Driven by Growth: The Global Economy in the Eighteenth Century Chapter 20 Driven by Growth: The Global Economy in the Eighteenth Century

A Buddhist world map by the Japanese monk-painter Sokaku, ca. 1709 A Buddhist world map by the Japanese monk-painter Sokaku, ca. 1709. In the worldview of Buddhists and Hindus, the Earth is divided into seven island continents, each separated by an encircling sea, and each continent double the size of the preceding one. This example shows the continent of Jambudvipa, which forms the innermost circle of continents. The map incorporates European geographical knowledge, including Europe itself in the upperleft corner.

Shaken and stirred: Avenging angels soar through the dust-filled sky over Lisbon, Portugal after the earthquake of 1755. The themes highlighted by the painting are echoed in the literature of the time: the revival of religion in the aftermath of horror, divine righteousness, the moral opportunity for displays of charity, the leveling effects of the disaster, which reduced the rich to the same destitution that the poor suffered.

WHY DID the world’s population rise in the eighteenth century? Focus Questions WHY DID the world’s population rise in the eighteenth century? WHY DID rising population stimulate economic activity in parts of Europe? WHY WAS China’s position as the world’s richest economy threatened in the late eighteenth century? HOW DID British exploitation affect India’s economy? HOW DID imperial expansion stimulate economic activity?

Rise in Global Population China: population doubled between 1700 and 1800. Europe: population doubled between 1700and 1800. Americas: population increased six times. Ottoman and Persian empires remained static.

FIGURE 20.1 THE AFRICAN, NATIVE AMERICAN, EUROPEAN, AND MIXED RACE POPULATION OF THE AMERICAS, 1500–1800 Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones, Atlas of World Population History, p. 280. Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of Colin McEvedy. © Copyright Colin McEvedy 1978.

Urbanization More people moved to cities. London grew to 1 million; Paris had 500,000; Amsterdam had 200,000. Americas, especially in the Spanish Americas, developed significant towns and cities.

Gin Lane, London. For the poor in the foul, cruel slums of industrializing cities, drink was the only affordable escape. ‘Drunk for a penny. Dead Drunk for tuppence,’ proclaims an ad depicted in William Hogarth’s characteristically blunt engraving of London’s St. Giles’s district in 1751. Hogarth did not imagine the syphilitic woman too drunk to see that her baby is falling to certain death: the courts heard similar cases frequently. Hogarth, William (1697–1764). “Gin Lane.” Published in London, 1751. Engraving. British Museum. London, Great Britain. © British Museum/Art Resource, NY

Reasons: Better Medical Care and Evolution of Certain Diseases Western medicine remained mired in ignorance, but did develop cures/prevention for scurvy and smallpox. Plague becomes less virulent of its own accord. Also better nutrition and an improved food supply

The Anatomy of Man’s Body as govern’d by the Twelve Constellations The Anatomy of Man’s Body as govern’d by the Twelve Constellations. Almanacs provided a wide range of information, self-improvement advice, and wisdom—practical, religious, and scientific—to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americans. First published in 1732, Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack was a huge success, selling nearly 10,000 copies a year. As this woodcut from 1750 indicates, many people still clung to the ancient belief that the movement of the planets and the position of the stars influenced the wellbeing of the parts of the human body.

Vaccination. When Louis Léopold Boilly painted this scene of a smallpox vaccination in 1807, the procedure still seemed curious and alarming. But it had become a routine part of doctors’ domestic visits across much of Europe and the Americas.

Guangzhou. In 1800, Guangzhou harbor still carried more international trade than any other port in the world. European traders were not allowed anywhere else in the Chinese Empire. Their residential quarters and warehouses are the white buildings in the center foreground. A European merchant probably commissioned the painting as a souvenir of his stay in China. Photograph courtesy Peabody Essex Museum.

Access to Resources Europe’s situation was unique: with access to varieties of foods and different climates around the globe a revolution in human cuisine was possible. Centers in Madrid, London, Amsterdam, and Paris now collected, catalogued, and experimented with different types and varieties of plants. From these centers, new types of ventures could be tried in the far-flung empires of Europe.

Development of World Empires Creation of new sources of raw materials Coffee could now be grown in Java, thus breaking the Arabian monopoly. Tea could be grown in India, thus Britain could enjoy its national drink grown within its own empire. Australia began to be developed to increase the availability of wool for British textile factories.

Control over Trade The development of commercial empires meant a shift and an expansion in the control of global trade. European control over the Americas gave it tremendous access to the resources produced there: sugar, tobacco, timber, furs, gold, silver, etc. Dutch monopoly of trade with Japan: advantage in the silver market British dominance in India: control over revenues, cheap labor, and a vast market French, English, and Venetian merchants took control over Ottoman trade and markets.

Dutch trading post. With its huge fluttering flag, formal grounds, spacious quarters, and splendid gates in the Mughal style, the Dutch trading post at Hoogly in northeast India looks like an outpost of empire. In fact, however, it represents how dependent European merchants of the seventeenth century were on the wealth of the East. The post opened for trade in 1635, so that the Dutch East India Company could acquire relatively cheap silk in India and exchange it at a handsome profit for silver in Japan.

The moon. By the time Galileo published the results of his astronomical observations through a telescope in 1610, the instrument was famous throughout Europe, and a Jesuit missionary had even written a book about it in Chinese. The telescope revealed that the moon, formerly perceived as being a perfect sphere, was in fact ridged and pitted.

Production of manufactured goods is faster, cheaper, and often better New Technologies Development, first by Britain, of steam power for textile, ceramic, and mining industries Production of manufactured goods is faster, cheaper, and often better

Demonstrations of the power of invisible forces in nature were domestic entertainments for rich people in eighteenth-century Europe. Intently, and with indifference to suffering, the scientist who dominates this painting of such a scene by Joseph Wright of Derby, in 1768, proves the vital necessity of air by depriving a bird of it. As the bird dies, a girl is revolted. Lovers carry on regardless. A father tries to explain science; a young man is enraptured by it. Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797). “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump.” Oil on canvas. National Gallery, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library.

The first iron bridge. The Iron Bridge spanning the River Severn at Coalbrookdale in England was the world’s first cast-iron bridge. Completed in 1770, it has come to be regarded as a symbol of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The Iron Bridge is also one of the last of its type to have survived intact. It was erected in just three months using sections made in a local foundry.

Agricultural improver Agricultural improver. Thomas Coke of Norfolk (1752–1842), shown on the left, was an exemplary British agricultural improver, whose work with sheep was particularly influential. He boosted his flock from 800 to 2,500 without increasing the amount of grazing land the sheep needed, thanks in part to the scientific improvement he made in the South Down breed, depicted here, which produced highly prized mutton.

The Botanical Garden of Madrid The Botanical Garden of Madrid. By establishing a series of botanical gardens on both sides of the Atlantic, the Spanish monarchs in the eighteenth century promoted the transplantation of scientifically interesting or useful plants—including species good for health or nutrition—between continents. Today, the Botanical Garden of Madrid is little more than a park, but it retains reminders of its original functions, including the eighteenthcentury plant house in the background of this photograph and the bust of the great Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778), in the foreground.

Mauritius in 1835. In the eighteenth century, French administrators introduced forest conservation to the Indian Ocean island and banned colonists there from growing what were thought to be ecologically unsuitable crops, such as cotton and wheat. The map shows the surviving forests in the center and the lower left.

William Hodges’ vision of Tahiti, remembered from his experiences as resident artist with Captain Cook’s expedition of 1772: “a voluptuaries’ paradise . . . a habitat for nymphs.”

Sydney. Crowned by brushland, with natives in canoes in the foreground, this is what the harbor of Sydney, Australia looked like soon after the colony of New South Wales was founded in 1788. The governor’s house is high on the hillside to the left, and fields are taking shape around the cove.

Transplanting breadfruit Transplanting breadfruit. Thomas Gosse, the official artist of the British expedition that took breadfruit from Tahiti to Jamaica in the 1790s, gave pride of place to the Tahitians in the pictures he painted of the voyage. He depicted the British in a marginal, subordinate, and passive role. The breadfruit was supposed to provide cheap food for Jamaica’s slaves, but the slaves rejected it.

Why not China? For centuries, the world economic superpower Huge, cheap labor force Enormous internal market The “high-level equilibrium trap” No ability to increase output No incentive to innovate (develop new technologies) Europeans could now produce their own products. Tea, silk, ceramics, etc. Importation of opium into China by Britain, America, and other European powers Millions of opium addicts led to a debilitated workforce, drain of money.

Control over the Americas and global trade gave Europeans, especially Britain, an edge that it had never had before. The economies of Asia were now slipping or had slipped well behind.

Is unlimited growth possible? Today’s Question Is unlimited growth possible? Consider The eighteenth century was not the only one driven by growth: the global capitalist economy has ever since been built on continued growth. Some have worried about infinite growth in a finite world, and called for either sustainable growth or economic stasis. Others point out that basic commodities have become steadily cheaper since 1800, and claim market mechanisms will always find replacement resources (solar for hydrocarbon fuels, for example) and production techniques. Is unlimited growth possible indefinitely into the future? Or will the global economy face a crisis of diminishing resources?