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]

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]

Mughal India and Bengal

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 nation in the world which had been in commercial contact with global markets since the 14th century. The Mughal region singly accounted for 40% of Dutch imports outside Europe.[13] During the 17th–18th centuries, under the auspices of Shaista Khan, the comparatively liberal uncle of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb as the Subehdar of Bengal, sustained growth was being experienced in manufacturing industries, exceeding China. According to one theory, the growth can be explained by sharia and Islamic economics imposed by Aurangzeb.[14][15] India became the world's largest economy, valued 25% of world GDP,[16] having better conditions than 18th-century Western Europe, prior to the Industrial Revolution.[17]

The Kingdom of Mysore, a major economic and military power in South India, ruled by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, allies of Emperor of the French Napoleon Bonaparte, also experienced massive growth in per capita income and population, structural change in the economy, and increased pace of technological innovation, most notably military technology.[18][19]

References

1. Coleman, D. C. (1983). "Proto-Industrialization: A Concept Too Many". The Economic History Review. New Series. 36 (3): 435–448. 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. 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.
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. Islamic and European Expansion: The Forging of a Global Order, Michael Adas, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1993.
15. Chapra, Muhammad Umer (2014). Morality and Justice in Islamic Economics and Finance. Edward Elgar Publishing. pp. 62–63. ISBN 9781783475728.
16. Maddison, Angus (2003): Development Centre Studies The World Economy Historical Statistics: Historical Statistics, OECD Publishing, ISBN 9264104143, pages 259–261
17. 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.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
18. Parthasarathi, Prasannan (2011), Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850, Cambridge University Press, p. 207, ISBN 978-1-139-49889-0
19. Yazdani, Kaveh (10 January 2017). India, Modernity and the Great Divergence: Mysore and Gujarat (17th to 19th C.). BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-33079-5.

Further reading

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