Subject: AH Challange: No American Industrial Revolution Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 21:09:25 -0400 From: Logan Ferree Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if Here is the challenge. To completely avoid what could be called an Industrial Revolution in the United States of America. You can have some factories, maybe. But even they should be few and far between. The bulk of the economy should be focused on agriculture and related industries. Cities should be few, amounting only to political centers for States and Counties, Trading areas where rivers and the like join together, and Coastal ports where foreign trade is conducted. The more land that is part of the United States in OTL that is still part of the United States in the AH the better. Your POD must be after the year 1800, from that point on you are free to go. You have no limitations except that you should come as close to possible to the goal of no Industrial Revolution. Keeping the United States of America as the United States, instead of having revolutions overthrow the government, would be preferable. Thoughts on how it could be done? I was at first thinking no Embargo, which would at least slow down industrialization. But that is just a delay. Would industrialization still eventually happen without the Embargo? Suppose without the Embargo to allow for a jump start in industries, there is no desire for a tariff later on in 1816. Butterflies start to kick in and soon America is strongly behind free trade, both North and South, and against industrialization in America. Any other ideas? Logan Ferree Subject: Re: AH Challange: No American Industrial Revolution Date: 27 Jun 2001 21:21:21 GMT From: abraxus263@aol.com (Abraxus263) Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 Good God why would anyone want such a thing? Granted, the point of AH is to explore new possibilities, but some things are simply too repugnant for contemplation. Suddenly, the concept of a victorious CSA comes to mind . . . . . . ;-) Subject: Re: AH Challange: No American Industrial Revolution Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 01:49:03 -0700 From: Tom Billings Organization: Oregon L5 Society Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 Logan Ferree wrote: > Thoughts on how it could be done? > I was at first thinking no Embargo, which would at least slow down > industrialization. But that is just a delay. Would industrialization > still eventually happen without the Embargo? Suppose without the > Embargo to allow for a jump start in industries, there is no desire for > a tariff later on in 1816. IIRC, import tarrifs were the mainstay of federal revenue long before this, since they were cheap to collect, and satisfied the Hamilton-style politicians. > Butterflies start to kick in and soon > America is strongly behind free trade, both North and South, and against > industrialization in America. We would have gotten a different set of industries, but we would still have industrialized. > Any other ideas? Tax all non-agricultural property very heavily. This keeps would-be factory owners at a deeper economic disadvantage. Start the reaction of slaver oligarchs earlier through allowing indentured servants to be sold as permanent slaves if they did not pay off their indenture in actual production in a fast enough manner. This rewards those who denounce a society of free men who have more incentive to form productive industrial networks. Enforce very high barriers to new immigrants becoming citizens, and allow non-citizens who are in debt to be sold as slaves. Make the laws for registering new property in small amounts a tortuous process that cannot be done except by professionals, who charge a mint, because *they* are heavily taxed as well. Thus, small owners have no title, and cannot use property to raise capital. Make the smoke caused by the imported steam engines an actionable tort under law when operated near enough to another's property that they can smell either the wood smoke or the coal smoke. This means only very large landowners could have such devices without fear of lawsuits, and only a few in the center of their most extensive lands at that. None of this is expressly forbidden under the US Constitution at the time, I think. Nothing would ensure a lack of industrialization, but these steps, taken in toto, would deeply undercut it. It would chase away new immigrants, enslave many others, and keep those who are left free in a state where only the previously rich can afford the certification of their property, so that only they can invest that accumulated capital, usually right back into the agriculture they got it from. Regards, Tom Billings Subject: Re: AH Challange: No American Industrial Revolution Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 13:01:17 -0400 From: Logan Ferree Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 Tom Billings wrote: > IIRC, import tarrifs were the mainstay of federal revenue long > before this, since they were cheap to collect, and satisfied the > Hamilton-style politicians. To my knowledge, there was no tariff until 1816. Hamilton wasn't popular with people like Jefferson, and there was still a strong shipping, mercantile and agricultural community that opposed them. > > Butterflies start to kick in and soon > > America is strongly behind free trade, both North and South, and against > > industrialization in America. > > We would have gotten a different set of industries, > but we would still have industrialized. But what industries? Certainly not ones that Europe are doing better than the Americans could. > > Any other ideas? > > Tax all non-agricultural property very heavily. This keeps > would-be factory owners at a deeper economic disadvantage. > Start the reaction of slaver oligarchs earlier through allowing > indentured servants to be sold as permanent slaves if they did > not pay off their indenture in actual production in a fast enough > manner. This rewards those who denounce a society of free men > who have more incentive to form productive industrial networks. > Enforce very high barriers to new immigrants becoming citizens, > and allow non-citizens who are in debt to be sold as slaves. Rather harsh and somewhat implausible. Limiting immigration may work though, and is a plausible thought. But everything else doesn't appear so. > Make the laws for registering new property in small amounts > a tortuous process that cannot be done except by professionals, > who charge a mint, because *they* are heavily taxed as well. > Thus, small owners have no title, and cannot use property to > raise capital. Make the smoke caused by the imported steam > engines an actionable tort under law when operated near enough > to another's property that they can smell either the wood smoke > or the coal smoke. This means only very large landowners could > have such devices without fear of lawsuits, and only a few in the > center of their most extensive lands at that. None of this is > expressly forbidden under the US Constitution at the time, I think. Interesting proposal. > Nothing would ensure a lack of industrialization, but these steps, > taken in toto, would deeply undercut it. It would chase away new > immigrants, enslave many others, and keep those who are left free > in a state where only the previously rich can afford the certification > of their property, so that only they can invest that accumulated capital, > usually right back into the agriculture they got it from. Logan Ferree Subject: Re: AH Challange: No American Industrial Revolution Date: 28 Jun 2001 13:06:23 GMT From: srogerscat@cs.com (Steven Rogers) Organization: CompuServe (http://www.compuserve.com/) Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 I don't think the Industrial Revolution in America can be avoided with a post-1800 POD> Maybe not with a post-1650 POD for that matter. Delayed, yes. Steve Yoicks! And Away! Subject: Re: AH Challange: No American Industrial Revolution Date: 28 Jun 2001 11:54:08 -0700 From: maurer@itam.mx (Noel) Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if References: 1 , 2 srogerscat@cs.com (Steven Rogers) wrote in message news:<20010628090623.02027.00000525@ng-ca1.news.cs.com>... > I don't think the Industrial Revolution in America can be avoided with a > post-1800 POD> Maybe not with a post-1650 POD for that matter. Delayed, yes. > Steve > Yoicks! And Away! ---You can't avoid it, but if you balkanized the northern United States it would be much slower and much weaker. The North American states would take a much longer time to surpass Europe. Flip side of that is if you hand-wave a continental union of France, the Low Countries, and Germany together then they'll grow much faster in C-19. Noel