Political competition and the British industrial revolution

Abstract

The British industrial revolution is widely considered to have been one of the great turning points in human history. By initiating a series of technical innovations with their associated social and political changes, it introduced the modern age. While it has recently come under some criticism, both for the misleading term “revolution” and for the hardly discernible acceleration of economic growth,⁴⁵⁷ it has remained a benchmark for historians, and a “myth”⁴⁵⁸ for the world at large. Can the notion of the impact of political competition on human progress offer any kind of explanation or enlightenment on its rise and progress?