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Jeff argues that population growth was the first mover in creating the 
Industrial Revolution.  In contrast, Salaman [Salaman, Redcliffe N. 1949. 
The History and Social Influence of the Potato (Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press).] makes the case that it was the potato. 
 
I could just as well propose that it was the breakdown in social relations 
that led to the first burst of population growth. 
 
As a point of clarification, I did not suggest, nor do I believe that 
permitted accumulation caused the Industrial Revolution; so, Jeff's post 
does not contradict anything that I had written. 
 
I will not reply to most of Tony's latest note since it merely repeats what 
he has written before.  My answers would then merely echo the previous 
responses.  He believes that the classical political economists would not 
or could not let ideological concerns shape their writings. 
 
Tony, who has not read my book, is probably not aware that, while they did 
not discuss the Game Laws directly, they did frequently express concern 
with shaping the labor force in the countryside.  Perhaps the most blatant 
example of Ricardo, who wrote about the problem of cheap food in Ireland, 
which allowed workers to resist participating in the waged-labor force. 
Instead, he asserts as a matter of faith that they were purely scientific 
in their endeavors. 
 
Tony make one new point, which he again asserts as a matter of faith: 
 
"The basic point is very simple -- a reduction in agricultural 
productivity would not increase the supply of wage labour by forcing 
people out of agriculture but reduce it by reducing output and marketed 
surplus and hence the ability to support the workforce." 
 
I would argue that what Tony denies as a possibility happened repeatedly 
throughout the colonial world, as well as in Britain during the period 
under discussion.  Tony would be logically correct under certain 
restrictive conditions -- but they just did not hold at the time. 
 
Michael Perelman 
 
 
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