Comment by aerhardt

To add, I don’t think my ancestor Spaniards for example needed the help of machines to deplete mines in America. They also came already equipped with all kinds of legal systems, including the Requerimiento, which they read out loud to natives in preposterous spectacle.

In general the transition from feudalism to capitalism, including the formation of the legal systems that supported the latter, happened gradually for maybe up to four or five centuries before the steam engine had been invented.

Sure, the Industrial Revolution further accelerated the development of property rights, mercantile, and civil laws, but all in all I don’t think there’s much truth that machines were the primary cause of such developments.