If you want to know why the industrial revolution didn't break out in China, you must first understand what the industrial revolution is.
The industrial revolution is the real beginning of modern industrialization and the turning point of the transition from traditional agricultural society to modern industrial society. The industrial revolution is a great leap in human history. The industrial civilization it established became the terminator of the traditional agricultural civilization that lasted for thousands of years. It not only fundamentally improved social productivity and created huge social wealth, but also fundamentally changed all aspects of agricultural civilization and completed a major social transformation. Great changes have taken place in economy, politics, culture, spirit, social structure and people's way of life.
The industrial revolution and the fundamental changes in social structure are both external and internal. In fact, everything in industrial society is based on industrial mass production. On the one hand, the state has established an industrial system with high correlation and strict division of labor, and produced a large number of "free workers"-industrial workers (including blue-collar workers and white-collar workers). At the same time, industrialization requires practitioners to have higher academic qualifications, so the state has established a complete and systematic national education system to socialize education and vocational training. On the other hand, as a concentrated expression of the interests of large enterprises, the state is highly integrated with economic management, and its management ability and state power are greatly enhanced. As a result, the whole country and society are highly organized, just like a huge machine, generating formidable energy day and night.
Why did capitalism and modern science originate in Western Europe instead of China or other civilizations? This is the famous riddle of Needham. Needham's answer from the angle of scientific method is: China people don't know how to manage by numbers. This is a good criticism of China's Confucian academic tradition, which only attaches importance to morality but not to quantitative economic management.
But this is only one possible answer to the riddle of Needham. Another answer is given from the model of cultural competition: the resource limitation and conservative tendency of small-scale peasant economy in China hinder the division of labor and the diversified development of science and culture. China used to have a large population, but thought it was small, so one of the first tasks established by various dynasties was to encourage childbearing; There are few people in western Europe, but they think the living space is narrow and want to expand outward. This question has to make people think deeply about why. First, the resource factor. China is mountainous, vast and sparsely populated, and the ecological constraints of semi-arid climate urge China to develop agricultural technology that saves energy and consumes labor, instead of animal husbandry technology that expands resources and saves labor, which leads to periodic ecological crisis and chaotic control cycle, which hinders the development of division of labor. Second, cultural factors. From the cultural competition model, we can see that the adventurous spirit is conducive to diversification and innovation, and the tendency to avoid risks is conducive to stability and catching up. China's leading thoughts of Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism are all about avoiding risks and keeping our sanity. Third, the system complexity factor. The development of division of labor needs a stable environment. The emergence of modern science and capitalism is not an extension of a single problem, but the result of the conflict and evolution of various civilizations. China is facing the deterioration of ecological crisis caused by a single small-scale peasant economy. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the period of natural disasters has been shortened, peasant uprisings and foreign invasions have continued, and the government's monetary and fiscal policies have been changeable, which is not conducive to maintaining the division of labor.
Many people have their own opinions on this issue. One view holds that the reasons for the backwardness of modern science and technology in China are as follows: First, the social division of labor caused by the small-scale peasant economy is insufficient.
Second, China people lack the spirit of adventure.
But we know: first, western history developed from manor economy in western Europe, which is a more closed and self-sufficient form of small-scale peasant economy. The production of various commodities in a manor is almost all-inclusive, and the degree of self-sufficiency is the ultimate reason for the extreme decline of cities with commodity exchange and commodity economy functions in Western Europe since the Roman Empire in the Middle Ages, but this has not affected the final scientific and technological progress in Western Europe. Secondly, we know that there are many adventurous nations and countries in western history, especially Spain, which discovered the new continent, but Spain has not become a powerful country in science and technology.
In fact, the reason why Western Europe can take the lead in modern science and technology lies first in the rise of the European Renaissance, and secondly in the establishment of western democratic systems in various countries since Britain. The key is that the anti-authority consciousness of Protestantism and the independence and freedom consciousness of Catholicism have cultivated the democratic consciousness of modern westerners. So the progress of science and technology mainly lies not in things but in people, and in people's ideology.
Science and technology progress in negation of negation, which is a dialectical logical thinking process that distinguishes adults from children. The most important thing for a country to make progress in science and technology is to have the courage and ideology to oppose authority. However, Confucianism advocates and maintains the hierarchical system ideologically, and pursues the style of "ousting hundreds of schools and respecting Confucianism alone". Intellectuals in East Asia, including China, are deeply influenced by Confucian ideology and culture, blindly pursuing "face" and rank recognition, unwilling to admit academic mistakes, blindly believing in authority, and lacking anti-authority consciousness, which makes it difficult for China people to make progress in modern and even modern science and technology. Of course, the courage of anti-authority and the establishment of ideology should be maintained and established by the democratic system, and the establishment of democratic system is a mutually promoting relationship relative to the formation of democratic consciousness. And the specific explanation of Needham's mystery, we can start from many aspects:
1, the continuous strengthening of centralized rule in feudal society has increasingly restricted science and technology.
2. Lack of sustainable development
Years of war and social unrest made it impossible for ancient China to maintain the continuity of scientific development. Make a lot of science and technology waste and loss.
3. Lack of patents and shares
Patents and shares can be a powerful driving force for the naming of ancient technologies. At the same time, patents and shares can also effectively protect and inherit technologies, or simple scientific images and concepts that have not yet been formed but are just embryonic forms, so that they can be further developed.
4. Lack of communication and transportation.
The self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy in China feudal society seriously hindered the development of science and technology in the late feudal society. At the end of the feudal era, China lacked communication with its external neighbors, making it difficult to transfer knowledge. In addition, our domestic traffic was very underdeveloped at that time. Even though some people are doing some research, they are always alone and cannot play a synergistic role in scientific development.
5. Unreasonable social structure, economic structure and knowledge structure
"The answers to all these questions (Needham question) must first be found in the social structure, intellectual structure and economic structure of different civilizations." Science is a knowledge system, and science is also a social system and a productive force. Marx and Engels investigated science in many aspects and at many levels, revealing the essence of science, especially initiating the research on the relationship between science and society. In Marx's view, the integration of science into the production process of large industries requires the conscious application of science, which has become a productive force and a revolutionary force that has played a driving role in history. Engels pointed out that science owes more to production than to production. The technological demand of society can promote the development of science more than ten universities.
6. Interpretation of the principle of entropy increase
In a closed system, the entropy is always increasing, that is, the degree of chaos is increasing. When the famous principle of entropy increase was put forward, some people tried to explain the Needham problem with the principle of physics, thinking that ancient China was basically a closed system, so the national society tended to be chaotic, which led to the origin of modern science not in China.
7. Lack of ancient Greek philosophy of science.
China didn't have perfect formal logic thought in ancient times, so it was difficult to produce strict theoretical weapons. Einstein wrote a letter to Stweetzer in San Mato, California in 1953: the development of western science is based on two great achievements, namely, the Greek philosopher invented the formal logic system and found that causality can be found through systematic experiments. We can know that in ancient China, there was no "formal logic system and finding causality through scientific experiments", so there was no modern science in ancient China, so all the technologies in ancient China could only be attributed to empirical technology, not science and technology. Therefore, it can be said that the discussion on Needham's problem involving China's ancient science and technology is not accurate enough. It should be said that these are the ancient experiences and technologies of China, and from the 2nd century BC to the 16th century AD, China's experience and technology are far ahead in the world. This is a perfection of the Needham problem itself.
8. Lack of innovative ideas to liberate ordinary workers.
The main feature of China's ancient civilization is technological invention. Most of the inventions were not purposefully created by the ancient government, so it was difficult to form an industry and a general direction. Most inventions come from ordinary people, and they are scattered, unable to be used centrally, unified planning, and unable to exert the power of inventions.
9. Superstition and backwardness and the idea of attaching importance to literature over technology hinder the development of science and technology.
Under the rule of the ancient feudal dynasty, we ordinary people generally had a certain degree of superstition, and the literati in the upper class also generally valued literature over technology, taking literature as their main business, and few people had time to sort out and study scientific problems like Shen Kuo.
10, cultural core differences between the two sides
Zhou Zheshui of Taiwan Province Province believes that the differences in cultural core between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits may have started in the cultural period with concrete thinking 10,000 years ago. At that time, human thinking in the East and West was similar to "figurative thinking". However, their ways of thinking have gone to different paths. As a result, the two sides built different cultural worlds at both ends of the old continent. Basically, the cultural elements of both sides are incompatible, so since the prehistoric primitive society, the East and the West have been in different cultural worlds with different directions.
1 1, the differences between eastern and western ways of thinking
Lin Hongwei believes that logical thought is the extremely important theoretical basis of the whole civilization and science.
(1) The oriental way of thinking usually does not pay attention to the rational research and systematic forging of thinking tools or means, but pays attention to the direct use of tools. Western thinking is different. Of course, they pay attention to the study of art, the study of thinking means and the use of other means, and pay more attention to the systematic forging of tools.
(2) The oriental way of thinking often shows strong utilitarianism in thinking activities, and seldom carries out boring pure theoretical research. It is too utilitarian and too closely combined with specific political and ethical views. The western way of thinking is the opposite.
(3) In the eastern way of thinking, we pay more attention to the simple summary of experience and the analogy of superficial similarity of things, while ignoring the exploration of deduction and causality. The western way of thinking is also the opposite. Both of them show the depth and height of different thinking levels.
(4) The oriental way of thinking, which has been controlled by feudal autocracy for a long time, often pays attention to the interpretation of the dominant ideas, but lacks the rational innovative spirit. Westerners' way of thinking shows more innovative spirit of breaking the rules, less fixed thinking based on authority, and more suspicion and challenge to authority.
Perhaps it is precisely because of this difference that new sciences emerge one after another in the West, while the East always imitates and learns behind the West.
From the perspective of science itself, the explanation is:
1, pure scientific vacuum and continuity destruction
2. The ancient civilization of China was characterized by craftsman civilization.
China's ancient technology is basically empirical technology, belonging to craftsman civilization, which has formed a strong inertia and become an insurmountable cultural form. Without the support of system theory and basic disciplines, it is difficult for folk inventions to develop into modern science.
3. The defect of science and technology structure restricts the development of science and technology in China.
In ancient China, science and technology overemphasized practicality, seldom conducted theoretical discussion and lacked a strict logical system, so the spread and development of science and technology were closed.
4. Compared with science and technology, experience and technology are seriously inadequate.
In Qian's view, science and technology are two completely different concepts and cannot be confused. Because science is closely related to the way of thinking, it has distinct cultural characteristics, while technology does not; Experience technology based on experience is quite different from science technology based on science in many aspects. The birth of modern science is the necessity of19th century. Because western technology combined with science has shown great power all over the world, it forces us in China to give up our traditional science and accept it completely.
So why did modern technology come into being in China, and why did China's technology, which has always been advanced, suddenly fall behind? Technology comes from two sources: experience and science. Western modern technology is a science based on empirical knowledge, and the combination between them is determined by their own essence. This is an inevitable trend. Since there is no science of empirical knowledge in modern China, there is certainly no technology based on it-science and technology. Since modern times, western science and technology is a kind of pre-existing technology, multi-generation technology, knowledge technology and mutation technology, so the development speed is accelerating. In this way, it has surpassed the slow-developing traditional experience technology in China in a short time.
5, the lack of mathematics
China did not mathematize nature in ancient times, but regarded mathematics as a utilitarian skill, not a subject. Without in-depth research, most of them stay on the surface of experience discovery and accumulation, and less use mathematics to study nature. Therefore, the study of nature in ancient China can only stay in qualitative analysis, or fabricate a theory that conforms to the organic world outlook out of thin air, and it is impossible to analyze things quantitatively.
6. Lack of two basic elements of science
Einstein once pointed out that the two foundations of modern science are formal logic system and finding causality through scientific experiments. In ancient China, this aspect was completely absent, so modern science would not have come into being in China at that time. In ancient Greece, Plato's student Aristotle invented formal logic such as syllogism, and Euclid invented European geometry, which was also based on formal logic. During the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci's famous saying "experiment is the mother of certainty" made everyone realize that they began to discover and verify causality by experiment. In the era of Galileo, the great Galileo combined the sharp tools of formal logic with experimental means, and finally created the precedent of modern science. On his basis, Newton later developed these two foundations and established the immortal Newton's classical mechanics.
In my opinion, what's more important is that China's innovation is basically personal and there is no standardization, so the industrial revolution didn't break out in China.