Did Industrial Revolution economic systems rely on colonies?
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Robert B. Marks in his The Origins of the Modern World: a Global and Environmental Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century
He describes how England started to import cotton cloth (callicoe) from India in the second half of 17 century until they by 1700 was dependent on them. 130 years later India (due to the navigation laws) imported cheap cloth from England and exported cotton. This because british cotton cloth was cheaper than locally spun and woven. Year 1700 a Indian cotton picker or weaver had a great advantage compared with anyone else: far lower living costs. This because foodstuffs was far cheaper because at average indian agriculture was twice as effective as european.
Multiple things happened:
- Whitney's gin which meant that cheaply produced North-American cotton became usable
- steam powered spinning mills (and weaveries)
- a newly created world market for cotton cloth
- which was captured by the British industry
Marks also argues that the colonies (North America, Australia and India) was necessary as sources of raw materials and foodstuffs to England. This allowed England to become independent of its own agriculture, convert England's agriculture into more profitable areas there a far smaller work force was needed. This workforce were by the new poor laws of the early 19th century (after 1815) forced to leave their old villages and neighborhood for the industrialising cities.
One of the reasons for the rush to Africa from 1870 was competition. Before this time England was the dominant industrialized country, and they were able to compete both in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Marks mention that in 1870 Great Britain had a share of 33 percent of world output. Some numbers which is available concerns export which for the US due to the speed by it's internal market grew is less definitive than it seems to be.
The industrialization in America and Europe meant that the competition in Europe and elsewhere between producers became more intensive.
Nationalism could be funneled into making your population accept the necessary outlays to acquire and improve colonies in Africa under the pretext what it would be profitable to acquire and bound colonies to the homeland. The colonies would become customers which couldn't argue about prices on import and export.
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