Much of the writing about the industrial revolution is, explicitly or implicitly, about primacy in causation. Was it primarily a demand or a supply side phenomenon; was accelerating population growth a result of economic change or one of its causes; if technological change was the key variable, was it a result of enlightenment science or of opportunity, trial, and error on the part of individuals largely ignorant of the new ‘scientific’ approach to the understanding of physical and chemical behaviour and problems? The list could be greatly extended. Much of interest has emerged from debates of this type but it is arguable that attempts to establish a hierarchy of causation are less fruitful than examination of the nature of the feedback between the components of change.

The concept has a general relevance. The view of the classical economists was that the dominant character of the growth process was ultimately negative feedback. Adam Smith used the characteristic spread in interest rates among the countries of western Europe to bring home the problem. Since the opportunities for profitable investment, though substantial, were necessarily limited, the return on capital which could be achieved was gradually reduced as the better prospects became exhausted. The more developed an economy, the more prominent the problem. The Netherlands was, in his view, the most advanced economy of the day.