Few topics trigger more controversy amongst economic historians than the Industrial Revolution and whether its inception heralded salubrious improvements to the British population. The Industrial Revolution is commonly defined as the transitory phase of rapid significant technological advancement of manufacturing processes that occurred approximately between 1750s and 1850s. Standards-of-living refer to the material and non-material aspects of one’s wellbeing, benchmarked against one’s wealth, comfort, leisure, necessities and material goods. Optimists argue that expeditious technological advances from the Revolution entailed an astronomical increase in output and income through the Keynes Income Multiplier. This resulted in a trickle-down
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In fact, many agree that real wages did much better after. Crafts and Mills (2013) show that real wages more than doubled from 1840 to 1910. Other researchers such as Clark also mirrored similar findings. He presented data suggesting that the Revolution was indeed a harbinger of improvements in standards-of-living post-revolution, even if not rapid during the revolution itself. Figure 1 Graph of Real Wages
It may be good to note that the Napoleonic Wars during the early 1800s could have diverted resources away from consumption to expenditure on war – causing an upward pressure on cost-of-living (and prices) as inflation would have risen, thereby reducing the impact of any increases in nominal wages on real wages. Had the Napoleonic War not occurred, increases in standards-of-living might have been more accelerated and …show more content…
Quantitative data therefore is insufficient in the distinguishing of changes in standards-of-living from changes in real wages and consumption – qualitative studies too are paramount.
An alternative measure of qualitative welfare could be the heights of people. Given that heights are supposedly a measure of net nutritional value status from birth to adulthood, when growth ceases, the usage of heights then appear to be an attractive alternative indicator of physical wellbeing because it measures the net outcomes of the Revolution rather than the input in the production of wellbeing (Komlos, 1998). Intuitively, this suggests that those who engage in less manual chores or who are less prone to contracting diseases are likely to be taller. Figure 2 Mean height of English Soldiers
By this intuition, this implies that the standards-of-living over the period declined as the mean height of English Soldiers decreased gradually from 172cm to 167cm. Based on heights alone of soldiers then, the prima facie conclusion one could draw about Industrial Revolution was that it brought little or no improvements to
In fact, many agree that real wages did much better after. Crafts and Mills (2013) show that real wages more than doubled from 1840 to 1910. Other researchers such as Clark also mirrored similar findings. He presented data suggesting that the Revolution was indeed a harbinger of improvements in standards-of-living post-revolution, even if not rapid during the revolution itself. Figure 1 Graph of Real Wages
It may be good to note that the Napoleonic Wars during the early 1800s could have diverted resources away from consumption to expenditure on war – causing an upward pressure on cost-of-living (and prices) as inflation would have risen, thereby reducing the impact of any increases in nominal wages on real wages. Had the Napoleonic War not occurred, increases in standards-of-living might have been more accelerated and …show more content…
Quantitative data therefore is insufficient in the distinguishing of changes in standards-of-living from changes in real wages and consumption – qualitative studies too are paramount.
An alternative measure of qualitative welfare could be the heights of people. Given that heights are supposedly a measure of net nutritional value status from birth to adulthood, when growth ceases, the usage of heights then appear to be an attractive alternative indicator of physical wellbeing because it measures the net outcomes of the Revolution rather than the input in the production of wellbeing (Komlos, 1998). Intuitively, this suggests that those who engage in less manual chores or who are less prone to contracting diseases are likely to be taller. Figure 2 Mean height of English Soldiers
By this intuition, this implies that the standards-of-living over the period declined as the mean height of English Soldiers decreased gradually from 172cm to 167cm. Based on heights alone of soldiers then, the prima facie conclusion one could draw about Industrial Revolution was that it brought little or no improvements to