초록 열기/닫기 버튼
토인비의 산업혁명에 대한 고전적 연구 이래, 연구자들 사이에서는 비록 몇몇반론이 있었지만, 18세기말과 19세기 초 산업과 경제 변화의 혁신적 측면이 강조돼 왔다. 하지만, 1960년대 이후 진행된 근대 영국경제에 대한 ‘수정주의적’ 연구는 산업혁명의 연속성과 점진성을 크게 부각시켰다. 그런데, 많은 수정주의 연구들은 혁신에 대해 연속성을 부각시키기 위해 전통과 변화의 개념을 너무 이분법적이고 상호배타적인 것으로 취급하는 경우가 많았다. 하지만, 산업혁명이 도래하기 전부터 전통과 변화는 공존하면서 영국경제에 역동성과 함께 한계를 부여하였고, 산업혁명기에 와서 양자는 상호배타적이기보다는 상호보완적으로 공존, 확산되면서 영국의 산업적, 경제적 우위를 확보해 주었다. 전통을 단순히 정태적이고비생산적인 요소로만 취급한다면, 18, 19세기 영국경제의 역동성과 그에 기초한국제무대에서의 상대적 우월성을 설명하기가 쉽지 않다. 19세기 말로 접근하면서결정적으로 흔들리게 되기 전까지 연속과 변화의 결합이 낳은 이중성—성장을촉진하면서도 억제와 제한을 가하는 이중적 속성—은 유효한 역사적 실제로 작동했다. 이 글은 기존의 여러 연구들을 토대로 이러한 이중성을 몇몇 핵심 측면들--토지와 농업, 제조업과 기술변화, 공장과 소작업장의 공존, 인구문제와 소비시장의관계, 산업과 경제의 지역성—을 중심으로 확인하려 한다.
A number of ‘revisionist’ studies since the 1960s have attempted to demonstrate that modern British industry and economy experienced a much more continuous and gradual growth and change, and thus effectively challenged the ‘conventional’ view of the Industrial Revolution evolved and established since the seminal study by Arnold Toynbee in 1884. Thanks to their efforts, it is now evident that by the mid-eighteenth century pivotal forces of change had brought about the transition from an agrarian-based economy to a manufacturing-based one. In other words, the late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century industrial transformation was not a watershed suddenly engendering an industrial economy, but a phase in the long process of economic change that had started well before the Industrial Revolution. The revisionism has been a significant and welcome contribution to the historiography of the Industrial Revolution. It, however, has revealed crucial deficiencies as well. Above all, many revisionist studies have employed a series of dichotomized concepts like ‘tradition v. innovation’, ‘continuity v.change’, and regarded them as mutually exclusive. But, as a number of studies including those critical of revisionist assumptions have convincingly pointed out, something ‘traditional’ was not necessarily ‘static’, nor ‘unproductive’. Small workshops, hand tools, and water power proved quite compatible with factories, machines, and steam power, and both were not only interconnected but mutually supportive. The ‘intensified’ use of some of the traditional methods in association with the new ones was the hallmark of the Industrial Revolution. The intermingling of tradition and innovation, of course, imposed constraints and limits on economic growth, but was able to provide Britain with a sufficient productive edge in international market for a considerable period of time. This article tries to identify the historical nature and meanings of the ‘duality’ of continuity and change in the British Industrial Revolution. The analysis is focused on the following five broad areas: land and agriculture, technological changes in manufacturing, the coexistence of the factories and small workshops, the relationship between population and the consumer market, the regional nature of industry and economy.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
The Industrial Revolution, tradition, innovation, continuity, change, growth, constraint.
