But the eighteenth century marked the beginning of the end of that. In 1733, the Englishman John Kay invented a weaving machine. It doubled the rate at which a textile worker could weave. But that didn’t just mean we started getting more textiles. Kay’s invention began a domino effect. It increased the demand for yarn. To keep up with the demand, we realized we needed to make a machine that could make more yarn. This then meant we needed a machine to get more cotton. Then a machine to make more machines. And on and on. One machine would increase the productivity of one industry so much that it
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