16 - British and European industrialization

Summary

The spread of modern economic growth is usually seen as the spread of the British factory system to continental Europe and America. The emergence of Britain's modern economic growth depended more on a long history of capitalism than on the industrial revolution. The emergence of growth in continental Europe in the nineteenth century depended less on the spread of British-style industrialization and more on the spread of British-type capitalism and the institutions that supported it. Railway technology was quickly adopted across Europe, with some modest delays relating to government policy and finance. High agricultural productivity was a leading determinant of Britain's relatively high incomes at an early date. The contrast between institutional development in agriculture in France, on one hand, and Germany and England, on the other, highlights a complication in assessing European industrialization. The underlying determinants of economic success seem likely to rest in the realm of culture, society, and politics rather than in the simply technological.