Aphug Unit 7: Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes
The Industrial Revolution: Origins and Preconditions
Definition: The Industrial Revolution was a rapid transformation of the economy characterized by the introduction of machines, new power sources, and new chemical processes in Europe and the United States between and .
Great Britain as the Starter: In the , Great Britain (GB) served as the primary catalyst for the Industrial Revolution due to several specific advantages: * Agricultural Advances: Innovations in farming techniques provided a stable food base. * Labor Movement: There was a steady movement of the poor from rural settings to industrial environments. * Workforce: Availability of a large workforce ready for industrial labor. * Natural Resources: Abundant local supplies of limestone, coal, and iron. * Governmental Support: A government that actively encouraged business development. * Capitalists: A high number of individuals willing to invest capital into new ventures. * Markets: Access to a large market for selling manufactured goods. * Strategic Location: A favorable geographic position for trade.
Early Mechanization and Transportation
Geographic Center: Early mechanization was concentrated in Lancashire, located in northwestern England.
Technological Innovations: Local craftsmen invented machines that revolutionized production: * Spinning Jenny: Used for textile production. * Looms: Mechanized weaving devices. * Water Power: People channeled flowing water to provide energy for these new machines.
Labor Productivity: Inventions greatly increased labor productivity, defined as the average amount of goods or services produced per worker per unit of time (). This was possible because a single worker could now operate multiple looms simultaneously.
Transportation Evolution: The need to move raw materials and finished products quickly and cheaply drove transportation changes: * Vessel Shift: Wood sailing ships were replaced by steel vessels driven by steam engines. * Railroads: Rail transport facilitated the rapid diffusion of ideas, practices, and the Industrial Revolution itself across the globe.
Natural Resource Allocation: Fossil Fuels and Energy
Initial Power Sources: During the first stage of industrialization, water and wood remained the primary energy sources. Manufacturing was largely rural, dispersed, and tied to localized power sources.
The Shift to Coal: Innovations in the mid- shifted primary power toward coal.
Fossil Fuels: Most modern energy supplies come from nonrenewable fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas.
The Problem with Coal: Coal is heavy, bulky, and difficult to transport. As a result, industries relying on coal were forced to move closer to coal extraction sites.
Crude Oil and Petroleum: In the century, the extraction of crude oil proved more efficient than coal. By the , crude oil was refined into petroleum products, most notably kerosene and gasoline. Fossil fuels eventually became the most important natural resource and the main source of power for industrialization.
Raw Material Inputs and Material Processing
Natural Resource Utility: Resources provide raw materials for manufacturing. For example, iron ore is transformed into iron when it is heated, melted, and combined with carbon to create steel.
Access to Inputs: Access to energy and raw materials is critical for industrial success.
Case Study: Pittsburgh: * The city was near coalfields that supplied coke (a fuel derived from coal that acts as both a furnace fuel and a reactant to reduce iron from iron ore). * The city's location at the intersection of three rivers allowed it to receive barge loads of iron ore from vast deposits in the Great Lakes region.
Widespread Resource Use: * Water: Used in boilers for steam and as a cooling agent for equipment. * Construction Materials: Lumber, stone, sand, brick clay, and limestone were used to build factories. * Finished Goods: Steel and iron were used to manufacture machines, steamships, and railroads.
Demographic and Social Consequences of Industrialization
Increased Food Supply: * Crop rotation and the consolidation of small fields into single large farms increased efficiency. * Labor productivity led to the development of efficient iron plows. * Mechanization and chemical processes (new fertilizers) led to agricultural productivity that outpaced population growth. * Outcome: Improved nutrition and reduced mortality rates sparked faster population growth. The primary issue shifted from food scarcity to food distribution.
Rural-to-Urban Migration: * Farmland consolidation and mechanization meant fewer jobs and homes were available in rural areas. * Industrial manufacturing consolidated in cities, drawing uprooted rural dwellers. * In Great Britain, the population was 80 ext{ %} rural prior to industrialization; by , the majority lived in cities. Similar patterns occurred later in the United States. * Urbanization Modes: (1) Rapid population growth in existing cities like London; (2) Transformation of small towns into booming industrial centers like Manchester.
New Social Classes and Spatial Forms
Social Hierarchies: * Landowners: Invested in mechanization and consolidated landholdings. * Commercial Farmers: Raised crops specifically for market sale. * Workers/Wage Laborers: Displaced rural workers who sold their labor for wages. Employers paid workers to complete tasks by the hour or day, forming the working class. * Middle Class: Composed of salaried professionals or office wage workers. * Labor Unions: Associations of workers in specific industries established to bargain with capitalists.
New Division of Labor: * Pre-industrial tasks were divided by age and gender. * Mass Production: The machine manufacture of large quantities of identical products created a new division of labor based on production needs. * Assembly Line: A manufacturing system where parts and procedures are added one step at a time through workstations until a finished product is complete.
Effects on the Family and Gender Roles
Shift in Workplace: The workplace moved from the family home or farm to the factory or office.
Family Unit of Production: Pre-industrial agricultural families operated as a single unit where men, women, and children worked together.
Industrial Gender Roles: * Men moved to factories to earn wages. * Young women entered factory work, particularly in the textile industry. * Marriage Shift: After marrying and giving birth, women often stayed home. Their labor became unpaid, directed toward child-rearing and domestic maintenance.
Public vs. Domestic Spheres: * Men became associated with public life. * Women became associated with domestic life. * This separation pushed women out of formal economic life and political participation.
Experience of Space and Time
Time Shift: The sense of time migrated from natural daily and seasonal rhythms to the steady, uniform clock of urban industrial life.
Space-Time Convergence: Refers to the reduction in the time it takes to travel between places as technology improves. * Historical Benchmarks for Atlantic Crossing: * (Columbus): Over two months. * (Sailing ships): Approximately six weeks. * (Steamships): . * (Ocean-liners): . * (Propelled plane): . * (Jet travel): . * (Concorde): . * Today (Commercial jet): Around .
Colonialism and Imperialism
Resource Competition: Large countries like the U.S. had vast internal resources (lumber, coal, iron). Smaller countries had to look beyond their borders.
Conquest for Control: Countries seized resources through the control of other nations. * Example: Great Britain took over India to control the world's largest producer of cotton textiles. * Berlin Conference: European powers divided Africa into colonies specifically for resource control (e.g., France gained West Africa for cotton and vegetable oils used in manufacturing).
International Competition for Markets: Industrial capitalism requires a constantly expanding market. Mass consumption (the purchase of large amounts of mass-produced goods by large numbers of people) within a home country was often insufficient.
Imperialism as a Solution: European powers used imperialism to combat shrinking markets. This created an international (global) division of labor, where different regions played complementary but unequal roles in a global economy.
Economic Sectors and Development Patterns
Primary Sector: Industries that extract natural resources from the environment (e.g., mining, agriculture). Also known as extractive industries.
Secondary Sector: Industries that process raw materials into intermediate or finished usable forms.
Tertiary Sector: Service industries providing work necessary to transport and deliver goods (e.g., retail, transport).
Quaternary Sector: Intellectual and informational services, such as scientific research and development (R&D).
Quinary Sector: Highest-level management and decision-making in business, government, education, and science.
Hierarchy and Spatial Patterns: * National Economic Core Areas: Industrial regions consisting of zones dominated by specific labor/industry. * Base Industry: An industry of disproportionate economic importance on which other industries depend. * Core vs. Periphery: Core areas engage in secondary and tertiary sectors; peripheral areas provide natural resources and engage in the primary sector. * Global Economic Core States: Applied globally, Core states (like GB) controlled technology but outsourced raw materials (like cotton from Egypt and India). This consigning of nations to the primary sector created peripheral economies relative to Europe.
Factors Influencing Manufacturing Location
Energy: The type of energy available dictates where factories are built.
Materials: Proximity to seaports, airports, and input manufacturers.
Break-of-Bulk Points: Locations where cargo is transferred from one mode of transportation to another (e.g., ship to rail). Locating manufacturing here lowers transfer costs.
Labor: Companies seek low wages, but sometimes labor availability or skills are more important than the wage rate.
Markets: Delivery of goods is a post-production cost that affects total profit.
Transportation: Access to ports, waterways, or railroads is vital. * Containerization: The system of intermodal freight transport using standardized, stackable metal boxes (shipping containers). * Air Trade: High value-to-weight ratio items are shipped via cargo jets. Over of world trade value is now shipped by air.
Alfred Weber’s Least-Cost Theory
Basis: Observation of early industrialization in Europe. Determines factory location based on transportation and labor costs.
The Location Triangle: An abstract model with two material source locations and one market location.
Key Variables: Distance and weight.
Weight-Losing vs. Weight-Gaining: * Weight-Losing Products: If a product loses weight during production, the plant should be located near the raw materials. * Weight-Gaining Products: If a product gains weight (e.g., adding water), the plant should be located near the market.
Modern Shifts: 1. Transportation costs have declined. 2. Labor costs and specialization have increased. 3. Overseas production is common. 4. Government incentives influence location. 5. Flexible production systems (computers, robots) make processes nimbler.
Agglomeration and Production Systems
Agglomeration Economies: Industrial development attracts further development, such as parts suppliers and complementary industries (e.g., FedEx/UPS near airports, or tire plants near auto factories).
Just-in-Time Approach: Dispenses with large parts inventories to increase efficiency.
Flexible Production Systems: Modern systems that allow for variability, unlike rigid assembly lines.
Theories of Economic Development
Rostow’s Stages of Economic Development: * Stage 1: Traditional Society: Subsistence, barter, agriculture, extractive. * Stage 2: Transitional Stage: Specialization, surpluses, infrastructure development. * Stage 3: Take-Off: Industrialization, investment, regional growth, political change. * Stage 4: Drive to Maturity: Diversification, innovation, less reliance on imports. * Stage 5: Age of High Mass Consumption: Consumer durable goods flourish, service sector becomes dominant.
Wallerstein’s World System Theory: * Core-Periphery-Semi-Periphery model. * Core: Wealthy, industrialized regions (Western Europe, North America, Japan) with advanced technology. * Periphery: Poor, resource-exporting countries focused on agriculture and extraction. * Semi-Periphery: Intermediate, industrializing regions that act as a buffer. * Exploitation: Core regions advance by exploiting cheap labor and resources from the periphery.
Dependency Theory: * Argues periphery is poor because it was made economically dependent on the core through colonialism. * Profits in peripheral economies are siphoned off to core countries rather than reinvested locally.
Commodity Dependence: Occurs when commodities account for more than 60 ext{ %} of the value of a state’s total exports. Linked to underdevelopment because global prices are unstable.
Measures of Economic and Social Development
Gross National Product (GNP): Total value of goods and services by a country’s residents/businesses, regardless of location.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): Total value of goods and services produced within a country.
Gross National Income (GNI): Total income of residents, including investment income and foreign aid.
GDP per capita: GDP divided by total population ().
Gender Inequality Index (GII): Combines reproductive health (maternal mortality, adolescent birth), empowerment (parliamentary seats, secondary education), and labor market participation.
Human Development Index (HDI): Created by the World Bank. Combines life expectancy, education levels, and GNI per capita (PPP).
Sectors: Differentiation between the formal sector (recorded/taxed) and informal sector (unrecorded).
Women and Economic Development
Education: Male children are often historically favored for education, but economic growth correlates with increased female enrollment in secondary education.
Demographic Shifts: Higher education for girls leads to delayed marriage and declining fertility rates.
Geographic Mobility: Economic development increases women's ability to move through space (geographic mobility) as they participate in school and the workforce.
Political Empowerment: Measured by female representation in national parliaments.
Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM): Evaluates gender equality based on seats in parliament, economic decision-making positions, and the female share of earned income.