[Le Rouge]

After reading the first few chapters of Albert Hourani's History of the Arab Peoples, particular the bit concerning economic history, I became interested on the reasons that the Abbasid Caliphate (as a historical period, not a particular caliphate) did not undergo an industrial revolution. I mean it had several factors that were the precondition to the industrial revolution in Europe, and even more advantages (such as a common language).

The Abbasid Caliphate possessed:

• A common currency (money-form commidity)
• An accumulation and expenditure of capital in investments (primarily, agricultural development)
• A widespread banking system
• A well-developed merchant class engaged in foreign trade
• A common language
• Similar legal systems
• A group of public intellectuals educated in science and math (including steam power!)

So why didn't the Abbasid Caliphate develop industrial capitalism? Internal contradictions? External forces? Both, or neither?

[Potemkin]

You omitted one of the primary prerequisites for industrialisation: a landless, dispossessed peasantry which has moved into the urban centres looking for work. 'Primitive capitalist accumulation' is precisely the process by which the peasantry are separated from the means of production. Without that process, the collectivisation of production is impossible.

[Oxymoron]

I think it has to do with Usery being against Islam, thus no solid banking system/Capital system to support Industry.

Industrial Revolution is the direct result of the rise of Banking and trading markets in Europe.

[Einherjar]

To be able to answer these questions, one must first ask why "human progress" (assuming there are such things as a supracultural humanity and progress, which are to me false notions in the first place) must necessarily be teleological. One must also ask why the particular history of Western Europe is set as a standard, as the predestined way for humanity, and to which every other civilisation must be juxtaposed.

[noemon]

For the same reasons that Rome did not.

Technology is not just the steam power theory, but all the sub-parts that make a train possible to manufacture.

The nuclear theory example i gave on the "Rome-Industrial Revolution?" thread applies the same in this case. And it is the primary reason behind the British industrial revolution, that the Brits practically had the majority of the parts of the train, and the frigate already in production, and they had to develop one or 2 parts, to make the manufacture of that huge upgrade possible. The Abbasids had to develop say 19 parts, and Rome 28.

You omitted one of the primary prerequisites for industrialisation: a landless, dispossessed peasantry which has moved into the urban centres looking for work.

Not a prerequisite, but helpful. The labour market can find its own equilibrium with demand, through many routes.

Importation of workers(in case where there is demand but not enough supply) either legally or illegally(ie slavery).

[Attila The Nun]

A major part is that any society in which labor was cheap, there was no reason to develop labor-saving devices that drove industrial revolutions. Britain in the mid-18th century had a shortage of labor which made labor valuable enough to invest in machines to cut down on it. To an Arab at the time of the Caliphate, there was no such need.

[noemon]

^Evidence?

[Potemkin]

A major part is that any society in which labor was cheap, there was no reason to develop labor-saving devices that drove industrial revolutions. Britain in the mid-18th century had a shortage of labor which made labor valuable enough to invest in machines to cut down on it. To an Arab at the time of the Caliphate, there was no such need.

Britain actually had a labour surplus in the mid-18th century, due to all the landless peasants and artisans who had drifted into the cities in search of work. The invention of labour-saving devices was a consequence of the industrial revolution (due to the intense competition between capitalist manufacturers and the urgent need to cut costs) rather than a cause of the industrial revolution. In fact, the presence of a large, dispossessed urban proletariat is one of the necessary (though not sufficient) preconditions for a capitalist industrial revolution.

[babilonian]

My friends, it has nothing to do with science or industry. It has to do with the fundamental thinking of the Abbasid rule. They were not really interested in scientific progress, but military progress. And as a result of having a rich government, it was able to build schools and so scientists travelled to Baghdad to study and then offer their knowlege and findings.
If science was the first priority of any Islamic dynasty, they would've been the first at all technological advances. However, they were not interested in scientific advances only, but mostly military supremacy.

[QatzelOk]

If science was the first priority of any Islamic dynasty, they would've been the first at all technological advances.

This is false. Technology and science aren't the same thing at all. Science is about discovery of how nature works, while technology is about changing it to suit an agenda.

Technology gives us cars, weapons, propaganda, and ethnic cleansing. Science gives us an understanding of evolution, genetics, the way the planets rotate, etc.

[Smilin' Dave]

If science was the first priority of any Islamic dynasty, they would've been the first at all technological advances. However, they were not interested in scientific advances only, but mostly military supremacy.

You haven't actually proven your first point, and your second point seems contingent upon it. Why would giving priority to technological advancement result in being first in all advances? Surely they could still be beaten to some firsts by a more efficient/intellectual/whatever society?

[Dave]

You omitted one of the primary prerequisites for industrialisation: a landless, dispossessed peasantry which has moved into the urban centres looking for work. 'Primitive capitalist accumulation' is precisely the process by which the peasantry are separated from the means of production. Without that process, the collectivisation of production is impossible.

Britain actually had a labour surplus in the mid-18th century, due to all the landless peasants and artisans who had drifted into the cities in search of work. The invention of labour-saving devices was a consequence of the industrial revolution (due to the intense competition between capitalist manufacturers and the urgent need to cut costs) rather than a cause of the industrial revolution. In fact, the presence of a large, dispossessed urban proletariat is one of the necessary (though not sufficient) preconditions for a capitalist industrial revolution.

A large labor surplus is not necessarily likely to cause industrialization at all. Many societies have had labor surpluses throughout history, usually it just resulted in famine. The existence of the Poor Laws in Britain possibly prevented this famine, although de Tocqueville argued the Poor Laws actually caused the labor surplus.

In any case, there is no way the invention of labor-saving devices is a consequence of industrialization. What exactly do you think industrialization is? It's mass production and the substitution of capital for labor. Why would this be done if labor is abundant and cheap?

Rather, industrialization in Britain was the result of certain inventions and, more importantly, government policy. In an industrial policy tradition dating back to Henry VIII, Robert Walpole restructured government policies to suppress craft and artisanal production, and encourage instead "the factory system". Enclosure and agricultural surpluses (both the result of government policy, although also some inventions, notably the seed drill) produced the labor needed for the factory system, and kept costs low for the new industrial class.

You also shouldn't neglect how certain government policies created unintended consequences which contributed to industrialization. For instance, the oppression of "non-conformists" resulted in them being excluded from traditional avenues of wealth (slavery, landholding, etc.) and education. They then formed their own excellent technical and scientific schools and entered the world of business and trade. This nascent industrial class was in large part created due to their religious oppression.

Elsewhere industrialization didn't require labor surpluses at all. In the United States wages were the highest in the world and labor shortages were chronic until the mid-1890s. Import tariffs further kept out foreign goods. As such, industrialization in my country was in large part driven by a fanatical need to cut labor costs, no matter how hard-nosed men like Henry Clay Frick or Jay Gould could be in wage negotiations.

Germany really had no surplus labor at all to speak of until the 20th century, and industrialization was driven by the peculiar nature of the 19th century German banking system and state policy.

[Clausewitz]

I think there might be a simple geographic reason: there's little coal in the Middle East. In Britain, there was already a market for coal before the Industrial Revolution; the first wide industrial applications of steam engines were in coal mines as water pumps, which wasn't exactly a huge creative leap. So arguably a prerequisite (or at least a huge catalyst) for the industrial revolution was coal mining and they didn't have that in the Abbasid Caliphate.

Obviously they have petroleum, but petroleum has to be refined, and it took a pretty deep understanding of chemistry for people in the 1850s to discover that oil can be refined into a useful consumer product - originally kerosene. And kerosene was only adopted because people were already using whale oil in lamps.

Britain actually had a labour surplus in the mid-18th century, due to all the landless peasants and artisans who had drifted into the cities in search of work. The invention of labour-saving devices was a consequence of the industrial revolution (due to the intense competition between capitalist manufacturers and the urgent need to cut costs) rather than a cause of the industrial revolution. In fact, the presence of a large, dispossessed urban proletariat is one of the necessary (though not sufficient) preconditions for a capitalist industrial revolution.

If this were true, wouldn't textile industries in China and India be the most mechanized in the world?

[litwin]

After reading the first few chapters of Albert Hourani's History of the Arab Peoples, particular the bit concerning economic history, I became interested on the reasons that the Abbasid Caliphate (as a historical period, not a particular caliphate) did not undergo an industrial revolution. I mean it had several factors that were the precondition to the industrial revolution in Europe, and even more advantages (such as a common language).

The Abbasid Caliphate possessed:

* A common currency (money-form commidity)
* An accumulation and expenditure of capital in investments (primarily, agricultural development)
* A widespread banking system
* A well-developed merchant class engaged in foreign trade
* A common language
* Similar legal systems
* A group of public intellectuals educated in science and math (including steam power!)



So why didn't the Abbasid Caliphate develop industrial capitalism? Internal contradictions? External forces? Both, or neither?

Latin?


you are wrong

Starting in the latter part of the 18th century there began a transition in parts of Great Britain's previously manual labour and draft animal–based economy towards machine-based manufacturing.




PS
Rome was far much closer

[QatzelOk]

I think it has to do with Usery being against Islam

Not only usury, but also subservience to other men.

Muslims aren't used to being in a military chain-of-command type of social situation 8 hours a day. And this peasant-inferiority-complex is also vital to industrial cog-identity.

[Potemkin]

In any case, there is no way the invention of labor-saving devices is a consequence of industrialization. What exactly do you think industrialization is? It's mass production and the substitution of capital for labor. Why would this be done if labor is abundant and cheap?

Labour-saving devices are introduced as a direct consequence of the intense competition between individual manufacturers which the capitalist mode of production requires and strictly enforces. All capitalists are engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival against their competitors; they are forced to innovate and technologically improve their means of production, or else they go under.

If this were true, wouldn't textile industries in China and India be the most mechanized in the world?

I said it was a necessary but not sufficient precondition for industrialisation. Ancient Rome had a surplus population of landless, idle proletarians from the end of the Second Punic War onwards who had to be supported at the public expense, but Rome failed to industrialise. Other factors, such as the ones Dave touched upon, need to be in place too.