.
Thus, the answer to the question "Who England?" seems to be based on population and expansion: the Asians had room to grow, and the population multiplied in such a way that its growth was even, such that it could increase its numbers without any change to its culture. Hence, England was compelled to change in ways Asia was not.