7 - Industrial Revolution

ucla | GEOG 4 | 2023-10-23 09:31

Table of Contents

Background

  • 2nd transformative event
  • lasted about 100 years in convention, long-distance trade, colonialism, worldwide investment
  • geographical location continues from previous eras: shift in Europe’s economic center bw 1450 - 1700
  • capital accumulation funded new manufacturing and technological advancement: why NW Europe is origin of the revolution

    England as the center

  • 1801 Map
  • by 1900 Map
  • coal and iron mines/fields led the revolution as it was needed heavily for rail and steam engines

    Why a Revolution

  • energy-intensive production w/ water and carbon: water, steam, electricity
    • for wool and textiles, assembly line, steel mill, rail, cars
    • witch from manual hand/donkey-drawn -> dams,
  • mass production - assembly line, interchangeable parts-based manufacturing, and specialized repetitive labor
    • from home-made to factory-made, continuous production (not batched per order)
    • Colt pistols, Ford cars, weaponry
  • new products/innovation - steam engines, railroads, steel, chemicals, drugs
    • mostly capital goods - goods used in other goods or used to make other goods (instead of consumer goods)
  • organizational changes
    • shift from merchant class importance to specialized management
    • shift from towns/villages to urban centers and industry: unskilled and immigrant labor
    • firms -> LLCs, joint-stock companies, stock market, banks, and financing manufacturing projects (Britain, France, Netherlands)

      Historical Geographical Pattern

      Cycles

  • First “British” Wave, 1760-1850
    • water/canal age (cotton textiles (Liverpool), iron)
      • sold to other colonies, manufactured goods are much cheaper and skew the supply and price -> monopolization in colonies (core->periphery)
      • increases production in upland locations with water power
    • Phase I: 1760-1790: proto-industrialization
      • beginning to use water and canals for production
    • Phase II: 1790-1820: embryo industrial regions
      • scaling up production, town specialization: weaving, spinning, dyeing
      • steam engines discovery began to push industrial regions to coal/iron mines instead of around canals/waterpower
    • Phase III: 1820-1850: railway links and coalfield sites core to industrial regions
      • steam engine pushes industrial region shift around coal/iron mines
  • Second Wave: 1840-1890
    • steam age (textiles, steel, chemicals, weaponry, steel ships, locomotives, rail)
    • Belgium, Northern France, Western Germany: Inner Europe
    • corporate separation from the individual for ownership of liability
    • trusts and large firms: US Steel
    • US, and Japan began to industrialize, and large firms/trusts emerge that began to monopolize: US Steel
  • Third wave: 1890-1920
    • electricity, motor age (same products, capital, and consumer goods)
    • power innovations allow industrialization to move away from surrounding mines/ore fields -> urban centers
    • across Europe, Outer Europe - Sweden, Russia, Northern Italy

      Long-Wave Cycle Correlation

  • Kondratieff Long-Wave cycle
    • pricing of commodities based on external worldly events
    • the three waves match with the first 3 oscillations in the graph

    • Factors for New Industries

  • capital from merchant capitalism, colonialism, and suppressing wages -> enabled industrialists and large-scale production and quick revolution
  • application of science to production -> scale returns higher and higher
    • manufacturing science, materials science, labor distribution/factory science
  • fuel sources
    • water/coal - steam
    • water, oil, coal - electricity
    • leads to the high importance of transport costs in the first 2 waves -> eased up by widespread energy production
  • labor sources
    • shift in social classes away from merchant class -> class division
    • cheap labor from social class and immigrant labor
  • avoiding specialized craftsman locations
    • Luddite strikes, antagonization of industrialization
  • high industrial specialization per town
    • towns for spinning cotton, towns for weaving
    • gun, jewelry districts

      Principles of Industrial Location

  • Britain as a source of raw materials (coal, iron fields, water canals) and a destination for investment (large banking, finance systems, LLCs, etc.)
    • captive British markets for textiles and other consumer goods
  • Transport costs and industrial location
    • Alfred Weber’s “Industrial Triangle” - pulley and weights logic to determine location of production
      • S1 is “weight” of production cost 1 (iron)
      • S2 is weight of 2nd raw material 2 (coal)
      • each has a different transport ost d(S1), d(S2)
      • The final market for goods is M and transport cost d(M)
      • then pulling power will determine plant location P as the most effiient location
    • But recently , transport costs have become less central
      • manufacturing of light goods became much more popular
      • trucks and new transport tech make it much cheaper
      • shift away from burning coal constrained transport costs anyway
    • oil availability determines current transport costs
  • Economies of Scale
    • luddites lost due to this
    • major factor of winning - producing more and larger quantities (scale)
    • Long Run Average Cost Curve (LRAC) relative to cost of production
      • I.e. until Q2, companies producing more and more at scale reduce production costs until Q2 (after which is diseconomies)
  • Agglomeration economies (localization and urbanization economies)
    • agglomeration of same industry in the same areas: Pittsburgh steel, Detroit motor, Silicon Valley IT, Hollywood movies
    • localization increases returns due to agglomeration, but after that point, it becomes too costly

    • Summary

  • Transport costs have really diminished as a part of the locational calculus of businesses.
    • But they still matter, above all in relation to heavy industries (like steel and vehicle assembly).
    • Location close to rail lines and seaports is one of the more significant continuing impacts of transport costs given the cost of truck movement.
    • If oil prices increase or are subjected to carbon taxes then the current reliance on long-distance ocean shipments may also diminish (independent of such factors as blocking canals!)
  • Factory or plant economies of scale are still important
    • In fact, the concept of economies of scale extends also into considering the returns to production from serving a larger market (up to a certain point when diminishing returns set in).
    • But as a principle of the location of production, it suggests how important having access to adequate resources and skilled labor and machines still is in driving location decisions.
  • Finally, agglomeration economies have also retained their importance.
    • So far, at least before the pandemic, the idea of remote working substituting for face-to-face engagement had not led anywhere much. Time will tell.
    • But this principle seems very well justified if the past two hundred years is any guide!!