The Evolution of Mass Production

Yet no one would say that Mesopotamia was capitalist, even though there were 13,200 weavers in its main city, Ur. In 15th-century Florence, over a third of the workforce produced wool for wages. The wool would be imported from England or Spain, and then sold all over Italy, the Balkans and the Levant, but no one has ever argued that the industrial revolution started in Florence.