Industrialization, Urbanization and Centralization

Due to various changes, some having to do with farm technology and transport, a much smaller portion of the population was needed for food production and distribution. A particular farmer could easily end up with a small farm without the resources to support a multi-generational home. His kids would need to find their own way.

This excess labor force was not qualified artisans, but unqualified general laborers who could be taught to operate machinery or do other production work. They could move to industrial areas, so countries tended to urbanize rapidly during this industrial revolution.

Farmers tend to have an economic need for children. Industrial laborers usually have little short-term need for children, particularly if children are kept out of money-earning work through new child labor laws. This lack of a strong economic reason to have children has helped to drop birth rates dramatically. Ancient Rome suffered a similar fate as its population urbanized, even though it did not industrialize in the same way as modern nations.

At first, the industrializing and industrialized countries ended up with major advantages over their neighbors:

a. Longer living and healthier populations (due to improved medical and other conditions, such as sanitation) also helped to create larger productive populations

b. The more efficient food production and distribution left plenty of excess labor to drive the economy which brought in more funds for the government, which could and partly was spent upon creating powerful and efficient military forces.

The countries then, during the colonial period, found it relatively easy to dominate the world, and easy to believe themselves superior.

The rise of Asian countries such as Japan in the very early 20th century showed that the superiority of the industrialized world was more a matter of having an orderly and industrious population and a willingness to follow the industrialization plan. Japan easily had all of that and more (for example, Japan also began with a very high literacy rate).

China in particular is now following this model.