Mingyang Wang
T’Chocos
ENG 100 D/E
May 14, 2014
Academic Paper #3
America’s Opportunity and Competition
How does the United States progressed to the strongest country in the world from the late of 18th century to the early of 19th century? What does China, as a developing country learned from the United States of America?During the Second Industrial Revolution which also called Technology Revolution.There is a great summarization of U.S.’s achievement during the Second Industrial Revolution by Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie C. Hillstrom. In their essay The Industrial Revolution in America: Iron and Steel, Railroads, Steam Shipping they said that:
The Industrial Revolution in America was a 150-year era that began in the mid-eighteenth century and was characterized by profound technological, economic, and social innovations that transformed pastoral America into an industrial superpower.
That is to say the U.S. had a rapid development in new technology industries such as electrification, chemical and machine tools. During this period, the United States of America successfully surpassed old developed countries such as Britain and German, became the strongest country in the world. Why did this great achievement belongs to the U.S. but not Britain or German? What can those developing countries learn from the successful experience of the United States. (use China as an example)?There are five reasons for the succeed of the United States. The United States has rich sources and huge market, it focused on the development of new technology, U.S. has virtuous circle of high salary and mechanical, politicians pay more attention on new technology and the trade protection policy.
First of all, compare to the European countries, the U.S. has richer resources and huger market. At the beginning of the Second Industrial Revolution, the U.S. did not have any advantage on technical research, especial the basic science research was far behind the technology in Europe. However, the domestic market demands of European countries are too small. Although Europe had new technologies, they did not have a market for the technology, so they can not make the technology become productive. On the converse side, the U.S. introduced the newest technologies into America market and made them much more productive. As D. C. Coleman mentioned in his research Industrial Growth and Industrial Revolutions, there are three main forms of economic or technical “revolutions”. The first one is “the application to a particular industry”. It means that a new technique or machine is introduced and used. In this case, the U.S. used new technic on steel, iron, electricity industries and had a cheerful result of the economic development.Scale production in the U.S. makes the technology more practical and perfect. Market demand encouraged the railway construction and the development of Ship manufacturing, because transport of goods and people’s traveling both needs a cheap remote transportation.
China has the same advantages with the U.S.. They have similar land area and China have even more population which provides an even bigger market. In D. C. Coleman’s essay Industrial Growth and Industrial Revolution he says that “And finally, its technical and economic history follows a course similar to that of other and better known industries”. Since that, developing country like China should learn from the developing history of the U.S..For example, like the U.S. introduced new technology from Europe and makes it more productive relies on the huge domestic market. German has the most developed high speed rail in the world now, but China has huge demand for this. Maybe China can introduce the high speed rail technology from German and well use it.
Second, the U.S. focused more on new technology development during the Second Industrial Revolution while the Britain was still developing traditional industry. Before the Second Industrial Revolution, there is no doubt that European countries are the first class countries. The cotton textile industry was always one of the strongest points of Britain, although the U.S. developed a lot on this industry, the U.S. is still a cotton textile net imports country. The history shows that it is impossible for the developing country surpass developed country on traditional industry by lower the cost of labor and resource. But the U.S. finds the other way to encourage its economy, it is developing new technology. Thanks to Thomas Adison, mother nature gives us the sunshine and Thomas gives us the electric light and this electric light lights up the future of the U.S.. Also, the U.S. had great achievement on chemical, wireless, machine tools, rail, steel, iron and so on.
For this part, China should think about its economic structure which should not only focus on lower the cost of labor and resources, it should also pay more attention on new technology development.
Third, the U.S. had virtuous circle of high salary and mechanical tools. Because of the huge domestic market demand, the United States needs it’s people help the ability to purchase goods. So they pay higher wage to workers than European countries. As the result of this decision, employers preferred to use mechanical tools rather than paying the high labor cost. However, more machines made the cost of labor became higher, and higher cost of labor force employers choose more machines which encourage the development of mechanical. There is a definition of the Second Industrial Revolution from O.E.D. in D. C. Coleman’s essay Industrial Growth and Industrial Revolutions: “the rapid development in industry owing to the employment of machinery, which took place in England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries”. It shows that during the Second Industrial Revolution, companies began to have more machine as their employees. As this essay mentioned above, this is the virtuous circle of high salary and mechanical tools.
This is an important lesson for developing countries, they should remember that lower the cost of labor is not a perfect way to develop the economy. Sometimes improve the cost of labor may help a country for its domestic economy development because this increases the size of domestic market.
Forth,American politicians pay more attention on new technology. Benjamin Franklin is an outstanding politician in Americanhistory, he is also famous as a scientist. As a scientist, he discovered Gulf Stream, investigated electricity, researched wave theory of light and so on. As a politician, he created the first firefighting company in America – Union Fire Company, founded American Philosophical Society and contributed to the Declaration of Independence. Not only him, many American politicians are scientists or interested in science. That’s one of the reasons that American politicians are more concern about technology. People from upper level become interested in science and creation may set up a great environment for invention. For example, European had the original theory about electricity, but Thomas Edison and Bell used it to create a series of products.
From this part, China should know how important technology and spirit of creation is. Copying can makes a country grows fast, but it can never makes a country become an independent developed country, only creation and technology can do that.
Fifth,the U.S. has trade protection for their local commercial. Unlike Chinese government actively introduce foreign enterprises, U.S. seems prefer to give more support on their local business. The U.S. usually just introduces new technologies and develops the technology by their own work. This makes the economy of the U.S. becomes more independent.
Above all, the U.S. becomes economic superpower during the Second Industrial Revolution because of five points: rich sources and huge local market, focused on the development of new technology, virtuous circle of high salary and mechanical, politicians pay more attention on new technology and the trade protection policy. In the essay The Industrial Revolution in America: Iron and Steel, Railroads, Steam Shipping,the author Kevin Hillstrom and Laurie C. Hillstrom said that “The Industrial Revolution in America series, is a unique effort that fills a void in the reference literature by providing a comprehensive source for researchers and students interested in this influential era in American history”. It talks about the influence of the Industrial Revolution in America on literature. But besides this part, it also provides the U.S. as a successful example of country development by revolution. Developing country like China should learn from the experience of U.S. and find their way of development. As the most of America would said that“ God bless America”.
References
Industrial Growth and Industrial Revolutions
By D. C. Coleman
Page 3 of 1-22
The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution
By Jan De Vries
The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 54, No. 2, pp. 249-270
Consumerism and the Industrial Revolution
By Ben Fine, Ellen Leopold
Social History, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May, 1990), pp. 151-179
The Industrial Revolution in America: Iron and Steel, Railroads, Steam Shipping.By Kevin Hillstrom, Laurie C. Hillstrom
Vol. 45, No. 2 (Winter 2005), pp. 172-173