Veneti (Was Re: Belgs)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet" <fournet.arnaud@>
> wrote:

> > From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@>

[...]

> > I read that before the start of the industrial revolution,
> > England first knew an agricultural sharp increase of productivity,
> > which had two consequences :
> > - a brutal increase of the general population,

England had reached comparable population levels before, but the
earlier agricultural systems had been unable to sustain them. The
British agricultural revolution meant that for the first time, such
high population levels were sustainable.

> > hence a lot of people who could/had to move somewhere else.

Changing agricultural methods meant that fewer people were needed in
agriculture, and hence that more were available for other occupations.

> > - a huge number of unemployed people
> > who were later on employed in new industrial activities,
> > that prior to that could not happen because there were nobody to
> > work on that.

> That makes no sense. Labor-saving devices are deployed because of a
> shortage of working hands, not because of a surplus.

The industrial revolution was not really about labor-saving devices.

> > This first happened in England.

> Communis opinio is that it didn't happen in Rome because they had
> plenty of slaves, so why bother?

I doubt that it's communis opinio amongst historians. The
technological prerequisites for an industrial revolution were
unavailable. I also suspect that the Romans lacked the economic
resources to industrialize.

Brian