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The Wealth and Poverty of Nations

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Chapter 4: The Invention of Invention. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/710FVTYJE0L._SL500_.gif. Adam Smith: 1776. Technological Innovation encouraged by: Division of Labor Widening Market Both were already happening during Middle Ages.

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The Wealth and Poverty of Nations

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  1. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations • Chapter 4: The Invention of Invention http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/710FVTYJE0L._SL500_.gif

  2. Adam Smith: 1776 • Technological Innovation encouraged by: • Division of Labor • Widening Market • Both were already happening during Middle Ages http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/stu/images/adamsmith-portrait.jpg

  3. Important Middle Ages Technologies • Water Wheel • Eyeglasses • Mechanical Clock • Printing • Gunpowder http://www.mtb-routes.co.uk/northyorkmoors/image.aspx?dir=2007_01_02&image=P1020042.JPG&xsize=520

  4. Water Wheel • Revived in 10th century • By 1086 England had 5,600 water mills • Improved by dams and ponds • Cranks and toothed gears made possible • Change direction • Power at a distance • Rotary and reciprocal motion

  5. Water Wheel • Applications: • Grinding grain • Hammering metal • Rolling and drawing sheet metal and wire • Mashing hops for beer • Pulping rags for paper • Fulling (pounding) cloth • Transformed the woolen industry http://knightsia.org/newsletters/Issue%2020_files/IMG_1899.jpg

  6. Water Wheel • “ Paper, which was manufactured by hand and foot for a thousand years or so • following its invention by the Chinese and adoption by the Arabs, • was manufactured mechanically • as soon as it reached medieval Europe in the thirteenth century… • Paper had traveled nearly halfway around the world, • but no culture or civilization on its route had tried to mechanize its manufacture” Europe was a power-based civilization http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Abbot_Richard_Wallingford.jpg

  7. Eyeglasses • By age 40, get farsightedness occurs • Eyeglasses added 20 years to the working life of skilled craftsmen: • Scribes and readers • Instrument and toolmakers • Close weavers • Metal workers http://home.hu.inter.net/~jekely/mfile0734.jpg http://home.hu.inter.net/~jekely/mfile0734.jpg

  8. Eyeglasses • Invented in Pisa 13th century • By 15th century Italy making thousands spectacles • Eyeglasses encouraged invention of fine instruments • Gauges • Micrometers • Fine wheel cutters • Precision tools http://www.jastown.com/acces/sp-789.jpg

  9. Eyeglasses • Knowledge of lenses produced other inventions • Telescope • Microscope • Europe had monopoly on corrective lenses for 300-400 years http://cdn2.libsyn.com/astronomy/hevelius_telescope.gif?nvb=20080725024110&nva=20080726024110&t=07f496eb63a787831d64b

  10. Mechanical Clock • Before its invention: sundials and water clocks • both unreliable • Reliable time important • Church seven daily prayer offices • Organize time in cities • Time to wake, sleep • Time to work, go home • Time to put out fires (covre-feu became curfew) http://solar.physics.montana.edu/tslater/plunger/sundial.jpg

  11. Mechanical Clock • Invented in Italy and/or England 13th century • Early clocks inaccurate • Relentless pressure to improve technique and design • Clockmakers lead the way in accuracy and precision • Miniaturization • Correcting errors • Searching for new and better 14th century clock http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/stories/~/media/Images/header/column_1/turret_clock_mechanism.ashx

  12. Mechanical Clock • Undermined Church authority • equal hours for day and night a new concept • Resisted by the church for a century • Every town wanted one • Public clocks installed in towers • Conquerors seized as spoils of war • Symbol of secular authority • Allowed individual autonomy • Work now measured by time • increased productivity Bern, Switzerland http://lh3.ggpht.com/_jAvo9hOQ-CA/R2ZJ8MdoY4I/AAAAAAAAAUw/19KbObZzEKE/Clock+tower+in+Bern+on+Spitalgasse+near+Einstein+Haus+8-26-2007+11-02-54+AM+2560x1920+2560x1920.jpg

  13. Mechanical Clock • European monopoly on clocks for 300 years • No one else could make them to European standards Swiss watch mechanism http://www.dimijianimages.com/More-page9-time/watch-macro.jpg

  14. Mechanical Clock • Chinese treated time as confidential aspect of sovereignty, not to be shared with the people • Chinese reluctant to acknowledge European technological superiority • Moslems did not establish public clocks because it would undermine religious authority Chinese water clock http://z.about.com/d/inventors/1/0/G/G/time6.gif

  15. Printing • Invented in China in 9th century • Chinese language not well suited for movable type • not widely used • Chinese discouraged dissent and new ideas Chinese movable type http://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/models/chinahist/images/print4.jpg

  16. Printing • Europe already interested in written word • Government paper work written in common language: not Latin • Scribes could not keep up with demand • Gutenberg Bible printed in 1452 • By 1501, millions of books published in Europe Gutenberg Bible http://prodigi.bl.uk/TreasuresImages/Gutenberg/max/kl1/001.jpg

  17. Printing • Moslems did not accept printing • Printed Koran unacceptable • India also did not accept printing • first printing press in 19th century • Europe: Church tried to stop common language printing of Bible • But political authority too fragmented to stop it http://www.visuallee.com/weblog/images/gutenberg_detail.jpg

  18. Gunpowder • Invented by Chinese in 11th century • Used as incendiary in fireworks, war • Tubed flame lances • Bombards • Arrow launchers • Fire thunder • Chinese fought nomads • Not siege warfare http://www.starfleetyachts.com/images/fireworks.jpg

  19. Gunpowder • Europeans improved gunpowder • Europeans focused on range and weight of projectiles: siege warfare • With improved metal casting, made world’s best cannon • Thus military supremacy http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1357/535148829_0dcd536649.jpg?v=0

  20. Why did Europe get Ahead?

  21. Islam • Islam from 750 to 1100 A.D. far surpassed Europe in • Science, Technology • Astronomy, Mathematics • Invented algebra • Islam was Europe’s teacher • Then Islamic science was denounced as heresy • by religious zealots • Islam does not separate religious from secular • as does Christianity • New ideas dried up under theological pressure http://poulsons.com/Alhambra.jpg

  22. China • Chinese inventions: • Wheel barrow • Stirrup and rigid horse collar • Compass • Paper • Printing • Gunpowder • Porcelain Chinese paper http://faculty.luther.edu/~martinka/art43/daily/2nd/jap1.jpg

  23. China • Water driven machine for spinning hemp in 12th century • 500 years before Industrial Revolution in England • Blast furnaces for smelting iron: 125,000 tons pig iron in 11th century • Amount reached by Britain 700 years later • But both technologies fell into disuse http://members.tripod.com/east_west_dialogue/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/castbell1.jpg

  24. Reasons for Chinese Stagnation • Absence of a free market and property rights • Chinese state always interfering with private enterprise • Taking over or prohibiting lucrative activities • Manipulating prices • Exacting bribes • Curtailing private enrichment • Government strangled initiative • increased costs of transactions, • diverted talent from commerce and industry Ming Dynasty Emperor http://www.longtochinatravel.com/images/upload/userfiles/15Zhu%20Yuanzhang-Emperor%20Taizu%20of%20Ming%20Dynasty.jpg

  25. Ming Dynasty 1368-1644 • Ming dynasty in 15th century first promoted maritime trade, then prohibited it • China became isolated • Before Europeans arrived Chinese fleet huge, advanced • Huge ships compared to European • By the time Europeans arrived, Chinese fleet not a threat Ming Dynasty ship compared to Columbus ship http://www.kaichang.net/images/2007/05/30/chinazhengheship1405vssantamaria500.jpg

  26. http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/imagevoy/Chinavoy1.gifhttp://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/imagevoy/Chinavoy1.gif

  27. Reasons for Chinese Stagnation • Confinement of women to the home • made it impossible to exploit them in textile factories • Chinese society totalitarian • State monopolies on • Salt • Iron • Tea • Alcohol • Foreign Trade • Education • Written material Ming Dynasty women http://www1.chinaculture.org/library/att/att/20060308/xin_330303080933384298495.jpg

  28. Reasons for Chinese Stagnation • Regulations on • Clothing • Construction of houses • Colors worn • Music • Festivals • Rules from birth to death • Endless paperwork and harassment of people • Result: no one tried. Why try? Ming Dynasty http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/932/45014109.JPG

  29. Europe • Much less interference • Innovation, emulation challenged forces of conservatism • Sense of progress replaced reverence for authority • Freedom in all domains Copernicus

  30. Why Europe? • Judeo-Christian Beliefs • respect for manual labor • subordination of nature to man • sense of linear time (not cyclical): progress • Market, free enterprise • Innovation worked and paid • Rulers limited in ability to prevent innovation Trade network: not controlled by one empire http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/imagemid/hanseaticSmall.gif

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