Chapter 10 The Relevance of Disruptive Technologies to Industrial Growth: A Conceptual Critique

Since the onset of the industrial revolution in England during the late 18th century, it has become increasingly clear how advances in technology have played a pivotal role in delivering wealth-creating economic growth, ranging from major advances in the generation of industrial power, initially through steam engines (e.g. successively by Nucomen, Watt and Trevithick), to the design of labour saving industrial machinery and working practices ( Smith, 1776 ; Marx, 1867 ; Solow, 1957 ; Denison, 1967 ; Mansfield, 1968 ; Freeman, 1982 ). These advances have not merely resulted in industrial progress but have triggered changes in industrial location (e.g. water powered to coalfield sites in the cotton textile industry) ( Riley, 1973 ), dictated population distributions and fixed the positions of major industrial cities within national and world regions. Indeed, perhaps, the most ambitious attempt to establish the major impact of revolutionary technological change on macro-level industrial performance was the explanation by Schumpeter of Kondratiev's ‘long wave’ industrial cycles ( Kondratiev, 1925 ) in which upswings in world economic activity were linked to the introduction of pervasive new technologies caused by their ability to reduce unit prices, increase efficiency and be broadly applicable across large sectors of industry (e.g. stream and electric power) ( Schumpeter, 1939 ; Freeman, 1986 ).