By 1857, England does have a pronounced advantage in textile productivity. But over the period 1760 to 1810, the productivity gains were rather catching up to the most productive textile production in the world ... its only after the Napoleonic Wars are over that it pushes ahead into world-leading productivity in textiles (and mostly just in textiles ~ which is part of the reason why the US was able to pass the UK by the early 1900's).

And that advantage was not the result of just fate, it was the consequence of a series of policy regimes which each were effective for the conditions of their day, until they fell behind the times and were replaced. Neither the industrial protectionist policies nor the so-called "Free Trade" policies would have been as effective a part of the whole process of the establishment of British dominance in textile exports without the other.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.