A machine gets installed when it is cheaper than the workers it replaces — which depends on what labour costs, what fuel costs, and whether the surrounding society can finance, feed, move and sell the output. Set the dials, switch the preconditions on and off, and see whether your economy takes off. Then look at the second panel, because the take-off has a bill and somebody paid it.
The two prices that decide everything
high
cheap — hand work is finedear — machines look attractive
very cheap
cheap — coal underfootdear — wood, or coal far away
The five preconditions
Britain, c.1780. High wages by European standards, coal almost free at the pit-head, and every institutional box ticked. Robert Allen's argument in one screen: it was not that Britons were cleverer, it was that in Britain the machine paid.
Does it pay to install the machine?
0take-off score out of 100
Incentive to mechanise0
Capacity to scale it up0
The bill for the take-off
Life expectancy at birth in the new town40 yrs
25,000
Manchester's population on this path (25,000 in 1772)
2.5m lb
raw cotton consumed per year (2.5m lb in 1760)
Now switch the reforms on. Each one is real, dated, and was fought for.