Ο Anton Howes για τον Joel Mokyr

14.10.2025

Whereas most of the public, and even many historians, think of the causes of modern economic growth – the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution – as being rooted in material factors, like conquest, colonialism, or coal, Mokyr tirelessly argued that it was rooted in ideas, in the intellectual entrepreneurship of figures like Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, and in the uniquely precocious accumulation in eighteenth-century Britain of useful, often mechanically actionable knowledge. Britain, he argued, through its scientific and literary societies, and its penchant for publications and sharing ideas, was the site of a world-changing Industrial Enlightenment – the place where progress was thought possible, and then became real.

One of Mokyr’s big early insights, first appearing in Lever of Riches, was that many inventions could not be predicted by economic factors. Society could enjoy remarkable productivity improvements from simply increasing the size of the market, leading to division of labour and specialization – what he labelled ‘micro-inventions’ – in the vein popularised by Adam Smith. But this could not explain an invention that appeared out of the blue, like Montgolfier’s hot air balloon in the 1780s – what he called a ‘macro-invention’, not for the magnitude of its impact, but for its novelty. Macro-inventions often required further development to make them important, but the original breakthrough could not be predicted by looking at changes in prices or the availability of resources. It ultimately came down to advances in our understanding of the world. Mokyr put the Scientific Revolution – and the factors that contributed to it – on the economist’s map.

Βιβλία που έχω στο ράφι μου αδιάβαστα και κάτι πρέπει να κάνω γι' αυτό: το Arts and Minds του Anton Howes και το A Culture of Growth¹ του Joel Mokyr. Ο δεύτερος πήρε το (μισό) Νόμπελ Οικονομικών φέτος και ο πρώτος γράφει για τη συνεισφορά του στην οικονομική σκέψη.

#οικονομικά