The Evolution of Affluence

History tends to make even the most unlikely revolutions seem inevitable. Looking backwards to the 18th century, it's easy to conclude that the Industrial Revolution was bound to happen, that the forward march of modernity was predestined.

But what this fatalistic view of history overlooks is just how unlikely it is that a nomadic band of hunter-gatherers would one day settle in big cities, develop some startling new technologies, and escape the Malthusian trap. Starting in the 18th century, a few select human populations (such as Great Britain) managed to increase their economic productivity to such an extent that the struggle for existence was no longer such a bleak struggle. Gregory Clark, an economic historian at UC Davis, thinks he has figured out the mechanisms underlying this dramatic transformation. His theory is both simple and improbable: the Industrial Revolution was made possible by human evolution. In other words, we evolved the specific behavioral traits that allowed modernity to exist.

For thousands of years, most people on earth lived in abject poverty, first as hunters and gatherers, then as peasants or laborers. But with the Industrial Revolution, some societies traded this ancient poverty for amazing affluence.

Historians and economists have long struggled to understand how this transition occurred and why it took place only in some countries. A scholar who has spent the last 20 years scanning medieval English archives has now emerged with startling answers for both questions.

Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the University of California, Davis, believes 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. The change was one in which people gradually developed the strange new behaviors required to make a modern economy work. The middle-class values of nonviolence, literacy, long working hours and a willingness to save emerged only recently in human history, Dr. Clark argues.

Because they grew more common in the centuries before 1800, whether by cultural transmission or evolutionary adaptation, the English population at last became productive enough to escape from poverty, followed quickly by other countries with the same long agrarian past.

Obviously, Clark's thesis directly contradicts the conventional explanation for the Industrial Revolution, which is that a combination of political and economic factors, from mercantilism to the discovery of the New World, led to the Industrial Revolution. Human biology plays no role. Clark's theory also arrives just as scientists are discovering the dramatic extent of recent human evolution. (See, for example, the evolution of lactose tolerance in Norther European populations.)

But I'm still not convinced by Clark's theory (although I do plan on reading his forthcoming book). I think any theory of history that relies on evolutionary changes within a population dramatically underestimates the flexibility and plasticity of the human brain. We are a malleable species. Some of us still live in remote tribes and hunt game while others sit all day in front of a computer, composing sentences. The mind is capable of thriving in both instances precisely because it is so adaptable, because our genes have evolved the talent of massive neural plasticity. I'd wager that it is this invention of cortical plasticity - a rather ancient adaptation - which made the Industrial Revolution possible. All of the other behavioral modifications that Clark cites - the propensity to save, the ability to live in densely populated cities, etc. - were all by-products of this central adaptation, which let us endlessly adapt to our circumstances.

Tags
Categories

More like this

Of course, Clark's theory has a rather nasty consequence: If the industrial revolution was caused by human evolution in England in the 1800s, what about the rest of the world?

According to the article, Clark does talk a little bit about "cultural evolution", but he keeps focusing on biological evolution, essentially postulating some sort of "genes for capitalism" (to quote the article).

So he's basically arguing that 4/5ths of the human race is genetically inferior to Europeans, and unable to develop an industrialized economy. And he provides no genetic evidence for this claim whatsoever--it's pure speculation, based on some economics numbers.

There's a name for people who rush to explain their data set by speculating about the genetic inferiority of non-Europeans.

And of course, if you really believed this hypothesis, the only cure for widespread persistent poverty would be to let people starve to death until they, too, evolved the hypothetical "genes for capitalism."

I read the same review, but not the book yet. However, it's not necessarily about biology - it's not modern-day Social Darwinism.

Dr. Clark says the middle-class values needed for productivity could have been transmitted either culturally or genetically. But in some passages, he seems to lean toward evolution as the explanation. "Through the long agrarian passage leading up to the Industrial Revolution, man was becoming biologically more adapted to the modern economic world," he writes. And, "The triumph of capitalism in the modern world thus may lie as much in our genes as in ideology or rationality."What was being inherited, in his view, was not greater intelligence - being a hunter in a foraging society requires considerably greater skill than the repetitive actions of an agricultural laborer. Rather, it was "a repertoire of skills and dispositions that were very different from those of the pre-agrarian world."

Even if we're less eager than Clark to assume a genetic basis for the Protestant work ethic, the inheritance of those kinds of traits still makes sense, either by nurture within the family or by educational segregation. This allows the brain quite a bit more plasticity.

"how this transition occurred and why it took place only in some countries."

I think that should be "why it took place in some countries before others." Likewise, why did towns develop in some countries before others? Agriculture?

In my opinion, the answer is the influence of local conditions on behavior. However, a behavior change may be followed by a genetic change which makes the new behavior more efficient. Think of a species of bird that develops a new feeding habit (blue tits and milk bottles). Eventually, that will lead by natural selection to an anatomical change. But the behavior, and imitation of it, comes first.