Nobel-prize-winning economist Douglas C. North, whose theory of "new institutionalism" presented an alternative to the Marxist class theory and created a mainstream viewpoint of economic history, contended that after the industrial revolution, the factor most influencing human economic behavior has not been technological innovations in themselves, but rather the unstoppably powerful trend of technological invention and its increasingly rapid rate of growth.
在以「制度論」打破馬克思「階級說」而成為今日經濟史觀主流的九三年諾貝爾經濟學獎得主諾斯的學說中，認為在產業革命後影響人類經濟行為的因素已不只是不斷推陳出新的技術改革本身，而是這個沛然莫之能禦的技術創新的趨勢和其累積成的重力加速度的成長。