The Technological Competition after the Twelfth Century: A Quantitative Analysis
Almanac: Globalistics and Globalization Studies Global Evolution, Historical Globalistics and Globalization Studies
The paper presents a quantitative analysis of innovative activity and competition in technological sphere in the Middle Ages and Modern Period (till the end of the twentieth century). The authors consider the innovative competition in two aspects. The first section of the present paper shows the growth of the number of innovations over half-century intervals in Europe and Asia. As is widely accepted at present, by the early second millennium CE Europe lagged far behind the main eastern countries not only in terms of development of the productive forces but in respect of many relevant parameters. According to some data, Europe failed to outrun China (as regards scientific-technological growth rates) not only in the twelfth or thirteenth, but even in the fourteenth century. On the other hand, the authors show a rather vigorous acceleration of those rates in Europe since the twelfth century with one more such acceleration in the thirteenth century (when Medieval Europe produced its first paradigm changing inventions – initially, the invention of the spectacles and the mechanical clock). In the fifteenth century Europe definitely outpaced Asia.
After such historical breakthrough, it is very important to trace how the leadership has changed in this respect within Europe. The second and the fol-lowing sections of the paper are devoted to this aspect. Here we consider the dynamics of technological inventions in Europe from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Our analysis of the technological innovation dynamics shows that:
Firstly, the British lead began to show up only in the second half of the seventeenth century; before Britain had clearly lagged behind Italy and Germany. Thus, during the two initial centuries of the Industrial Revolution Britain absorbed the achievements of European societies, and only then was it succeeded to start its own innovative climb.
Secondly, though we observe the British evident leadership in the technological innovation from the second half of the seventeenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century, for a greater part of that period, the overall innovation activity of ‘the rest of the West’ was higher than that of Britain. The primacy of Britain in the field of technological invention was absolute only during a relatively short period in the second half of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, i.e. the period of the final phase of the Industrial Revolution.
Thirdly, by the first half of the nineteenth century the British endogenous technological growth rate virtually stagnated against the background of a very fast increase of those rates in France, Germany and the USA, as a result of which those countries caught up with Britain in a rather significant way. Fourthly, in the second half of the 19th century Britain finally lost its technological lead, as in the late 19th century the number of major inventions made in the USA, Germany, and France exceeded the number of British inventions.
Keywords: technology, technological innovations, inventions, Industrial Revolution, Asia, Europe, leadership, quantitative analysis.
As is known, in regard to the industrial-technological
innovation rates, Europe outpaced Asian countries on the eve of the Early
Modern Period. However, on the one hand, in some aspects Europe continued to
lag behind Asia till the seventeeth–eighteenth centuries (in more detail see
Grinin and Korotayev 2015), and on the other hand, it took more than three
centuries for Europe to make a breakthrough in the Early Modern Period. The
first section of the present paper shows this technological competition in the
aspect of the growth of the number of innovations over half-century intervals
in Europe and Asia.
The second and following sections show the increase in the number of innovations in Europe in the period of the Industrial Revolution which began in the fifteenth century and the change of leaders in the innovation race. It becomes evident that British breakthrough in the eighteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution occurred first, was based on common European achievements. It also shows that in the second half of the nineteenth century Britain yielded the leadership to other European countries and the USA.
1. A General Analysis of the Development of Asia and Europe
As is widely accepted at present, by the early second millennium CE Europe lagged far behind the main eastern countries in terms of development of the productive forces, statehood, urbanization, consumer culture, scientific achievements and other relevant parameters (e.g., Crone 1989; Abu-Lughod 1991; Pomeranz 2000; Maddison 2001, 2010; Christian 2004; Goldstone 2009; Lucas 2005; Saliba 2007; Reinert 2007; Vries 2013; Grinin and Korotayev 2015; Grinin L. and Grinin A. 2016), whereas, according to some estimates, the per capita GDP in the advanced economies of the East was at least twice as high as in Western Europe (e.g., Melyantsev 1996: 74). According to some other estimates, even in the eleventh century, Western Europe did not reach the level of production of the first century CE Roman Empire (e.g., Cameron 1989; Maddison 2001, 2010). The items that prevailed within the export of European countries to the East were fur, silver, and timber (Abu-Lughod 1991: 47; Postan 1987). Eastern Europe, in addition to valuable furs, also exported honey and wax, as well as skins, and considerable numbers of slaves (Gieysztor 1987; Postan 1987; Ali 1999), whereas the Eastern exports to Europe consisted mostly of finished industrial (handicraft) products and luxury goods (Abu-Lughod 1991: 47; Postan 1987; Ali 1999). In short, in the early second millennium CE Europe looked like a backward periphery of the Asian and North African core.
Consider specially, how Europe, that is Western Europe or the ‘West’, lagged behind the ‘East’ as regards such an extremely important indicator as the intensity of innovation in science and technology. In order to insure the compatibility of the analysis results we will use in this paper [1] the database on scientific discoveries and technological inventions created by Hellemans and Bunch (1988). To start with, consider the levels of innovation activity in the East and the West during the first eleven centuries CE (Fig. 1).
However, while Europe lagged far behind Asia, by the eleventh century it had some potential advantages – first of all, it had more stimuli to invest in labor-saving technologies, and it was better provided with sources of energy (e.g., Chaunu 1979; Wigelsworth 2006). Of course, those potential benefits could be realized only under certain conditions. Such conditions began to take shape in Europe in the centuries that followed; an important role was played by the readiness of some Western European societies to borrow technologies from the East and to improve them. At the same time in the East in the Early Modern Period, even long-known methods of mechanization could not be applied widely, and their application even sometimes declined (see, e.g., Vanina 1991: 96–98 with respect to India; Landes 2006 about China, and Allen 2011 as regards Japan).
Technical and Scientific Upswing of the Late Medieval Period in Europe and the Issue of the ‘Early Industrial Revolution’
In the period between 1100 and 1400, but especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the European labor-saving tendencies became implemented to a sufficiently large degree (about the sixteenth and the next centuries see Huang 2002), which resulted in a fairly rapid development of technologies and a number of key inventions (more about them see below and also in Fig. 2) and the development of the process of division of labor. This technological upswing that took place in Europe between 1100 and 1600 was noticed long ago – back in the 1930s – starting with the work of Lewis Mumford (1934), Marc Bloch (1935), Eleanora Carus-Wilson (1941) and was actively studied by economic historians in around 1950–1980 (Lilley 1976; Forbes 1956; Armytage 1961; Gille 1969; White 1978; Gimpel 1992; see also Hill 1955; Johnson 1955; Bernal 1965; Braudel 1973; see Lucas 2005 for more details). This period also quite rightly considered as the time of scientific breakthrough, or rather a number of revolutionary breakthroughs in such areas as mathematics, astronomy, geography, cartography, etc. (see, e.g., Singer 1941).
The analysis of the Hellemans – Bunch database may suggest that with respect to scientific-technological growth rates the West caught up with the East as early as in the twelfth century, whereas in the second half of the thirteenth century the West might have already somehow outrun the East (see Fig. 2).
In the fifteenth century Europe definitely outpaced Asia. Thus, from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, the overall trend appeared as follows: the most developed European countries were constantly catching up with the most developed countries of the East, and in certain respects they even left them behind. And in those respects (which included science, military/navy technologies, and some fields of engineering) the gap between the West and the East was constantly increasing in the Early Modern Period. However, up to a point, this superiority had not yet materialized in the West's overwhelming dominance.
Thus, the Early Modern Period is characterized by a dual process. On the one hand, we observe a process of convergence, but we also observe a partial advance of the West in comparison with the most developed Eastern countries in many ways. This duality (on the one hand, a higher level of overall development in the East, on the other – the growth of partial advantages of the West) has led to numerous disputes in which each party is in its own right. That is why we prefer to denote the Early Modern Period as the period of ‘catching up divergence’. Indeed, during this period, on the one hand, Europe was still lagging behind the East, it was catching up with it in many points. Thus, this was a convergence in a number of respects (such as literacy, urbanization, statehood, national culture, productivity, industrial production volumes), and a divergence with respect to some military-technical and scientific aspects, the dissemination of knowledge, and so on. It is very important to take into account the point that in the Early Modern Period the convergence could not be achieved by the West by rapid population growth (on the contrary, until the mid-nineteenth century, the gap in population between China and Western Europe only increased, see Fig. 4).
Thus, the overwhelming dominance of Europe could be traced only since the eighteenth century and it became ultimate in the next century.
2. The Industrial Revolution as a Pan-European Achievement
Now, it is very important to trace how the leadership has changed in this respect within Europe and to trace how the technological leaders changed among European countries.
It is important to point out that the theory of early industrial revolutions that preceded the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century has rather solid foundations (Lilley 1976; Forbes 1956; Armytage 1961; Gille 1969; White 1978; Gimpel 1992; Lucas 2005; see also Hill 1955; Johnson 1955; Bernal 1965; Braudel 1973]). However, later this theory was (without any reasonable grounds) relegated to the periphery of the historical mainstream (e.g., researchers belonging to the California School hardly mention the early European industrial revolution). However, ignoring the early European industrial revolution, we believe, appears to be counterproductive in solving many important problems, including the search for reasons why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Britain (Grinin and Korotayev 2015; for more details see also Grinin 2007, 2012, 2006; Grinin L. and Grinin A. 2015). In addition, this question is somewhat artificially separated from the more general question about the causes of the technological breakthrough in the West in the Early Modern Period. Our view is that the idea of the early industrial revolution in explanatory terms is very useful, but it requires its own conceptual development from a perspective that allows treating this early revolution not so much as a separate isolated phenomenon, but as the initial phase of the Industrial Revolution. Then in fact the industrial breakthrough of the eighteenth century must be regarded as the final phase of the Industrial Revolution. We would say that the Industrial Revolution continued for at least three centuries (Ibid.); and against the background of many millennia that preceded those three centuries – this was a rather short, quite revolutionary period.
Very schematically, this approach may be outlined as follows. The period between 1100 and 1450 may be regarded as a preparatory period of the Industrial Revolution with quite a vivid manifestation of early capitalist relations and forms of production in some regions of Europe (Northern Italy, Southern Germany, the Netherlands, Southern France [see, e.g., Pirenne 1920–1932; Wallerstein 1974; Postan 1987; Milskaya and Rutenburg 1991; Lucas 2005]).
The period from the late fifteenth century till the early seventeeth century (often denoted as ‘the long sixteenth century’) is the initial phase of the Industrial Revolution, associated with the development of navigation, engineering and the mechanization on the watermill basis, the diffusion and the improvement of different machines, and the development of division of labor. At this time, in different parts of Europe, there were significant breakthroughs in a variety of directions, which by the end of the period are synthesized into the general Western European system (Johnson 1955; Braudel 1973; Wallerstein 1974; Barg 1993; Yastrebitskaya 1993; Davies 1996). Changes in one country tended to produce substantial impact on the economy and the lives in other countries – through the spread of innovations, through the publication of special technical books, through the movement of technical experts to different countries, through the introduction of various advances and innovations by kings and emperors to their realms, etc. Thus, we find impressive achievements in the field of mechanization in mining operations in Southern Germany and Bohemia; major contributions to the development of navigation, geographical discoveries and world trade accomplished by the Spanish and Portuguese, but also by the British; significant developments of technologies of manufacturing in Italian and Flemish cities; signi-ficant shifts in agriculture in Northern France and the Netherlands; important scientific and mathematical discoveries made by scientists in Italy, France, Poland, England; and finally, new financial technologies developed in Italy (Hale 1993; Davies 1996, 2001; Collins and Taylor 2006; Goldstone 2009, 2012; Ferguson 2011; Porter 2012). But all of this, anyway, quickly became the common heritage of Europe.
The period from the early seventeenth century to the second third of the eighteenth century is the middle phase, when one could observe the formation of a complex industrial sector and the capitalist economy with increased mechanization and the deepening division of labor. This is the age of trade leadership by the Dutch, the successor to the hegemony of Spain and Portugal. The Netherlands created an unprecedented industry of shipbuilding, mechanized port facilities and fishing (Boxer 1965; Jones 1996; de Vries and van der Woude 1997; Rietbergen 2002; Israel 1995; Allen 2009). But the seventeenth century was a century of very large changes in military technology, science, and engineering; whereas as a result of wars and other processes the Netherlands lost its leadership, which was gradually moving to Britain (Rayner 1964; Boxer 1965; Snooks 1997; Jones 1996; de Vries and van der Woude 1997; Rietbergen 2002).
Finally, the period between 1760 and 1830 may be identified as the final phase of the Industrial Revolution, which was also accompanied by the creation of the sectors of the machine cycle of production and the use of steam power. Although Britain was here clearly the leader, we also observe in this period a number of important processes that can be identified as pan-European (including the development of military technology, trade, science, pan-European commercial and industrial crisis of the second half of the eighteenth century, the beginning of the demographic transition). In this concept, we clearly see in the Industrial Revolution the result of the collective achievements of different societies of Europe, a sort of relay-race of achievements (see below).
3. Technological Innovation Activities in Britain and other Western Countries (1400–1900)
As has been shown above, as regards the scientific-technological innovation rates, Europe outpaced China (and the East in general) in the fifteenth century (see Fig. 5. which supports our idea that the Industrial Revolution started in Europe in the fifteenth century). It started in the belt that included the Netherlands, Southern Germany, Northern Italy, as well as some parts of France, Spain and Portugal. We suggest identifying the last third of the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century as the initial phase of the Industrial Revolution. During the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeeth century, the achievements of different European countries were consolidating and diffusing, thus creating a new foundation for growth. This phase of modernization (in terms of inventions) can be subdivided into two subphases: the first was characterized by comparable levels of technological innovation activities in a number of European countries; at the second phase an undeniable lead belonged to Britain.
We emphasize again that, on the one hand, one can see an evident technological innovation leadership of Britain for two centuries (from the second half of the 17th century to the first half of the 19th century); but, on the other hand, for a greater part of this period, the overall innovation activity of ‘the rest of the West’ was higher than the one of Britain (Figs 14–15). Thus, the primacy of Britain in the technological invention field was relative, except for only one relatively brief period of the second half of the 18th century and the early 19th century, i.e., the period of the final phase of the Industrial Revolution, when the leadership of Britain was absolute (Figs 14–15).
Methodology. The main database used for calculations below in this paper is Hellemans and Bunch 1988, which was augmented with data from Kondratieff 1926, 1935, 1984; Usher 1954; Haustein and Neuwirth 1982; van Duijn 1983; Ryzhov 1999; Silverberg and Verspagen 2003; Ballhausen and Kleinelümern 2008; Challoner 2009). For Figs 6–15 we have only taken into account technological inventions, excluding purely scientific discoveries (note that in Figs 1–3 and 5 we have tried to quantify the innovation dynamics in science and technology – hence, there we take into account both technological inventions and scientific discoveries). In addition, we take into account only those inventions that were actually implemented within a century (thus, we do not take into account those sketches of Leonardo da Vinci that remained on paper only). With regard to scientific discoveries, the only exception was made to those of them with a direct technological significance.
For over a century and a half (until the early seventeeth century) Italy remained the technological innovation leader. It also fully corresponds to an important fact – it is in Italy (especially in Venice) where in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries one could observe the most advanced legislation and practice for registering inventions. However, the growth of its activity stopped in the middle of the sixteenth century, while other countries were catching up with Italy. The stagnation of the innovation activity in Italy correlated quite well with the start of economic and political crisis, associated with changes of world trade routes, its inability to change the political model of development and foreign policy challenges. At the same time, we note that future long-term leaders in innovation, Britain and France at the start of the Early Modern Period were lagging far behind Italy and Germany (Figs 6 and 7, 8, and 9).
In the first half of the eighteenth century a certain divergence was observed in the European North-West itself. The endogenous technological innovation rates grew very substantially in France, but especially in Britain (see Fig. 8).
Thus, already in the first half of the eighteenth century the British technological lead became quite visible. But it only became really absolute in the second half of the eighteenth century (see Fig. 9).
As we see, in the second half of the eighteenth century in Britain the endogenous technological growth rate increased by more than 250 per cent. This happened against a rather slow growth of this indicator in France, a weak recovery in Italy and clear decline in Germany and especially the Netherlands. As a result, the technological lead of Britain became almost absolute – in the second half of the seventeeth century the overwhelming majority of all the important technological inventions were made in Britain (see Fig. 14). The enormous lead of Britain with respect to the technological leaders of the start of the Early Modern Period becomes especially visible if we delete the French curve from our graph (see Fig. 10).
However, this British absolute tecnnological prevalence continued just for half a century. Already in the first half of the 19th century the British endogenous technological growth rate virtually stagnated against the background of a very fast increase in those rates in France, Germany and the USA, as a result of which those countries caught up with Britain in a rather significant way (see Fig. 11), whereas the number of major inventions made outside Britain exceeded substantially the number of British inventions (see Fig. 15).
In the first half of the nienteeth century the Industrial Revolution was completed. Figs 6–11, as well as Figs 14–15 in different projections well confirm our idea that the Industrial Revolution from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century passed through three phases: initial, intermediate, and final.
In the second half of the nineteenth century Britain finally lost its technological lead, as in the late nineteeth century the number of major inventions made in each of the USA, Germany, and France exceeded the number of British inventions (see Fig. 12), whereas in 1880–1900 the number of major inventions made in Britain constituted just about 10 per cent of all the major inventions made in the West (see Fig. 15). The technological lead by the end of the nineteenth century was clearly taken by the USA (see Fig. 12).
We continue to talk about the three phases of the Industrial Revolution as an interconnected process, during which, however, technological leaders were changing, which is quite clearly reflected in Figs 12 and 13. At the initial phase (1450–1600), we already see a fairly high rate of technological innovation activity (especially in comparison with earlier periods that preceded the onset of the Industrial Revolution), which further increased during the second half of the 16th century. This indicates a transition to the intermediate phase when the base of the Industrial revolution greatly increased. As we remember (see Figs 6–9), at this phase technological leaders were Italy and Germany, but one could also observe a gradual growth of the role of some other European countries: England, France and the Netherlands. However, in the late sixteenth century it was not clear yet which country would be the future leader. The intermediate phase was characterized by the emergence of new centers of technological innovation, as well as by the dissemination and improvement of previous innovations. Important improving inventions were made, which were extremely important for the future of the Industrial Revolution. The dynamics of the process was not linear, as the further development of the technology base required a serious political change. This is quite visible in the diagrams (e.g., Figs 8 and 14). First, we see a general continuation of the innovation activity growth in the first half of the seventeeth century (except Italy, which in terms of invention rates stagnated – though still at a rather high level) and the convergence of the endogenous technological growth rates on all the main countries of Western Europe. In the second half of the seventeenth century in all the main Western European countries (except Britain) the technological invention activity stagnated or even decreased, yet it generally remained higher than at the previous (initial) phase of the Industrial Revolution. In Germany, after a certain decline in 1650–1700, it somehow increased in the first half of the eighteenth century, but Germany was no longer one of technological leaders of Europe. Real technological innovation rise started there only in the first half of the nineteenth century. However, during this period (the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteeenth century) a number of important innovations in military tactics and strategy as well as in international relations were made, which, however, by definition, we could not reflect in our calculations. In any case, in the seventeenth century in Britain (notwithstanding the political revolution and civil war) the technological invention activity did not stagnate or decrease at all; what is more, it increased very significantly, indicating the preparation of the technological breakthrough in Britain (to some extent this was also a reflection of legislation on patents and monopolies that was enacted in the early seventeeth century). Nevertheless, it is clear (see Figs 14 and 15) that in the seventeeth century and even in the first half of the eighteenth century, the total invention activity of Continental Europe was substantially greater than the invention activity of Britain alone. In addition, two other new technological innovation leaders emerged in the seventeeth century – the Netherlands and France, which reflected the well-known World System hegemony of the Netherlands in this century (see, e.g., Braudel 1981–1984; Arrighi 1994; Modelski 1987, 2006; Modelski and Thompson 1996) as well as military-political growth of France (this, in its turn, reflected the growing might of France as the leading continental power, which was the first in Europe to create a new type of state – a mature state [see Grinin 2011, 2012; Grinin and Korotayev 2006]).
Return now to the idea of comparing Britain with the rest of the West (Figs 14 and 15). As one can see, before 1650 the number of major inventions made in Britain was a few times less than in the rest of Europe; in 1650–1750 this gap decreased very significantly, but still the number of major inventions made in the Continent substantially exceeded the number of such inventions made in the British Isles. We draw attention once again to the point that the overall growth of innovation in Continental Europe slowed down very substantially in the period after the Thirty Years War (and in Britain despite its revolution the techno-logical innovation continued to accelerate). A new wave of invention activity growth started in the European Continent in the first half of the eighteenth century (see Fig. 14). However, in the second half of the eighteenth century one could hardly observe in Continental Europe anything comparable with the explosive growth of major technological inventions that was observed in Britain during this period of time (correspending to the industrial breakthrough). In the second half of the eighteenth century Britain became an absolute global technological leader, the main engine of world technological progress. But if we look at Fig. 15, we can clearly see that in the overall picture of the Industrial Revolution this is a relatively short period when Britain had an almost total global superiority in the field of technological innovation, when more technological inventions were made in Britain than in the rest of the world. Already in the first half of the nineteeth century, a few Western countries managed to catch up with Britain in a very significant way, and by the end of the nineteeth century the USA, Germany, and France were outperforming Britain. Just because many countries of Continental Europe (as well as the USA) were ready to use those possibilities that were opened by the Industrial Revolution, this revolution was able to produce a world historical effect.
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* This research has been supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project No. 17-06-00476).
[1] With some exceptions that will be mentioned specially below.
[2] Note that in his turn Goldstone based himself on the survey produced by Li Chen and Ugurlu Soylu (2004).