World Industrialization

Michel Vigezzi is an Honorary Professor at the University of Grenoble-Alpes, France; a Doctor of State in Economics, and a Doctor of Psychopedadogy and Education Sciences. He is a former Dean of Faculties and a former Doctoral School of Economics Director, and is an expert and consultant for both French and international organizations.

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

Part 1 Industrialization and its Conceptualizations 1

Introduction to Part 1 3

Chapter 1 The Notion of Industrialization and Other Related Notions 5

1.1 The notion of industrialization 5

1.1.1 The birth of the notion of industrialization 5

1.1.2 Industrialization according to economists 8

1.1.3 Industrialization according to management sciences 18

1.1.4 Sociologies of technology and knowledge 20

1.1.5 Industrialization according to technological historians 21

1.1.6 The objectives of histories of technology 23

1.1.7 The different histories of technology 28

1.1.8 The synthesis of these contributions: continuity or discontinuity? 35

1.2 The links between industrialization, technological revolutions and machinism 37

1.2.1 Industrialization and industrial revolutions 37

1.2.2 Industrialization and the various revolutions 38

1.2.3 Industrialization and machinism 38

Chapter 2 Social Dynamics, Shared Inventions and Competitive Innovations 41

2.1 Social dynamics 42

2.1.1 The glorification of arts and crafts: from guilds to arts and crafts communities 43

2.1.2 The defense and glory of nations 47

2.1.3 The links between technology, social relations and people at work 48

2.2 Evolution of the notions of technological change, invention and innovation 50

2.2.1 Technological changes and the temptation of symbols and representations 50

2.2.2 The ambiguities of the notion of invention 51

2.2.3 The enigmas of innovation 52

2.2.4 The end of the technological change/invention/innovation triangle? 53

2.3 Shared inventions 55

2.3.1 From the sharing of inventions to shared inventions 55

2.3.2 The first definitions of shared inventions 56

2.3.3 A definition of shared inventions 57

2.3.4 The trajectories of shared inventions 59

2.4 Competitive innovations 60

2.4.1 The first definitions of competitive innovations 60

2.4.2 The competition principles adopted 61

2.4.3 The trajectories of competitive innovations 62

Part 2 Historical Periods, Social Dynamics, Shared Inventions and Competitive Innovations 65

Introduction to Part 2 67

Chapter 3 1698–1760 or the Emergence of Machinism 69

3.1 The situation in 1698 69

3.1.1 Major changes in social relations, religions and manufactories 69

3.1.2 Manufactories and the organization of work in France and England 71

3.1.3 New models of manufactory organization 72

3.1.4 Performance of manufactories versus development of nations 73

3.1.5 Statement of account 74

3.2 1698–1760: industrialization and major changes 75

3.2.1 Conflicts between religions and the economy 75

3.2.2 Conflicts between nations 76

3.2.3 The willingness of governments to enact change in public affairs 76

3.3 The precursors and inventions of steam engines 77

3.3.1 The era of the Enlightenment and other imaginative inventors 77

3.3.2 The appearance of the true inventors 78

3.4 Steam engines and shared inventions 79

3.4.1 The first steam engine and its first patent 79

3.4.2 The first sharing of steam engines 81

3.5 Coke metallurgy 83

3.5.1 Reinventions 83

3.5.2 The search for substitutes 83

3.5.3 The invention of puddling 85

3.6 Sharing around the inventions of the textile industry 87

3.6.1 Weaving and the fly-shuttle 87

3.6.2 Perforated ribbons and weaving machines 87

3.7 “Printed cotton indiennes” or copies of inventions and the organization of factories 88

3.7.1 Sectoral characteristics of the shared inventions of this period 91

3.7.2 Strong tensions 93

Chapter 4 1760–1850 or the Industrial Revolution and its Competitive Innovations 95

4.1 The transition from the emergence of machinism and its shared inventions to the Industrial Revolution and its competitive innovations 95

4.2 The Industrial Revolution and competitive innovations (1760–1850) 96

4.2.1 Competitive innovations 97

4.2.2 The contradictions of the steam engine industry 98

4.2.3 The contradictions of the textile sector 100

4.2.4 The inescapable contradictions of machine tool production 103

4.3 1851: an inventory? 104

Chapter 5 1850–1914 or the New Shared Inventions and the Birth of the Modern Large Company 107

5.1 The invention of the modern large company 107

5.2 Precursors 109

5.2.1 The “ébauches” of Frédéric Japy (1771) 109

5.2.2 Oliver Evans’ “endless mill” (1784) 110

5.2.3 Honoré Blanc’s rifles and the Springfield Armory (1790, 1819) 110

5.2.4 Thomas Tassel-Grant’s “sea biscuits” (1830) 111

5.2.5 The inventions of Mr Johann Georg Bodmer (1833 onwards) 111

5.3 The Singer Manufacturing Company and the Civil War uniforms 111

5.3.1 The sewing machine, its invention and innovations 111

5.3.2 The true birth of the sewing machine can be traced from 1849 to 1850 113

5.3.3 The sewing machine and the organization of the company 114

5.4 The Chicago Yards and their integrated slaughterhouses 115

5.4.1 The actors involved in the creation of Union Stock Yards 116

5.4.2 The operating modes of the Union Stock Yards 119

5.5 The Swiss example 121

5.6 An almost totally invented inauguration and improbable analyses 122

5.7 The management of these shared inventions 125

5.7.1 The invention of the commercialization of products 125

5.7.2 The invention of marketing 126

5.7.3 Labor and employee management 127

5.7.4 The importance of the links between management tools and shared inventions 129

Chapter 6 1914 or the Birth of Extended Machinism 131

6.1 Major changes in social dynamics 131

6.1.1 World wars 131

6.1.2 The increasing number of crises 131

6.1.3 Profound changes in terms of social dynamics 132

6.2 Large shared inventions combined with competitive innovations 134

6.2.1 The irresistible growth of electricity 134

6.2.2 The extraordinary growth of gas and oil 136

6.2.3 Maritime and air transport 137

6.2.4 Metallurgy 137

6.2.5 Machine tools 139

6.2.6 Chemistry 140

6.2.7 Agriculture 140

6.2.8 Lifestyles 141

6.2.9 Computing and the reinvention of calculating machines 143

6.2.10 Automation 146

Conclusion 149

References 157

Index 171