> Their implicit claim is that, other than in mid-eighteenth century Britain, save for a few short-lived cases, choosing innovation was simply just not worth it.

When I studied the industrial revolution at university, in a course on international trade, we began with the questions of why it occurred where it did, when it did.

Short answer: a series of strong agricultural decades created a surplus large enough to allow a pool of Labor to mobilise away from agriculture, which hitherto had occupied 98% of the workforce.

It’s not that those 98% of workers weren’t as imaginative and innovative as, for example, the people YCombinator funds today. It’s just that being serfs limited their opportunities for expression.