Institute For The Future

Evolving out of the Malthusian trap and into the Industrial Revolution?

Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the University of California, Davis, has a forthcoming book, A Farewell to Alms, that argues that "the Industrial Revolution — the surge in economic growth that occurred first in England around 1800 — occurred because of a change in the nature of the human population," and the application of evolutionary pressures operating in England that gave reproductive advantages to people possessing "values of nonviolence, literacy, long working hours and a willingness to save."

According to the New York Times, Clark argues that between 1200 and 1800, "the economy was locked in a Malthusian trap-- each time new technology increased the efficiency of production a little, the population grew, the extra mouths ate up the surplus, and average income fell back to its former level."

 

Given that the English economy operated under Malthusian constraints, might it not have responded in some way to the forces of natural selection that Darwin had divined would flourish in such conditions? Dr. Clark started to wonder whether natural selection had indeed changed the nature of the population in some way and, if so, whether this might be the missing explanation for the Industrial Revolution.

 

He first looked for evidence that disease resistance was the key, and that the poor-- thanks to the amazingly high mortality rates in London and elsewhere-- were essentially breeding people who could survive the harsh environments of medieval and early modern cities. But in fact, Clark saw something else.

 

Generation after generation, the rich had more surviving children than the poor.... That meant there must have been constant downward social mobility as the poor failed to reproduce themselves and the progeny of the rich took over their occupations. “The modern population of the English is largely descended from the economic upper classes of the Middle Ages,” he concluded.

As the progeny of the rich pervaded all levels of society, Dr. Clark considered, the behaviors that made for wealth could have spread with them. He has documented that several aspects of what might now be called middle-class values changed significantly from the days of hunter gatherer societies to 1800. Work hours increased, literacy and numeracy rose, and the level of interpersonal violence dropped.

Another significant change in behavior, Dr. Clark argues, was an increase in people’s preference for saving over instant consumption, which he sees reflected in the steady decline in interest rates from 1200 to 1800.

“Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work were becoming values for communities that previously had been spendthrift, impulsive, violent and leisure loving,” Dr. Clark writes.

Around 1790, a steady upward trend in production efficiency first emerges in the English economy. It was this significant acceleration in the rate of productivity growth that at last made possible England’s escape from the Malthusian trap and the emergence of the Industrial Revolution.

 

Finally, Clark takes on the question that's dogged economic historians for ages: why did the Industrial Revolution start in England and Europe, rather than China or Japan, or some other Asian country?

 

Dr. Clark has found data showing that their richer classes, the Samurai in Japan and the Qing dynasty in China, were surprisingly unfertile and so would have failed to generate the downward social mobility that spread production-oriented values in England.

 

Needless to say, arguments about the inheritability of social traits like thrift and prudence are bound to be controversial. And no doubt the book will be held up as proof that the rich are evolving into a class of super-beings who should, at least, be exempt from the taxes of ordinary mortals-- despite the fact that Clark's argument hinges on the downward mobility of portions of the upper classes into professions and crafts that they previously had not occupied.

The New York Times says the book will be available next month, but Amazon seems to have it in stock.