معرفی کتاب The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress اثر Joel Mokyr

The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress

The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress

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شابک
9780195074772
تعداد صفحات
368
تاریخ انتشار
1371/1/21

توضیحات

        In a world of supercomputers, genetic engineering, and fiber optics, technological creativity is ever more the key to economic success. But why are some nations more creative than others, and why do some highly innovative societies--such as ancient China, or Britain in the industrial revolution--pass into stagnation? Beginning with a fascinating, concise history of technological progress, Mokyr sets the background for his analysis by tracing the major inventions and innovations that have transformed society since ancient Greece and Rome. What emerges from this survey is often surprising: the classical world, for instance, was largely barren of new technology, the relatively backward society of medieval Europe bristled with inventions, and the period between the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution was one of slow and unspectacular progress in technology, despite the tumultuous developments associated with the Voyages of Discovery and the Scientific Revolution.What were the causes of technological creativity? Mokyr distinguishes between the relationship of inventors and their physical environment--which determined their willingness to challenge nature--and the social environment, which determined the openness to new ideas. He discusses a long list of such factors, showing how they interact to help or hinder a nation's creativity, and then illustrates them by a number of detailed comparative studies, examining the differences between Europe and China, between classical antiquity and medieval Europe, and between Britain and the rest of Europe during the industrial revolution. He examines such aspects as the role of the state (the Chinese gave up a millennium-wide lead in shipping to the Europeans, for example, when an Emperor banned large ocean-going vessels), the impact of science, as well as religion, politics, and even nutrition. He questions the importance of such commonly-cited factors as the spill-over benefits of war, the abundance of natural resources, life expectancy, and labor costs. Today, an ever greater number of industrial economies are competing in the global market, locked in a struggle that revolves around technological ingenuity. The Lever of Riches, with its keen analysis derived from a sweeping survey of creativity throughout history, offers telling insights into the question of how Western economies can maintain, and developing nations can unlock, their creative potential.
      

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          For economic historians, technological transformation and the Industrial Revolution are two titles that tied tighter. Many economic historians have seen technological creativity at the very base of the rise of the West. Technological change has been explained by shortages in labor, the endowment of resources, alteration in the idea of knowledge, culture, secured property rights and etc. 
Mokyr believes that the diffusion of useful knowledge was among the central motives that drove the engine of technological transformation.  What makes the case of Britain unique comparing to other civilizations like China during the Sung dynasty that had had a chance to experience a period of technological progress, according to Mokyr, is that Britain had better institutions and developed better incentives to make the most of useful knowledge, thanks to the Enlightenment. Men of science started to cooperate with men of industry. Scientists were asked to solve everyday problems. Pursuing propositional knowledge is encouraged by universities, research institutes, and professional societies, which consequently makes the wave of "micro-inventions."
Reading the book, keep in mind that Mokyr's Idea of the Industrial Enlightenment has been subjected to a number of criticisms. One of the most famous objections of his work has been raised by Allen (2009). In the tenth chapter of his book, Allen, "The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective," brings together a database of seventy-nine important inventors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including all of the macro-inventors who made the key technological breakthroughs. He aims to explore whether macro inventors had been involved with Enlightenment science through education or any other social interaction. "The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective" is a very reach and useful read in this respect.
Clark (2012) is also very critical of the effect of the Enlightenment on the Industrial revolution. He believes that since there is no quantitative evaluation of the Industrial Enlightenment hypothesis, it is hard to demonstrate any causal role of Enlightenment. Clark (2012) notes that "the Cliometric society, _which Mokyr himself, has been a member of it _in economics aimed to work towards a testable scientific history"(That could be a starting point for me to talk for at least an hour about the history of science in economics, so let's skip that. )
Debate continues about the role of Industrial Enlightenment in generating the Industrial Revolution, which comes as no surprise in the historiography of the Industrial Revolution. Technological change was only one of the many phenomena that affected the British economy during the long course of the eighteenth century. The origin of the Industrial Revolution has been a controversial and much-disputed subject within many fields. Although economic historians tend to highlight economic slants, as Mokyr mentions, "the Industrial Revolution illuminates the limitations of the compartmentalization of historical sciences."
Anyway, this was a useful read.
        

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