Socialists of the Nineteenth Century didn't necessarily see the Industrial Revolution as a bad thing; indeed, they were to some extent inspired by it to try to go capitalism even one better. But today many schoolchildren are taught to deplore capitalism's Industrial Revolution. For example, most schoolbooks, though they are usually careful not to come right out and say the poor got poorer, nevetheless go out of their way to leave that impression.

Let's take the bull by the horns. If the Industrial Revolution made the workers poorer, then why did the population explode? Economic historians like Gregory Clark and Joel Mokyr have shown the Industrial Revolution actually made the poor richer, not poorer.

Anti-capitalists try to explain away the unprecedented economic boom of the Industrial Revolution by attributing it to slavery and/or colonial exploitation. Their zero-sum worldview suggests to them that the West must have prospered at the expense of the rest of the world.

But if slavery and/or colonial exploitation was really the cause of this unprecedented boom, then why did Switzerland, Poland, Austria, and the Scandinavian countries—without slaves or colonies—do so well?

If slavery was the cause of the boom, why was the US North so much richer and more developed than the US South? Brazil had more slavery, and kept it much longer, so why did it fall even further behind?

If capitalism and/or colonialization made the third world poorer, then why should we find that wretched Haiti is the poorest country in Western hemisphere? They threw off colonial rule the same time we did. They’ve always been less colonial (and less free market capitalist) than the rest of the Third World. And yet Haiti is even worse off.

Why didn’t being an exploited colony make the US poor?

If capitalism and/or colonialization made the poor poorer, why is Zimabawe (after doing everything possible to overthrow capitalism, institute social justice, and undo colonialization) now a nightmare land of famine and plague? Why has Africa in general suffered such impoverishment since de-colonialization? Why do the most de-colonialized and leftist African states become ones where people starve to death?

India threw off colonial rule, but then were extremely poor. Now, finally, beginning to throw off leftist economics has begun to turn things around. China was but little colonized, and has never enjoyed a free market, and has enjoyed an almost uninterrupted history of complete poverty.

Does anybody pretend third world countries were prosperous, or free, before colonialism? Let’s remember smallpox, which wiped out most of the Amerindians before 1500, can be blamed on colonialism, but not on capitalism. Classical liberals like John Locke and Adam Smith, with their laissez-faire capitalist ideology of Natural Liberty, were the ones who began the fight against the exploitative, mercantilist colonial system. They were the first to argue that everybody has an equal right to be free.

The evil side of colonialism (slavery, mercantilism) is too be regretted and condemned, but that side deserves no credit for the economic boom. What caused the boom was the concomitant rise of capitalism during the Industrial Revolution, and capitalism benefitted everybody, not just the West. The third world is not poor because of too much capitalism, but because of too little. Mercantilism was bad, but the solution was free trade. Free trade benefits all. It's perverse for the left to give slavery and mercantilism credit for the Industrial Revolution.

Capitalism's laissez-faire liberalism did not condone slavery, but condemned it to death. If exploitation and slavery deserve credit for the Industrial Revolution, then why didn't this revolution take place a thousand years earlier? Slavery and exploitation are as old as the hills. The Romans had excellent water-driven mills. The steam engine was invented in China, long before the 1800s. Why no Chinese Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution was caused by an explosion of capital accumulation, an accumulation of capital caused by the classical liberalism that really for the first time in history permitted it. This capital did not spontaneously grow out of the ground, nor fall from the sky.

Why is North Korea so much poorer than South Korea? Has there ever been a single famine, in a place where laissez-faire capitalism reigned? Why was East Germany so much poorer than West Germany? Why were the workers of capitalist Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan so very much richer than in Red China, Communist North Korea, anti-capitalist Myanmar, and socialist North Vietnam? Why are pink Swedes, including all their benefits, now at a real standard of living below the average black American?

The anti-capitalist version of history doesn't fit the facts.

Here's a good video and a good book on this question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xeebU8Vh...

http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Econ...