World Industrialization

Shared Inventions, Competitive Innovations, and Social Dynamics

Michel Vigezzi

• Publisher: Wiley-ISTE
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119681380
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Based on the paradigms of economics and management, inspired by the history of technology and the sociology of technological change, the concepts of shared inventions and competitive innovations make it possible to analyze the industrialization of the world in a fresh and efficient way. As a new approach, shared inventions are classified in this book as a set of existing knowledge thats often associated with the rediscovery of old techniques. Determining capitalized and collective intelligence, this knowledge and reinvention allows us to create inventions which will be shared, first in their construction, then in their use. Another new approach is that these competitive innovations are defined in World Industrialization by associations of experiences of competitively-motivated actors – actors seeking to complement existing techniques by increasing their competitive power. These shared inventions and competitive innovations will also be defined by trajectories identifying their modes of creation, enabling us to overcome the peculiarities of these actions and competitions. This book also highlights four key areas in global industrialization: the emergence of machinism with the defense of Arts and Crafts from 1698–1760; the changes the Industrial Revolution wrought in developed nations from 1760–1850; the link between technology and social relations within modern companies from 1850–1914; and, from 1914 onwards, the birth of extended machinism, its world wars and its global crises.

PART 1
Industrialization and its Conceptualizations

Introduction to Part 1

The notion of industrialization is based on different representations, notions and concepts. These perceptions make it possible to propose an abstract and simplified perspective on the knowledge that it is possible to have on such industrialization.

This section will be devoted to presenting the representations, notions and concepts that will be used in this book.

To this end, some chapters will be devoted to exploring how different scientific fields can be used, ranging from economics and management sciences to the history of technology and labor, to the sociology of science and knowledge and to the history of the arts.

1
The Notion of Industrialization and Other Related Notions

1.1. The notion of industrialization

A near-perfect “portmanteau word” (to use Lewis Carroll’s expression: “two meanings packed into one word”), the notion of industrialization has remained widely used but incomplete, as it has never been defined in an indisputable way. This notion is almost impossible to relate to a specific period of time or to specific places where it was born and developed.

1.1.1. The birth of the notion of industrialization

Responsibility for the birth of the notion of industrialization has almost never been claimed, or at least so rarely that it has never been possible to identify its inventor(s). Meanwhile, those who have used this notion have done so spontaneously, without basing their use of the term on any real elements and often reducing this notion to variable dimensions, far from a scientific and effective approach. Was it in England, France or the Netherlands that this notion was born, and on what date, in the 18th or 19th Century? References to articles in the Moniteur Universel (the pre-1868 version of France’s Journal officiel) are often seen, such as the issue of April 8, 1820 dealing with “machinism” and “financing of industries”, the issue of April 26, 1838 dealing with the railway industry, and the issue of November 25, 1849 and the “excesses of industry”.

Since the publication of Jean-Baptiste Say’s works on https://gallica.bnf.fr, we can see references to his work, works that contributed to the definition of the notion of industrialization based on his stay at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in 1804¹. The creation, associated with the Grivel family, and the management of the “Manufacture de tissage de coton d’Auchy-lès-Hesdin” in 1805 would reinforce this analysis of industrialization (Vigezzi, 2014).

Similarly, the work of Adolphe Blanqui, a follower of Jean-Baptiste Say who held the Chair of Economics at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers from 1830 to 1838, will also be considered as one of the first definitions of this notion. We can also mention Natalis Briavoinne, a Belgian economist working in 1838 on the notion of “revolution in industry” (Briavoinne, 1859; Verley, 2005). Yet, since the end of the 17th Century, many other authors have tried to describe the emergence and development of global industrialization based on analyses that principally relate to several scientific fields ranging from economic history to technological and labor history. However, most of these authors have left ample room for other conceptual approaches such as the notions of “industrial revolution”, “technological change”, “machinism”, “inventions” or “innovations” without really clarifying the relationships between these approaches and industrialization. Although faced with difficult relationships between concepts whose definitions are not fully shared, other authors limit themselves to a priori representations of the notion of industrialization.

1.1.1.1. Initial representations of the notion of industrialization

The imprecision of the definition of this notion led, initially, to the development of representations formulated a priori. Four different representations appear indisputably in the press or online which attempt to define this notion too simplistically².

• – The first set is based on tautological definitions of industrialization considered as a process of extension and intensification of industrial activities, or as the act of making a process or technique industrial.
• – The second set uses a definition based on the fact that industrial production exceeds agricultural production in terms of volume.
• – The third and most common set relies on external and/or pointillist definitions, such as: manufacturing processes that use techniques to allow high labor productivity; a group of workers in unchanging infrastructure with fixed schedules and strict regulation; a process that reverses production techniques, replacing the artisanal system with a production that resorts more and more to energy that comes from machines; centralized mass production that uses norms or standards in order to obtain products of homogeneous quality; or a shift from domestic work to more and more specialized work, which radically changes lifestyles.
• – The fourth set opts for vagueness or detachment by affirming that industrialization is the modernization of contemporary societies born from an evolution of the industrial process, relying on mechanization and automation; it also affirms that the industrial revolution would involve the formation of a new mode of production and the setting up of a scientific organization of work: the assembly line.

Other definitions can also be added to this anthology, such as those of the Dictionnaire Cordial, which distinguishes 27 types of industrialization (www.cordial.fr, correct as of 2018).

The diversity of these representations echoes, a priori, that which certain authors such as J. Vincent (2008) defined as allowing oppositions between the representations inspired by the optimistic models of the Victorian period, and the heterodox models centered on sociology and the negative consequences of this industrialization.

1.1.1.2. Criterial definitions of the notion of industrialization

In a second step, other attempts at more detailed explanations will be based on approaches that leave aside the historical and social dimensions of industrialization in order to focus on the search for elements or criteria that would make it possible to effectively define this industrialization. Moving from a global vision to the construction of a list of criteria determining the notion of industrialization, authors such as Peter Mathias (Mathias, 1972, p. 33 sq.) create more or less detailed lists. Thus, the industrialization of England could then be defined using a list of separate elements such as the accumulation of capital, the number of colonies, technical inventions, the presence of coal as an energy source, the liberalization of agriculture by means of enclosures, the rural exodus allowing the development of large factories and so on.

France’s industrialization can also be identified by factors that were independent of each other, such as its infrastructure, the role of its state or the strength of its agriculture. Germany benefitted from its chemical production and (like Poland, Italy and Ireland) from its level of emigration. We can also mention Paul Bairoch, who insists on criteria characterizing the agriculture of these countries (Bairoch, 1963), Phyllis Deane and her commercial criteria and analyses of the English state (Deane, 1965) or Jan de Vries, and her psychological criteria associated with urbanization and mentalities (de Vries, 1994). But here again, these definitions using criterion-based analyses appear to be built upon factors chosen a priori, as their criteria are determined and selected outside of the real functioning of these definitions and of industrialization. Faced with these difficulties, we can also identify these definitions by classifying them according to the scientific fields of those who authored them.

1.1.2. Industrialization according to economists

1.1.2.1. Classical economists and industrialization

Classical economists have thought of industrialization through the notion of technical change. Inspired by Adam Smith and David Ricardo and faithful to classical economic thought, some took into account technological changes, such as the organization of production and division of labor for Smith (and his famous “pin factory” and its “18 distinct operations”) and the relationship between work, inventions and technologies for Ricardo.

Smith then defined industrialization as a shift in thinking (Smith, 1776). Opposing industrialist mercantilist theories and Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s strategies, he favored a commercialist vision that reversed the links between industrialization and international trade (Caire, 1967, p. 541). For Smith, foreign trade led to the development of industrialization because it would increase the availability of la...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART 1: Industrialization and its Conceptualizations
• PART 2: Historical Periods, Social Dynamics, Shared Inventions and Competitive Innovations
• Conclusion: Cycles and Networks
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement