Kicking Away the Ladder. Development Strategy in Historical Perspective

In relation to other competitor nations of Europe (and later the USA), Britain could not use the blatant measures mentioned above in order to pull away. Rather, it concentrated mainly on preventing the outflow of its superior technologies, although such measures were not always effective.[222]

Until the mid-nineteenth century, when the machinery came to embody key technologies, the most important means of technological transfer was the movement of skilled workers, in whom most technological knowledge was then embodied. As a result, the less advanced countries tried to recruit skilled workers from the more advanced countries, especially from Britain, and also to bring back nationals who were employed in establishments in these countries. This was often done through a concerted effort orchestrated and endorsed by their governments – while the governments of the more advanced countries tried their best to prevent such migration.

As mentioned above (section 2.2.4), it was thanks to France’s, and other European countries’, attempts to recruit skilled workers on a large scale that in 1719 Britain was finally galvanized into introducing a ban on the emigration of skilled workers, particularly on ‘suborning’, or attempting to recruit such workers for jobs abroad. According to this law, suborning was punishable through fine or even imprisonment. Emigrant workers who did not return home within six months of being warned to do so by an accredited British official (usually a diplomat stationed abroad) would in effect lose their right to lands arid goods in Britain and have their citizenship withdrawn. The law specifically mentioned industries such as wool, steel, iron, brass and other metals, as well as watchmaking; in practice, however, it covered all industries.[223] The ban on the emigration of skilled labour and suborning lasted until 1825.[224]

Subsequently, as increasing amounts of technologies became embodied in machines, machine exports came under government control. In 1750, Britain introduced a new act banning the export of ‘tools and utensils’ in wool and silk industries, while strengthening the punishments for suborning skilled workers. This ban was widened and strengthened through subsequent legislations. In 1774, another act was introduced to control machine exports in the cotton and linen industries. In 1781, the 1774 Act was revised and the wording ‘tools and utensils’ changed to ‘any machine, engine, tool, press, paper, utensil or implement whatsoever’, reflecting the increasing mechanization of the industries. In 1785, the Tools Act was introduced in order to ban exports of many different types of machinery, which also included a ban on suborning. This ban was loosened in 1828 under the President of the Board of Trade William Huskisson, a prominent free-trader, and finally abolished in 1842.[225]

Up until the seventeenth century, when it was one of world’s technological leaders, the Netherlands took an extremely open attitude towards foreigners’ access to its technologies. However, with its technological edge constantly being eroded, its attitude, both at the firm and government levels, changed, and in 1751 the government finally introduced a law prohibiting the export of machinery and the emigration of skilled workers. Unfortunately, the law was much less successful than Britain’s, and the outflow of skilled workers and machinery continued.[226]

In the face of these measures to prevent technology outflows by the advanced countries, the less developed ones deployed all sorts of ‘illegitimate’ means to gain access to advanced technologies. The entrepreneurs and the technicians of these countries, often with explicit state consent or even active encouragement by their governments (including offers of bounty for securing specific technologies), were routinely engaged in industrial espionage.[227] Landes, Harris and Bruland, among others, document an extensive range of industrial espionage directed at Britain by countries such as France, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium.[228] Many states also organized and/or backed the recruitment of workers from Britain and other more advanced countries. France’s attempt under John Law (see section 2.2.4) and Prussia’s attempt under Frederick the Great (see section 2.2.3) are just some of the better known examples.