A Tale of Two Mills

Since the 1950s, historians have sought to explain industrial modernization in Meiji Japan as a model for developing countries. They typically attribute Japan's success to single factors such as accumulated knowledge or capital, visionary leadership, or technological choice. This article moves beyond mono-causality to examine technology transfer's role in industrial modernization. Tomioka Silk Filature and Osaka Cotton Spinning Mill make the case that components of industrialization were interrelated and a new socio-technological system was essential for technology transfer to affect a Kuhnian-style paradigm shift. Tomioka is an example of ad hoc industrialization, the gradual integration of transferred technologies, and creation of associated regimes leading to a new socio-technological system. In contrast, Osaka Cotton Mill embodies the creation of a new industrial paradigm for Japanese industry, demonstrating the essentiality of integrating numerous socio-technological elements such as adapted artifacts, bio-materials, accumulated knowledge, factory management, and geographic location

Economic geography · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Economy · Factory (object-oriented programming) · Geography · Industrial Revolution · Industrialisation · Market economy · Meiji period · Mill · Modernization theory · Political science · Technological change · Chinese history and philosophy · Computer Science · Engineering · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Mechanical Engineering