English Explanatory Dictionary

Habakkuk thesis

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. The theory that land abundance and labor scarcity in the 19th-century United States led to high wages, which resulted in labor-saving technological innovations and the development of the American system of manufacturing based on the extensive use of machinery and interchangeable parts.

Word forms

Habakkuk thesis the Habakkuk thesis

Etymology

Proposed by John Habakkuk (1915–2002), British economic historian, in his work American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Labour-Saving Inventions (1962).

Synonyms

Habakkuk hypothesis Rothbarth-Habakkuk thesis
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