A Dilemma: Scarcity And Growth

The title of my thesis is A Dilemma: Scarcity and Growth.My thesis focuses on the analysis of a dilemma: resource restriction and economic growth in the course of British Industrial Revolution during the transitional period of 1760-1830.Economics focuses on the way in which resources are allocated among alternative uses to satisfy human wants. In the nineteenth century it was customary for economists to classify economic resources into three categories: land, labour and capital. Output depends on those three factors. The three main sources of economic growth are labour growth, capital accumulation and technical progress.The Industrial Revolution initiated a quantum leap in industrial production. During the Industrial Revolution, European experienced a shift from a traditional, labour-intensive economy based on fanning and handicrafts to a more capital-intensive economy based on manufacturing by machines, specialized labor, and industrial factories.A number of factors or conditions coalesced in Britain to produce the original Industrial Revolution. One of these was the agricultural revolution of the eighteenth century which led to a significant increase in food production, British agriculture could now feed more people at lower prices with less labour; even ordinary British families did not have to use most of their income to buy food, giving them the potential to purchase manufactured goods. At the same time, a rapid growth of population in the second half of the eighteenth century provided a substantial pool of labour for the new factories of the emerging British industry.Britain had a ready supply of capital for investment in the new industrial machines and the factories that were needed to house them. In addition to profits from trade and the cottage industry, Britain had an effective central bank and well-developed, flexible credit facilities.Finally, a supply of markets gave British industrialists a ready outlet for their manufactured goods.The thesis contains three parts: Preface, Main body, ConclusionThe main body of my paper is as follows:Part One Scope and ConceptPart Two Framework of InterpretationPart Three British Institutional InnovationPart Four Population Growth and Agricultural DevelopmentPart Five A Transition from Wool Branch to Cotton OnePart Six Resource Restriction and Industrial Transformation...