From the Industrial Park to the Global Village

#globaleconomy

 It is hard to determine the exact year when the Industrial Park became our cultural icon. 

Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash

Changes in agricultural methods made the production of food more efficient. Farmers in the Netherlands shared surpluses. These changes spread from the Netherlands to Britain. British farmers looked for ways to ship their surpluses to other kingdoms.

Plenty of coal, capital, and labor made Britain the ideal place for industry. Britain's harbors supported shipping by sea. Natural resources, money, tools, machinery, equipment, and inventory made production possible. Britain also had enough experienced workers to produce the products in demand. The British Isles and colonies overseas created a large demand for British goods. Britain also had one of the largest spheres of influence due to its massive navy and merchant marine.

The British government's support of commercial interests also contributed. The steam engine propelled steamboats and locomotives, making transportation much faster. From Great Britain, the Industrial Revolution expanded to Continental Europe and North America. By the start of the 20th Century, the Industrial Revolution was a global phenomenon.

 

The Textile Industry

The cotton industry was the first industry to use machinery. Businesses imported raw cotton and employed spinners and weavers to produce cloth in their homes. This was the earliest known version of WFH production. The spinning jenny, invented by James Hargreaves, produced eight times as much thread as a single spinning wheel. The WFH advantage ended when Richard Arkwright combined a spinning jenny with a water wheel. Arkwright opened a spinning mill which marked the beginning of the factory system. In 1785, Edmund Cartwright invented a loom powered by water. Working from home gave way to working in an Industrial Park.

Steam engines

In 1712, Thomas Newcomen produced the first successful steam engine, and in 1769, James Watt patented the modern steam engine. As a result, steam replaced water as industry's major power source.

The steam engine also powered steamboats and locomotives. This made transportation faster and more affordable. By the mid-19th century the Industrial Revolution had spread to Continental Europe and North America, and since then it has spread to most of the world.

Industrial Park Icon

 

An industrial park is a portion of a city that is zoned for industrial use rather than residential or commercial needs. Industrial parks may contain oil refineries, ports, warehouses, distribution centers, and factories. 

 

The Industrial Age gave birth to the Industrial Park culture. Mass production, broadcasting, electric power, modern medicine and running water improved the quality of human life and increased life expectancy worldwide during the 20th Century. This culture impacted every tenant of modern history including law, religion, medicine, and education. It was a global cultural icon by the start of the 20th Century. 

Transition to the Global Village 

The Global Village is the result of technical development and international cooperation that began in the Industrial Park of the 20th Century. It became a reality of life in the 21st Century. In his book, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan gave us this insight:

Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned.

Photo by George Bakos on Unsplash

McLuhan was a media and communication theorist. He coined the term “global village” in 1964. He foresaw the world's culture shrinking and expanding at the same time. In his view, television gave us the ability to share cultural experiences without having to travel. We could experience events from other parts of the world in real-time. That is what human experience was like when we lived in small villages.

He used the concept of a global village to consider its social effects. His insights were revolutionary. They framed our understanding of media, technology, and communications for decades.

Learning to Live in the Global Village 

The most important knowledge in the Industrial Park was how to earn a living. It did not matter how much you already knew or how much knowledge you could acquire in school. What mattered was the ability to earn a living. Since everyone had the same goal it was not hard to figure out where you could earn the best living. Both small and large businesses in the Industrial Park community were always on the lookout for people willing and able to earn a paycheck by operating machines or managing the workers who did so. This did not require much knowledge or complex reasoning--just physical strength, dexterity and a good work ethic. When mathematical or verbal skills were required, then a high school diploma was sufficient to gain access. The rest was conveyed On-The-Job by a Foreman or Supervisor who had learned the job the same way. In many cases, the company CEO had come up through the ranks this way.

It is not like that in the Global Village. Here, life is more about learning how to live, than learning how to earn a living. There are no bars to entry in the Global Village. Anyone is welcome to live here regardless of their mental acuity or physical dexterity. There is a global need for just about every skill and every cache of actionable knowledge that sustained the Industrial Park. However, this need is not concentrated in a local community nor is it actively acquired by designated business entities. For example, the ability to analyze data and annotate trends may not have much value on the streets of Bangladesh, but can buy a comfortable living using the World Wide Web.

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