change (Mokyr, 1990:256). Across Europe resistance to new technology came
from guilds of skilled artisans fearful of unemployment. This led on occasion
to complete bans on inventions when established interests were threatened.
The Ribbon loom was resisted Europe-wide in contrast to its more rapid adop-
tion in Lancashire, England after 1816.
Technological change as cumulative, dead-end, complementary and
transformative
In seventeenth-century England the high price of wood- and water-based
energy created incentives to expand the use of coal as an alternative energy
source. This in turn required deeper mines and so stimulated technological
efforts to develop machines to pump water out of mines. This promoted the
development of steam- and water-driven power sources and in turn metallurgy,
chemistry, mechanics and civil engineering. Technological change was in this
case cumulative: one problem led to a long chain of technological progress. By
contrast in the Middle East and North Africa, the camel replaced wheeled
transport after the invention of the camel saddle in approximately 100 BCE.
This may have then been a rational decision given the geographical demands
of two thousand years ago but it reduced subsequent incentives to build roads
and railroads and so was ultimately a technological dead end (Mokyr, 1990;
Easterly, 2001). New technologies can be complementary to each other,
whereby one invention raises the rate of return to others or a new technology
may destroy the old. If complementarity dominates the effect is similar to
increasing returns: one invention will make others more likely, meaning that
inventions will tend to be highly concentrated in time and space. Examples
have included the English cotton industry after the 1760s or Silicon Valley in
the US in the 1980s and 1990s. This will lead to a pattern of economic diver-
gence as the wealthier and more technologically advanced countries or regions
experience more rapid technological change, productivity increase and
economic growth.
Key transformative technologies have included steam power in the 1760s,
electricity in the 1870s,atomic energy in the 1950s and computing technology
in the 1980s. However, it was the expansion of the railways, argues
Christopher Wolmar, that was a key ‘transformative’ technological driver in
modern social, economic and military history. The Liverpool to Manchester
railway, opened in 1830, was more advanced than any of its predecessors,
being double-tracked, entirely powered by steam and capable of carrying traf-
fic, including passengers, in both directions. The ability to quickly transport
fresh dairy produce, vegetables, meat and fish helped revolutionize the diets of
ordinary people. In the 1840s the Leipzig–Dresden railway began to encourage
industrialization and economic interdependence among the German states. In
1846 the railway companies agreed to centralize administration which made
state boundaries less relevant and so contributed to the political unification of
Germany. Railways also contributed to territorial unification in more brutal
102 Sources of Growth in the Modern World Economy since 1950