What is the Fourth (and Fifth) Industrial Revolution?

Part 1: What makes technological innovations turn into industrial “revolutions”?

What is the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0)? And, hold on! Before you answer that, I just came across something called the Fifth Industrial Revolution (Industry 5.0)! It is worrying for me to note the callousness with which people tend to invent/reinvent/discover phrases and then use them in whatever way they want to. This reminds me of a famous quotation from Alice in Wonderland! “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

In this light essay, we shall try to look into the whole business of the industrial revolution. We shall discuss the meaning of Industry 4.0 and the most pertinent meaning of Industry 5.0.

What is an Industrial Revolution?

A Personal Story:

One fine day during my school years, our career counsellor teacher asked our class of 33 students about our aspirations. Being mostly from lower-middle-class backgrounds, all of us wanted to become doctors or engineers (except for one wacky friend of mine who wanted to be a photographer). Our teacher commented that a maximum of three of us could become what we aspire to be. Those were the statistics in those days for people who could earn as much as a doctor or an engineer. Fast forward twenty years, each of us is earning more than what a government-employed engineer earns. This miracle occurred because of the Digital Revolution or the Third Industrial Revolution. My generation has lived through it and we have experienced, first-hand, the enrichment that an industrial revolution can bring.

Story of a Bed!

Have a close look at the bed shown below. How comfortable do you think it is? Most people give it a score of 50–55%. Most middle-class families own beds more comfortable than this one. This was the bed of Emperor Franz Josef of the Austro-Hungarian empire. This was all that one of the most powerful men of his time could have in that era! The improved standard of living and technological innovations have resulted in such an enrichment that we all have a more comfortable sleep than the kings!

The Snowflake that Started this Avalanche of Enrichment:

From 1800 till 2000, just over two hundred years, the average income of a common household in Western Europe and North America has gone up by 30–35 times, that’s an unbelievable 3000%!

Funny enough, industries and technological innovations are not the main factors behind this great enrichment. As mellifluously explained by economic historian Prof. McClosky, scientific innovations have happened all throughout human history. There was some other serendipitous development that happened around the time when steam engines were finding their place in the British industries. Let us look at the chronology.

• Steam engines were invented in the late 18th century.
• The Factory Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1833.
• The Trade Union Legislation was in place by 1824.
• In 1807, the slave trade was made illegal in the British Empire.

The ideas of liberalism were brewing in the society in Western Europe and North America. That was the snowflake that metamorphosed some technological innovations into such impactful events that they were justifiably termed revolutions.

By this thesis, we should expect major ideological waves to accompany the other two industrial revolutions. Let us quickly revisit them.

• First Industrial Revolution (1IR): Main technological innovations: steam and steel; Ideological revolution: liberalism (trade unions, Factory Act etc.)
• Second Industrial Revolution (2IR): Main technological innovations: explosion in the number of innovations, electricity, IC engine, standardization of processes → mass production; Ideological revolution: individualism, rationalism
• Third Industrial Revolution (3IR): Main technological innovations: telecommunication, IT, computers; Ideological revolution: humanism, democracy (universal suffrage) and the export of freedom to most parts of the world

Though for the sake of convenience, we tend to look at them as three IRs, they are actually major waves that all started with the snowflake called liberalism.

Our story so far: We have, now, discussed that industrial revolutions are not just name-sake revolutions. They are literally revolutions in terms of the extraordinary enrichment they bring with them. We also discussed how technological innovations and political changes, though extremely crucial, are not, on their own, capable of creating the massive enrichment created by the previous industrial revolutions. Liberalism and its resulting ideological revolutions enabled industrial revolutions to create the kind of impact they have created in the past.