Practice question · Multiple choice
Pre-industrial economies used only energy from recent photosynthesis, muscle, wood, wind, water. Why did that single fact cap living standards?
Hints
- Every energy source on that list is grown or driven by sunlight falling on land. What limits it?
- Ask what happens to land per person when population doubles.
Show the answer
C. Because energy supply was bounded by land area
Why
Every source on the list is sunlight collected by area, so the economy's energy budget was the country's surface, and adding people divided a fixed pie. Coal broke the ceiling by drawing on photosynthesis stored for 300 million years, which is why the escape was energetic before it was technological.
Practise The Pre-industrial Economy
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More questions on The Pre-industrial Economy
- Organic or fossil-fuel economy?
- Match each pre-industrial concept to its definition.
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- Order the Malthusian cycle after a positive agricultural shock.
- In the Malthusian model, technological progress permanently raises income per capita.
- In pre-industrial Europe, roughly what percentage of the population worked in agriculture?
- Complete the Malthusian logic.