Markets for goods, services and financial assets, as well as labour, would be upendedIllustration: Le.BLUE Jul 24th 2025|14 min readUNTIL 1700 the world economy did not really grow—it just stagnated. Over the previous 17 centuries global output had expanded by 0.1% a year on average, a rate at which it takes nearly a millennium for production to double. Then spinning jennies started whirring and steam engines began to puff. Global growth quintupled to 0.5% a year between 1700 and 1820. By the en...