"The main reason that Europe is so rich is because it was the first region to become industrialized. The Industrial Revolution made Europe rich. The pertinent question is why was Europe the first region to become industrialized? In many respects this was an accident of history. There is nothing about Europe that made industrialization inevitable, but there were things about Europe that made it possible. I will tell you a very short history of Europe that will hopefully explain its early industrialization.
The Medieval Agricultural Revolution
In order for industrialization to occur, agriculture must be efficient enough to allow a small but significant percentage of its people to do other things. Even farmers must have the time and resources to experiment and to make their own jobs easier and more financially rewarding.
There is much talk and writing about globalization as if it were a recent phenomenon. The truth is that the exchange of goods, people and idea is thousands of years old. Global trade has long resulted in dramatic changes among trading countries.
About a thousand years ago, technical innovations in Europe greatly improved agricultural productivity, freeing labor for trade and experimentation. I will outline three of the many innovations. One innovation was the adoption of the wedge-shaped mouldboard plow. Originally invented by the Chinese, the mouldboard plow allowed Europeans to move to and farm the heavy, clay soils of the North European Plain. These soils were hard to work, but they were very fertile and in many areas, multiple plantings per year are possible. A second innovation was a simple change in harness design – also invented in China – allowed Europeans to use horses as draft animals. Horses eat less than oxen and they can be used for transportation. Horses also allowed Europeans to build better armies. Third, switching from a 2-field crop rotation system to a 3-field crop rotation system boosted productivity by almost 20%! This was possible because of the introduction of new crops and because of the more fertile soils found in the North European Plain. The fallow field was often planted to alfalfa or other crops to feed the horses. Alfalfa, originally domesticated in Iran, also fixes nitrogen in the soil which is good for soil fertility.
Results of Medieval Agricultural Revolution
• Increased productivity. Each farmer could produce more food. Labor was released for other ventures.
• Increased population. Increase productivity meant a more stable food supply. The death rates began to drop and the population began to increase.
• Increased urbanization. With a smaller percentage of people needed to farm and with a growing population, people began to migrate to cities. Throughout Europe, the size and number of cities expanded.
• Increased trade. With food surplus, with more time to create, with fewer people needed to farm, trading rapidly expanded. Increased trade spurred innovation. Traders brought back innovations from as far away as China. One crucial innovation was paper, originally invented by the Chinese. Europeans learned to make paper from the Arabs in the 13th Century. Paper brought down the price of books, which lead to greater variety of topics covered, and spurred more people to learn to read.
The Bubonic Plague – 14th Century
Increased population, increased interaction, and increased concentration of people in urban areas set the stage for the Bubonic Plague. The disease probably began in India or Central Asia. It is carried by the Asian flea, which was carried to the Black Sea area by Asian traders and then to Italy by merchant ships in the 1340s.
Results of the Bubonic Plague
• Decreased population. By the time the plague ended in Europe, the region had lost at least one-third of its population.
• More urbanization. Fewer people meant less demand for food. Less demand for food meant that fewer people were needed to farm.
• Increased dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church evolved in an agrarian, illiterate society. In the 21st Century, it’s hard to understand the control of the Catholic Church in every-day life. The Church acted as a go-between for the individual and god. A priest was present for most of the important events in a person’s life from birth to death. The Church granted forgiveness through the sacrament of penance. More importantly, it granted forgiveness through the sacrament of last rites. Many people absolutely believed that they required last rites for admission to heaven. During the plague, like everyone else, priests died and fled, leaving the dying without the sacrament. Compounding the problem, the Roman Catholic Church at that time held itself to be the ultimate authority on all matters, not just matters of religion. The Church published opinions on many areas of life – that the earth is flat and the center of the solar system, for instance. The Church did not understand the causes of the plague and was unable to stop it. As a result, it lost much of its authority. A weakened Catholic Church ignited many changes in Europe. Increasingly people began substituting direct experience for classical authority. Inventions made it possible for people to venture out further out to sea. Innovations further improved agricultural productivity AND widened the array or products available to consumers.
The Printing Press
By the mid-15th Century, the printing press was invented. Johannes Guttenberg often receives credit for being the inventor of the printing press, but it was developed by a number of people. Regardless, Guttenberg’s first publication was the Bible. For the first time, the Bible and other books became more affordable. Even more people had a reason to learn to read. In addition to the Bible, treatises on astronomy, mathematics, geography and engineering were also published. Shortly after, the Age of Exploration began.
The Age of Exploration
When Spain began to colonize the New World, horses and steel weapons and armor were essential to overcoming the numerically superior indigenous peoples. The Spanish weren’t the first to use horses in war, but they were the first to bring horses to the Americas. Colonization of the Americas was relatively easy. Colonization of the New World brought huge wealth back to Europe and substantially improved European diets. The dietary improvement was aesthetic; it is hard to imagine Italian or French food without the tomato or beans. It was also nutritional. As the nutrient level in the European diet increased, so too did European health and longevity.
The Spud
One New World food that profoundly improved European nutrition was the potato. The potato is a nutritional powerhouse with excellent protein and vitamin content, including Vitamin C, potassium, iron, thiamine, and niacin. Small acreages could feed many people. The potato allowed the population of Ireland and much of the rest of Europe to grow.
Sugar
We will talk about sugar more when we get to Latin America. Sugar did not improve nutrition in Europe, but it and its byproducts were in high demand in Europe and around the world. Sugar was an extremely important crop than enriched Europe and helped pay for subsequent industrialization. Sugar was brought to the Americas by Columbus and its cultivation there led to changes in Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
Results of the Columbian Exchange
• Rapid increase in European wealth.
• Population increase.
• Continued movement from rural to urban areas.
The Protestant Reformation
The rapid social changes and the rapid increase in wealth in Europe created problems as social institutions struggled to keep up. The Roman Catholic Church, structured on feudal society, found it very difficult to adapt. One major problem was what to do with the wealth. Catholic teachings were suspicious of wealth. According to the Bible, Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Further, the Catholic Church had strict usury laws – it was against the law to loan money for interest. That is not to say there was no money lending in Europe during this time; however, much of the need for banking was filled by Jewish people whose religion did not forbid loaning money to non-Jews.
The Protestant Reformation officially began in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his complaints on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany-- after the bubonic plague, after the introduction of paper and the printing press and with the beginning of the Columbian Exchange. The Protestant Reformation was particularly influential in areas where Germanic languages were dominant – Western and Northern Europe. It was not Martin Luther, but John Calvin (1530s) who introduced a new attitude toward work. Calvin taught that people (men) should work hard and live frugally so that they could reinvest their earnings. Great wealth was not a sign of great evil; rather, it was a sign that one was probably one of God’s chosen elite.
Before Europe got to the Industrial Revolution, however, it suffered more than a century of religious wars that began with the Protestant Reformation (1518) and ended in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648). During the Thirty Years War (part of that century of warfare), Protestants (mostly Germanic) fought Catholics (mostly Spanish). Germany’s population dropped by almost half – from 22 million to 12 million and Spain’s economy was devastated.
The Treaty of Westphalia ended the religious wars by setting up Catholic and Protestant areas. The leaders of the various German states established the religion of their areas. Poland and the Czech Republic were made Catholic. Most of Germany became Protestant. The Netherlands gained its independence from Spain and became Protestant.
After a century of horrific wars, many Europeans believed that fanatically clinging to religious ideas would result in repeated religious wars. Philosophers introduced the Enlightenment, which focused on building wealth and on the science that created the Industrial Revolution. The Enlightenment was particularly influential in Protestant areas.
With the peace in Europe, Protestant countries were able to engage in their own empire building. Spain, was considerably weakened by its century of waging religious war. England, France and the Netherlands seized Spanish holdings in the New World, particularly in the Caribbean.
The new attitude toward money made the Industrial Revolution possible. It is not mistake that the industrialization began in a protestant country and spread to protestant countries first.
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution had two parents: colonialism and the Protestant Reformation. The Industrial Revolution gave Europe the power to make continued colonial expansion possible and even necessary. Colonial expansion brought even more wealth into Europe.
As pointed out above, the Industrial Revolution would not have been possible had European per capita agricultural productivity remained low. During the Medieval period, productivity rose dramatically. With industrialization, agriculture was modernized. Farmers used tractors, combines, fertilizers, pesticides, improved seeds, and other technologies to reduce the proportion of farmers needed, freeing others to work in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy.
The Industrial Revolution began in the British Isles. You can see on the map at left that the island of Great Britain was heavily industrialized before 1850. German-speaking areas near Britain industrialized next, as did northwest Franc. Much of these areas were industrialized by 1870. Then there was the next area that was industrialized before World War I. Far southern Europe, most of the Balkans, and much of the Former Soviet Region were not industrialized until after World War I.
Monarchies are agrarian political forms. They are not adapted to societies where landholding is not the most important determinant of power. As capital gained in importance, reforms and revolts began as the middle class fought for the individual rights to “health, wealth, and the pursuit of happiness.”
By the late 18th Century, Catholic France was close to collapse. As it industrialized, a new middle class emerged. The middle class embraced the ideals of the Enlightenment and increasingly clashed with the Catholic monarchy. The French Revolution (1789) destabilized France and sowed the seeds of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and World War II. When we hear people declaim the Middle East as a place where people have been killing each other for centuries, we should think back on European tribal bloodshed and understand that European peace is still quite young.
The Pursuit of Wealth: A Powerful Centripetal Force
After World War II, the United States, worried about the Soviet Union, convinced France and Britain that punishing Germany would only lead to more war. Instead, Europe would pursue peace by pursuing wealth – together. Various organizations were found in the aftermath of World War II that eventually led to the founding of the European Union. Eastern Europe and the Balkans were excluded from this process because they were forced to align with the Soviet Union.
The European Union has moved to create a single economic entity in Europe. It has created a single currency (the Euro) that is used by most of its member states. It is supposed to allow the free flow of labor, capital and goods among member states, allowing the European Union to emerge as an economic powerhouse.
Particularly since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the European Union has moved to integrate the countries that lie on its eastern borders. In 2004, most of Eastern Europe and three countries that once part of the former USSR (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) were admitted to the EU in 2004. Romania and Bulgaria are candidates for entry as is Turkey, the first non-European country. Only a few European countries do NOT belong to the EU. Norway and Switzerland chose not to belong. Albania and the countries of the former Yugoslavia are not yet stable enough for membership.
Economic cooperation has propelled Europeans to high levels of health and wellbeing. Sixteen of the top 20 countries in the United Nation’s Human Development Reports are European countries."
