Consumption Patterns Before the Industrial Revolution PDF

. There are several reasons, all added in with the differences in consumption patterns. So let me start with an example in order to illustrate what I mean. In 1575, a man named Guttschok Wiensberg and his family moved into the family estate in the German city of Cologne. They took up residence as a...

. There are several reasons, all added in with the differences in consumption patterns. So let me start with an example in order to illustrate what I mean. In 1575, a man named Guttschok Wiensberg and his family moved into the family estate in the German city of Cologne. They took up residence as a joint household with the families of his brother Herman and 2 unmarried sisters and 2 nephews. The Weinsberg brothers had different occupations, but both were considered what might be middle class though far from wealthy. The household consisted of 3 domestic groups, each living in separate dwellings in the family estate. Hermann and the 2 nephews lived in one building. The 2 sisters lived in another. And Gottschalk and his immediate family lived in a 3rd larger building that also served as the common space for the newly established joint household. The Vinesburgs agreed that Gottschalk\'s house would be where the common meals would be taken. All members of the household ate at the same table. The household consisted of at least 9 people, more if they had servants. Now when Gottschalk Weinsberg moved in, the brothers also agreed on how the household budget would be divided. All living expenses, except for clothing and entertainment, were to be divided among the family members, with Herman paying for the shares of the 2 sisters and the 2 nephews. Gottschalk paid for himself, his wife, a niece, and an illegitimate son who lived with him. The vast majority of these shared expenses were for food. The household, as a group, determined or negotiated, really, what kinds of food they would purchase, keeping in mind the social norms of the time. While in modern times, we tend to think in terms of individual or market demand, what is important to notice in this example is the thing looks pretty much differently before the industrial revolution. The earlier demand and consumption factors are better considered within the context of the household economy. By 17th century, the so called European marriage pattern, which refers to relatively later age of marriage and the couple establishing a new household separate from the couple parents was increasingly good, but household composition continued to vary considerably across the continent. Even within a more nuclear family arrangement, household decision making on consumption created demand for products far more than individual decisions. The need for And decision making was constrained by society. Go back to So back to demand and supply. Economists point out that when prices of goods are low or when they\'re falling, the demand for them typically increases. Conversely, when prices are high or when they\'re rising, producers are incented to increase the supply of these goods. Looking at this historically, to make sense of the significant increase in the supply of goods that occurred even before the industrial revolution, we need to understand the sources of demand at the time. Absent demand, producers would have no incentive to try to increase supply through more workers or technological innovations or importing from abroad. So in the absence of reliable documentary records, in the period leading up to the industrial revolution, we can posit that demand for goods must have been high, creating the environment to spur production, innovation, and writ large an industrial revolution. The basic premise of this is that long term economic growth predated the industrial revolution. In this view, a significant and growing demand for more goods took place first, creating serious bottlenecks with the production methods of the time. Initially, supply did not rise as quickly as demand and the disconnect launched changes in production. So a period of increasing demand wasn\'t satisfied until the Industrial Revolution came along with its focus on supply to solve the problem. Many scholars have used the alternative industrious revolution to describe the period between about 16018 100 when we believe the demand intensified. The increase would have been based on household decision making as if the multifamily Weisbergs compound. Additionally, the idea of an industrious revolution is based on the notion that by the 17th century, people were working more, which had the potential to increase their incomes. And finally, we will want to examine changes in taste and preferences as we seek to understand changes in consumption. Now, not all scholars agree with this characterization of an industrious revolution. But it is a useful model in which to consider consumption during this period. There are some other issues that we need to address. We can assume that not all of them necessarily supporting a revolution in the industrial space. First is the idea of the household economy itself. There were several types of household economies, but we will consider the differences in consumption between 2 of them, the rural and the urban household. The definition of a household has varied over time. But for the period I\'m referring to, roughly the years 1500 to 1800, a household was a family based entity even though not all members of a household were necessarily related in which production, consumption, and research was reversed occurred. Prior to industrialization, most production took place in the household level. So the household is the locus of production and consumption. That said, probably the most powerful organizing institution for production in pre modern Europe even within the house of the gills. The gills origins date far back into the medieval period. But such labor association continued to regulate production to one degree or another in some cases into the 19th century. The guilds themselves produced nothing. Their chief function was to regulate entry into a craft through controlling apprenticeships and admitting members as journeyman or masters and then setting and supervising quality controls. Guilds were urban institutions controlling production within the town borders. Most craft production, weaving, baking, spinning, etcetera, was located in towns controlled by gills. Rural industry was usually not regulated by gills. For example, because mines in England were outside of towns, miners had no gill.