Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I A sketch of the argument
- PART II Favourable developments
- 3 Agricultural change and urbanisation
- 4 Energy and transport
- 5 Occupational structure, aggregate income, and migration
- 6 Production and reproduction
- Part III What set England apart from her neighbours
- Part IV Retrospective
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Production and reproduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I A sketch of the argument
- PART II Favourable developments
- 3 Agricultural change and urbanisation
- 4 Energy and transport
- 5 Occupational structure, aggregate income, and migration
- 6 Production and reproduction
- Part III What set England apart from her neighbours
- Part IV Retrospective
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Because it was not possible to break out from the constraints of an organic economy without gaining access to fossil fuels, it is reasonable to view the gradual transfer to a new source of energy as a necessary condition for the ‘industrial revolution’ to take place. The logical status of the relationship between production and reproduction in this context is less clear, but if it was not a necessary condition for the gradual transformation which took place, a relatively benign interaction between the two was clearly a most important facilitating factor. A ‘high-pressure’ demographic system could rule out any possibility of change by keeping real incomes low and causing the resulting structure of aggregate demand to be such as to prohibit the kind of change which constitutes an industrial revolution. The nature of the relationship between production and reproduction and its functioning in early modern England is the subject of this chapter.
Figure 1.1 illustrated the way in which differing demographic regimes may influence the prevailing level of average real incomes. Where fertility is high and invariant the population is driven to a high level until eventually mortality increases to match fertility leaving the bulk of the population living miserably. Where fertility is both lower and responsive to population pressure, declining in the face of deteriorating economic circumstances, population stabilises at a lower level, with benefit to living standards.
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- Energy and the English Industrial Revolution , pp. 140 - 178Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010