Abstract
The modern electric utility that triggered the third technological revolution in 1882 was inaugurated in New York, United States – indication of hegemonic transition. Hausman et al. (Global electrification: multinational enterprise and international finance in the history of light and power, 1878–2007. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008) show that expansionary forces related to electricity involved multinational companies, agents of initial electrification of peripheric regions. Electrification presented new challenges to peripheric countries: given its science-based nature, assimilation required new institutions, such as higher education schools – for electrical engineers –; and, considering the capital-intensity of the needed investments, larger financial resources. The answer to these challenges depended on political conditions, that once improved led to larger involvement of domestic resources of India, China, Russia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. Chapter 5 evaluates how the interactions between a new form of expansionary force – multinational companies – and political changes at the periphery – Independence, elements of economic planning, industrial policies – led to different intensities of spread of electrification. The uneven arrival and spread of electrification at the periphery added another level of different overlap** among the various technological revolutions – in some regions the first textile plant was electric – and a new phenomenon – the superposition of backwardnesses.
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Notes
- 1.
This starting point is different from Perez’ scheme – her choice is the “The Carnegie Bessemer Steel Plant, in Pittsburg, United States” (2010, p. 190). However, a dialogue with Perez’ elaboration is preserved, as she defines the “popular name for the period” as the “Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy Engineering” – and in Freeman and Perez (1988, p. 51) this phase is the “Electrical and heavy engineering Kondratieff”. Furthermore, for Freeman and Louçã (2001, p. 222) electricity is the “leading sector” of this third long wave – and they choose “Edison’s Pearl St. New York Electric Power Station (1882)” as an example of highly visible, technical successful, and profitable innovation”. The role of electricity in this third long cycle was highlighted by Kondratiev (1926, p. 40) and by Schumpeter (1939, p. 397) – For Schumpeter, “[i]n the same sense in which it is possible to associate the second Kondratieff with railroads, and with the same qualification, the third can be associated with electricity” (p. 397).
- 2.
For Schumpeter (1939, p. 395), 1882 is the reference year for the beginning of this long cycle, associating it with three Edison’s stations: besides Pearl St. Power Station, there were also a hydroelectric station in Appleton and a thermoelectric in Chicago. Devine (1983, p. 354) also identifies 1882 as the year when electricity was “marketed as a commodity”. Hughes (1993, p. 42) describes this inauguration on 4 September 1882.
- 3.
Kondratiev (1926, p. 40) introduces the third long cycle stressing its connection with scientific progress since the 1870s – “a period of significant inventions in engineering, and, in particular, in electrical engineering”. Kondratiev lists inventions spanning from 1875 to 1898. Among them, there were “Gramme’s DC dynamo (1875)”, “the drilling machine (1875)”, “the gas engine (1875)”, “DC power transmission (1877)”, “the electric telephone (1877)”, “Thomas method for producing steel (1878)”, “Westinghouse air brake (1879)”, “Siemens electric locomotive (1878)”, “the electric railway (1880)”, “transformers (1882)”, “petrol engines (1885)”, “AC power transmission (1891)”, “wireless telegraphy (1893)”. This long list brings inventions related to previous technological revolution – Westinghouse air brake, electric locomotives, wireless telegraphy – and with the next technological revolution – petrol engines”. In this phase Kondratiev highlight the inclusion of countries with a “young culture” such as Australia, Argentina, Chile, and Canada in the global economy (p. 41).
- 4.
Hughes (1993, p. 41) explains that “[t]he electrical network is, after all, the essence of the system. Edison’s ultimate objective was to introduce the central-station supply”.
- 5.
Garcke (1897, p. v) includes “telegraph” in a Table showing the “total registered nominal capital of the various classes of electrical companies registered in each year since 1856” in the United Kingdom – there are other five “electrical classes” listed there. The electrical class “manufacturing” only in 1871 has its first capital registered. “Electrical lighting” and “telephone” appear in 1878 and “traction” in 1885. Garcke’s Manual of Electric Undertakings suggests that telegraph was an old sector in the new electricity industry.
- 6.
This is an expression of changes related to an “increasingly scientific character of technology” (Freeman & Soete, 1997, p. 9). This change had two implications for assimilatory forces need to spread this technology to peripheric regions: first, a reduction in the “ease of learning”, second, the need of more specialized education through Engineering Education – the first department to teach the new discipline of Electrical Engineering was created in 1882 in MIT, United States (Hughes, 1993, p. 145).
- 7.
Freeman and Soete (1997, p. 5, p. 10) locate in the 1870s and in the electrical (and chemical) sectors the creation of the institutional innovation represented by the modern Research and Development laboratory.
- 8.
Hughes (1993, p. 41) shows in a figure how The Edison Electric Light Company headed various different units: different The Edison Electric Illuminating Companies – for New York, Brooklyn, etc. –, The Edison Machine Works, The (Edison) Electric Tube Company, The Edison Lamp Works, The Thomas A. Edison Construction Department, and United Edison Manufacturing Company. All those firms were created between 1880 and 1889.
- 9.
Patent US 223,898.
- 10.
Patent US 222,881. David (1989) stresses the long development in dynamos technology necessary to reach an efficiency level high enough to become commercially feasible (p. 15) – the significant increase in that efficiency achieved by Edison’s invention is graphically described in David’s (1989) Figure 5 (“efficiency of electric generators”): from less than 50–90%.
- 11.
Patent US 248,422.
- 12.
Patent US 248,435.
- 13.
Chandler (1977, pp. 309–310) see those first-mover firms in electricity – Edison General Electric, Westinghouse and Thompson-Houston – as examples of companies that were in a business with fast technological development, that need integration between production and marketing, that had a salesforce with employees that knew “more about the technical nature of their equipment than did most of their customers” (p. 309) and they had to “finance new local central power stations in order to build the market for their machinery” (p. 310).
- 14.
Gordon (2016, pp. 115–122) discusses the impact of electricity in the US standard of living in a section intitled “the miracle of electrification: lighting and early appliances through 1940”.
- 15.
The first patent of a vacuum cleaner was filed in 1907, by James M. Spangler, Ohio (US 889,828).
- 16.
The first patent of a mechanical refrigerator was filed in 1913, by Fred W. Wolf, from The Mechanical Refrigerator Company, Chicago (US 1,106,605).
- 17.
The first patent of a washing machine was filed in 1908, by Alva J. Fisher, from the Hurley Machine Company, Chicago (US 966,677).
- 18.
Freeman and Louçã (2001, p. 261) mention a “post-1921 investment in electric power”.
- 19.
One example of the impact of electricity on factory productivity is the assembly line, introduced by Ford in 1913 (Chandler, 1977, p. 280). Electricity was the driver of that process innovation, as the Highland Park factory, opened in 1910, had a power plant that “consisted of a three thousand-horsepower gas engine, which turned direct current generating equipment. Power was distributed through the factory by electric motors, which drove units of line shafting and belting” (Hounshell, 1984, pp. 228). This is an example of a phase in the process of lagged increase in productivity: new factories and new industrial plants designed to take a fuller advantage of electrification (David, 1989, p. 25; 1990, p. 358).
- 20.
Marx excerpted this book (Paula et al., 2020).
- 21.
Hausman et al. (2008, p. 77), reporting this very early international perspective, list between 1880 and 1883 a variety of “Edison Companies” organized “for business outside the United States”: there were companies for Europe, Cuba and Porto Rico, Spain and Spanish Colonies, England, France, a company for the British Empire, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Argentina. Garcke (1896) reports that in 1883 an Edison and Swan United Electric Company Limited was registered in the United Kingdom (p. 319) and a Manchester Edison-Swan Company Limited, registered in 1882, formed under an agreement with the Edison Electric Light Company Limited, “called Parent Company” (p. 333). Garcke (1897) informs that in 1889 was registered a Westinghouse Electric Company Limited (p. 431).
- 22.
Multinationals acting in the electricity sector are “market-seekers” (Dunning & Lundan, 2008, pp. 69–71). But they were market-seekers in a very peculiar way, as at the center some subsidiaries were built, while at the periphery those more mediated forms took place: investments in electric utilities were important to push their exports to those countries. This mediated form may be the reason for American & Foreign Power – an international firm initially part of the global structure of General Electric (Hausman et al., 2008, p. 145) – becoming the “largest multinational enterprise in public utilities” by 1929 (Hausman et al., 2008, p. 185). Although the former was a spun-off company from General Electric after 1925, these two companies retained their “‘network’ relationship”, a relationship strong enough to sell its equipment to utilities managed by the American & Foreign Power (p. 182).
- 23.
This precocity of multinational firms related to electricity could be indicated by the classic elaboration from Hymer (1970) that associates modern multinationals with “the new international economy created by the aeronautical and electronics revolution” (p. 443). This precocity is also in Freeman’s (1987, p. 70) scheme, which identifies “multinational corporations” as typical “organization of firms” (his column 7) only in the fourth long wave – with an “upswing” in the 1930s.
- 24.
Mira Wilkins led the elaboration of this chapter of Hausman et al. (2008, p. 35). Wilkins is a scholar on multinational firms, thus her reflections on the specificities of multinational investments in this sector are well grounded.
- 25.
There is a dual relationship between the manufacturer and the electric supplier: on the one hand, the supplier acquired equipment from the manufacturers, on the other hand, the electric supplier provided to firms and homes access to energy necessary to use their electric goods (Hausman et al., 2008, p. 43). Manufacturer satellites are those firms involved, directly or indirectly in electric generation abroad (p. 44). Examples are firms like General Electric, Siemens, AEG, “stimulating the establishment of foreign public utilities” (p. 92).
- 26.
Given how capital intensive this sector is, investments abroad always had banks involved (Hausman et al., 2008, p. 46).
- 27.
This “international structure”, an association between multinational investments in “plantations, mining or oil drilling” and “some kind of power facilities”, is a form that “introduced electrification in diverse areas around the globe, from Europe to Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and North America” (Hausman et al., 2008, pp. 50–51). In this form, electricity production follows the economic activity (p. 89).
- 28.
As new sectors emerged as more energy-intensive – aluminum production, pulp and paper – this form is different from the enclave form because its location is based on potential for cheap energy – the economic activity follows the location of electricity. After 1945, according to Hausman et al. (2008, p. 52), this is the case of foreign aluminum production in West Africa, a stimulant for the “development of power resources”
- 29.
Important form for initial spread of electrification around the globe (Hausman et al., 2008, p. 52). In Latin America, examples are firms that delivered electricity to Santiago and Buenos Aires (p. 99).
- 30.
Many firms in the enclave form or operating electric utilities began as free standing companies (Hausman et al., 2008, p. 56). In India, there were free standing companies in Bombay, Calcutta and Delhi (p. 123). Mexico is an example of relationships between different operating foreign-owned operating companies (p. 112).
- 31.
As before with gas and transport, concessions were operated by international firms.
- 32.
The process of “domestication” of electric utilities may be an indication of growing capabilities especially at the periphery, because it means that skills to run those companies were developed in those regions. And the management of those public utilities leads to further learning – a contribution to an increase in the general absorptive capabilities of countries and regions.
- 33.
The strength of exports from the United States, Germany and Switzerland as suppliers to Indian public electric companies is shown by Speyer (1913, pp. 598–599). Evidence of how firms from the United States were aiming to markets in the British Empire is the creation, in England, already in 1882, of the Edison’s Indian and Colonial Electric Company, Ltd. (Hausman et al., 2008, p. 77).
- 34.
Headrick (1988, p. 329) mentions how in 1887 the Indian National Congress assumed a demand for technical education in India. Headrick lists different initiatives in India for local education and research, as the foundation of the National Council of Education in 1905 and the inauguration of the Indian Institute of Technology in 1911 (p. 335).
- 35.
Speyer (1913, p. 599) lists this project in his Table 1, inaugurated in 1911, with prime-movers coming from Switzerland and the electric generating plant from Germany and United States.
- 36.
- 37.
This “anemic beginning” of electricity in India coincides with the “new guaranteed period” for railway building (Headrick, 1988, p. 78). This coincidence might suggest that the British colonial power was focused in one technology (railways) and could not support electricity in the same way.
- 38.
Lanthier highlights that J. N. Tata was close to the Indian National Congress (p. 579).
- 39.
In this phase the Tata Group expands its involvement with hydroelectricity, creating a firm in 1929 with the participation of American & Foreign Power, that would survive until 1951 (Lanthier, 2016, p. 581).
- 40.
The colonial power contributed both for this heterogeneity and for the slow spread of electricity, as the case of a hydroelectric project in the Madras Presidency showed: the colonial Government of India did not sanction projects when initially proposed, thus it was implemented “only two decades after Mysore” (Kale, 2014b, p. 456).
- 41.
- 42.
Farnie (2004, p. 425) describes an interesting illustration of superposition of different technological eras, as “small-scale power-loom manufacturers” benefited from “large-scale electrification of the villages” during the second five-year plan. These manufacturers used “small scale electric motors to supply power to their looms” (p. 425). In 1997 there were 1.7 million power looms in India – three times the number of Liverpool power looms “at the height of its productive capacity in 1915” (p. 426).
- 43.
The history of this firm is a guide of political changes in China. It was founded with resources raised by Robert Little, a “former chairman of Shanghai Municipal Council” (Tan, 2021, p. 21) – a “British-controlled municipal council” (p. 23). Reincorporated in 1888, it was acquired by the Shanghai Municipal Council in 1893 (p. 22). In 1929 it was sold to American & Foreign Power – part of General Electric Corporation (Hausman et al., 2008, pp. 184–185) and renamed Shanghai Power Company (Tan, p. 32). After Pearl Harbor, December 1941, it was placed “under Japanese military administration” (Tan, 2021, p. 76; Hausman et al., 2008, p. 228). After 1945 its control returned to foreign ownership (Tan, 2021, p. 139, p. 144). During the Civil War there were disputes within it in 1948 (p. 148), and it was bombed by Nationalist forces on 6 February 1950 (Tan, 2021, p. 165). After the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, it was nationalized on 18 December 1950 (Tan, 2021, p. 167).
- 44.
- 45.
Lundquist (1918) presents an overall view of China before 1918: “not more than 90 to 95 cities and towns have electric service”, with some cities with several plants (Bei**g, Shanghai, Hankow and Tientsin) (p. 37). Among the installed electric stations, few “for power purposes, mainly by mining and manufacturing companies, as well as three street-railway systems” (p. 38).
- 46.
Imports of electrical goods were the main source of technology transfer before the First World War. According to Lundquist (1918, p. 35), in 1914 the main suppliers of those goods were the British Empire (43.7%), Germany (23.4%), Japan (13.8%), United States (4.8%) and Belgium (3.7%).
- 47.
Feuerwerker (1983, p. 60) presents data on the participation of foreign ownership in electricity production: it was 77% in 1923 and 55% in 1936.
- 48.
According to Tan (2021, p. 89), before 1937 “almost all power generation and transmission equipment had to be imported – even basic components like wires”. “On the eve of Japanese invasion”, those imports were coming from Germany (34.08%), Japan (32.40%) and Britain (15.19%) (p. 90).
- 49.
- 50.
In a connection with railways building, Siemens & Halske “had entered Russia in 1853 to construct telegraph lines for the state” (Coopersmith, 1992, p. 48).
- 51.
Those two features – relatively late arrival of electricity and its slow spread – put forward by Coopersmith (1992, p. 45) are structural characteristics of diffusion of new technologies to the periphery. In the case of electricity, as a more complete picture of the periphery emerges, Russia is a region with smaller time lag and larger diffusion vis-à-vis other regions (see Table 5.3, discussed in the last section of this chapter).
- 52.
Electrical engineering in Russia before 1917 laid down roots that connect this technological revolution to the fifth – related to electronic computers. As Chap. 7 shows, Sergei Lebedev – the leader of the development of the first Russian electronic computer – entered in 1921 “the Electrical Engineering Department of the Moscow Higher Technical School” (Crowe & Goodman, 1994, p. 4).
- 53.
According to data available in Etemad and Luciani (1991, p. 164), a growth from 482 million kwh in 1905 to 1945 million kwh in 1913.
- 54.
Another growth phase, from 1945 million kwh in 1913 to 2575 million kwh in 1916 (Etemad et al., 1991, p. 164).
- 55.
The impact of Civil War is expressed in a fall of electricity consumption to 200 million kwh in 1920 (Etemad & Luciani, 1991, p. 164).
- 56.
Recovery years, starting from 520 million kwh in 1921; reaching 1146 million kwh in 1923 and the level of 1916 in 1925: 2925 million kwh; and later growing to 3507 million kwh in 1926; and 4205 million kwh in 1927 (Etemad & Luciani, 1991, p. 164).
- 57.
For example, “large turbogenerators powering first-tier utilities” were foreign (Coopersmith, 1992, p. 103).
- 58.
Coopersmith (1992, p. 104) evaluates that domestic production “failed to meet demand”.
- 59.
Hausman et al. (2008, p. 131) reports this “Russian shock”: “when the war began, takeovers of enemy German properties in Russia occurred early, first undertaken by city councils, then by tsarist officials “.
- 60.
“In 1920, electrification replaced the railroad as the state technology” (Coopersmith, 1992, p. 16).
- 61.
“By 1921, the GOELRO plan had become the basis for the formation of the far better now State General Planning Commission (GOSPLAN) and a model of centralized state planning and development” (Cummins, 1988, p. 1).
- 62.
- 63.
As an element for understanding that lock-in with steam locomotives discussed in Chap. 4, railway electrification was part of GOELRO plans – Coopersmith (1992, p. 158) shows a “section on railroad electrification”, led by Graftio, in its structure, but through his book he notes how that priority fizzled (p. 188, p. 200, p. 214).
- 64.
A good example of this precious documentation work organized by Sutton is his Table 11-1 (1968, p. 187), for 1922–1930, that lists agreements between “trusts formed from prerevolutionary plants” and “new Soviet undertakings” with “foreign companies”: “Electroexploatsia” has an agreement with International General Electric.
- 65.
An illustration of this process is Electrosila (Sutton, 1968): a firm created in 1893 as Siemens-Schukert A-G (p. 191), transformed in Electrosila in 1922, a firm with cooperation with AEG, Metropolitan-Vickers and International General Electric (pp. 191–192), it received “groups of GE engineers” (p. 198), supplied equipment for at least three GOELRO projects (p. 204). Later, this firm supplied electric generators for the Aswan Hydroelectric, in Egypt (Power Technology, 2021).
- 66.
After the collapse of the USSR there are new investigations on archives that were opened and became available. Markevich (2005) and Gregory and Harrison (2005) are articles that show the real operation of planning. Gregory and Harrison (2005, p. 754) identify “resource allocation by intervention rather than by plan”.
- 67.
- 68.
The formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 as a British Dominion led to a government that had “electricity and railway expansion” as priorities (Showers, 2011, p. 206).
- 69.
Sopa and Fernandes (n.d.) suggest a relationship between this dam and a colonial project for a textile industry in the region – Sociedade Algodoeira de Fomento Colonial.
- 70.
In 2019, the population with access to electricity was 85% in South Africa, 55.4% in Nigeria, and 29.6% in Mozambique (World Bank, 2023).
- 71.
A project prepared by the firm Max Nothman & Co and the equipment supplied by Westinghouse (Magalhães, 2000, p. 48).
- 72.
See Bulmer-Thomas (2003, p. 130), for data for 1910.
- 73.
While foreign ownership was very important in this first period of electrification in Latin America, some local initiative took place. Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil illustrate this, because in those countries foreign control was not 100% – at least 10% of local participation can be identified in the data from Hausman et al. (2008, pp. 32–33).
- 74.
In the Brazilian case, there might have been a process of electrification that initially followed existing industries – illustrated by the first hydroelectric plant in Juiz de Fora – but later the availability of electric power influenced the location of industrial activities.
- 75.
Multinational companies are learning machines, an indication of how the leading regions may assimilate information, knowledge, and technologies from the rest of the world, including the periphery, since then.
- 76.
Although in India the lag in electricity – 17 years – is shorter than in railways – 24 years.
- 77.
- 78.
The income gaps with the United Kingdom were in 1820 as follows: India 0.312; China 0.352; former USSR 0.403; South Africa 0.243; Mexico 0.234; Brazil 0.379. The income gaps with the United States in 1870 were: India 0.218; China 0.218; USSR 0.38; South Africa 0.351; Brazil 0.292; Mexico 0.276. The income gaps with the United States became in 1937 as follows: India 0.105; China 0.096; former USSR 0.335; South Africa 0.302 (in 1913) or 0.265 (in 1950); Mexico 0.279; Brazil 0.194.
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da Motta e Albuquerque, E. (2023). Electrifying an Existing International Division of Labor: The Emergence of Multinational Firms in a Science-Based Technology – 1882–1937. In: Technological Revolutions and the Periphery. Contributions to Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43436-5_5
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