A Study on the Industrial Revolution in UK and its spirits for China

李政

【Abstract】 The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes. It marks a major turning point in history and influences almost every aspect of daily life，including material impacts and system effects，social thoughts and international influences. Moreover，the Industrial Revolution still leaves much inspiration for us even after so many decades. We China can draw enlightenments from it mainly in the fields of patent protection，property protection，technological innovation.

【Keywords】Industrial Revolution；Patent Protection；Property Protection；Technological Innovation

【中图分类号】K561 【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】2095-3089（2016）21-0009-02

1.Introduction to the Industrial Revolution in UK

The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines，the development of machine tools and the improved efficiency of water power，the increasing use of steam power. It also included coal industry，iron production processes and textile industry in terms of employment，value of output and capital invested. （Landes，1969）

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain，and spread to Western Europe and North America within a few decades，which marks a major turning point in history and influenced almost every aspect of daily life. （Lucas，2002；Landes，1969）

2.Effects of the Industrial Revolution

To analyze，the material effects were improved productivity and the change of economic structure. The textile manufacture and coal industry developed rapidly，so did the machine tools and transportation in UK，whose great development need large quantities of workers，thus the population began to increase crazily with the improvement of living standards. The migration of people under the industrialization promoted urbanization，because of which there was an increase in per capita income. As for the economic structure，the most obvious phenomenon was that the proportion of agriculture in GDP decreased while that of industry increased much.

One of the system effects was that capitalist production relations established through The Bourgeois Revolution were consolidated. Totally different from feudalist production relations，capital was the determiner，which made capitalists able to participate in economic activities that they thought could benefit from and able to organize the economic，political and educational systems referring to their demands. The economic system reflection was factory system. Another effect was that capitalism eventually triumphed over feudalism，with which industrial bourgeoisie and industrial proletariat appeared. Such changes certainly need democratic political reform. For example，the system of election was reformed so that each taxpayer had the right to vote and as a result industrial bourgeoisie stepped on political stage.

The social thoughts were also affected much. From culturally historical perspective，the basics of capitalistic thoughts stemmed from Renaissance and Reformation，which contributed to the Enlightenment. The Industrial Revolution benefited from and also promoted such change of thoughts. Under such movements，agricultural civilization including traditional conservatism，caste idea，nostalgic provincialism and magisterium worship weakened continuously while industrial civilization including the new pursuance of science，sense，participation and creativity became a fashion.

The Industrial Revolution also had some international influences. The power of materials was stronger than that of any theories. As the first powerful industrialized country in the world，the achievements including industrial productions and technologies were rapidly spread to other Europe and American countries through gradually matured international market，resulting in promoting the process of the industrialization of each Europe and American countries such as France，Germany and American that were believed to be the top ones developing fast. Furthermore，the United Kingdom focused on Asia，Africa and Latin American countries，starting invading them to occupy the resources and markets by their great industrial power. Hence，the world turned a page.

3.Spirits we Chinese can draw from Industrial Revolution

There is no doubt that Industrial Revolution is successful and it still leaves much inspiration for us even after so many years.

Patent protection is one of the important spirits we can learn from Industrial Revolution. In 1624，the UK government promulgated Statute of Monopolies，contemporary patent system was established. The symbolic invention in the Industrial Revolution was steam engine by Watt，which received heavy investment due to his patent of his invention and this promoted the process of marketization of steam engine. Furthermore，referring to patent，one effect of modern patent usage is that the inventors time and energy can be spent on pure innovation，allowing others to concentrate on manufacturability. （Stim，2010） Another effect of modern patent usage is to both enable and incentivize competitors to design around the patented invention. This may promote healthy competition among manufacturers，resulting in gradual improvements of the technology base. （Kim，2002） As for China，we still belong to developing countries，mostly relying on foreign technologies. Some hold the view that we should not intensify patent protection because this will result in intensification of foreign monopolies in China and increase of study costs. Virtually，it is totally wrong，if our patent protection is weak，other countries wont bring the most advanced technologies to us，which maybe makes Chinese enterprises lose the opportunity to learn them. Besides，there are quantities of companies possessing the capability to innovate，however，facing so many crazy copies and plagiarisms，they can only give up. Thus we must attach much importance to patent protection.

Property protection is another spirit we can learn. In this system proprietary relationship is particularly essential in that there wouldnt have been great development of modern industry and modern commodity economy in the United Kingdom if there hadnt been ensured property protection and legitimate guarantee to their personal business and income in the Industrial Revolution. As is known to us all，Habeas Corpus Act was passed in 1679，which standardized the market order and assured a fair and equal competition. Therefore，only if their gains were protected they had the spirits to work hard. Therefore，we Chinese can acquire the awareness that property protection is a key factor to the development of our society.

Technological innovation is also an essential spirit we should focus on. Marx once said：“when the trade in the UK develops to a degree where hand labor cannot meet the market requirement，people will begin to think that they need machine and they should apply well-developed mechanics in eighteenth century.”（Ma 169） That is to say technological innovation to a certain degree is an important premise of Industrial Revolution. Before the period of industrialization，the woolen industrial boomed in the UK，on which there were more than 20 percent of the UKs population relying. The development of woolen industrial provided technologies for the start of industrialization. The Industrial Revolution in UK started from cotton-textile industry，which almost wholly copied the manufacturing organization forms and manufacturing tools of woolen industry. The improvement of those manufacturing tools gave rise to the start of the Industrial Revolution in UK. In contrast，more than 50 percent of the technologies in China need rely on abroad at present. Meanwhile，the rate of the technologies in China contributing to the development of economy was only about 30 percent. （Cheng 1） Therefore，we still ave a long way to go to be an independently innovative country，which we have to achieve to become a developed country.

Reference：

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[2]Lucas，Robert E.，Jr. （2002）. Lectures on Economic Growth. Cambridge：Harvard University Press

[3]Stim，Rishand. （2010）. Profit from Your Idea：How to Make Smart Licensing Decisions. Berkeley，California：Nolo Press

[4]Kim，Linsui. （2002）. Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Rights：Lessons from Koreas Experience. Retrieved June 18，2015，from Citeseer

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