2 - The spreadof manufacturing

Summary

Before the industrial revolution, most of the world's manufacturing production took place in China and India. While the traditional manufacturing centers declined in the nineteenth century, other centers developed and, indeed, joined Britain to form the "industrial West". On the eve of the industrial revolution, British GDP per head was considerably above the world average. Economic growth was driven by the expansion of international trade, but the policies of the British state were at some variance with the prescriptions of Adam Smith. This chapter discusses colonialism, economic development, and standard model in Europe, Mexico, Russia, Latin America, Egypt and Japan. It then focuses on Big Push industrialization in Japan, China and Soviet Union. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Standard Model was bearing fruit in the United States and Western Europe. China was not successful in building its own fertilizer plants in the 1960s, and in 1973-1974 the country contracted with foreign firms to build thirteen ammonia factories.