The Industrial Revolution

1
The Industrial Revolution

• Commerce and Imperial expansion (1815-1870)

2
What was the Industrial Revolution?

• The Industrial Revolution changed labour
  patterns, social structure, the function of the
  family and the values and attitudes of the
  individual. It involved more than simply
  technological expansion - it was driven by a
  massive social shift
• Pre 1750 Europe was agricultural. Aristocratic
  landowners leased their land to tenant farmers
  who paid for it with the goods which they
  produced.

3
The nature of the shift

• Non-agricultural items were created by individual
  families with specific skills (such as making
  wagon wheels).
• Many machines were already known, and there were
  factories using them, but these were the
  exceptions rather than the rule. Wood was the
  only fuel, water and wind the only power.
• In a single generation shift to a
  capitalist-based urban system.

4
New tech

• Pre 1800 new tech forced the development of
  FACTORY
• The steam engine. James Watt's steam engine,
  patented in 1769. Watt's 75 saving in fuel made
  the steam engine far more efficient and practical
  for industry.
• The Spinning Jenny, invented by James Hargreaves
  in 1797 allowed sixteen strands of cotton to be
  spun together at the same time doing the work
  of several labourers in a fraction of the time.
  The effect on cotton output was dramatic.
• The Cotton Gin, invented by American Eli Whitney
  in 1793 mechanised the separation of seeds from
  cotton fibres.

5
Economic changes

• The mercantile economy was also assisted by the
  ease and price of travelling around England.
• Trade thrived in England because there were no
  internal tariffs or duties on commerce, which was
  not true of the continental European states.
  Moving goods around cheaply meant that profits
  soared and industry thrived.
• The big railway boom between 1844 and 1847 meant
  that cargo could be transported around the
  company cheaply.

6
Why did Britain succeed ABROAD ?

• ECONOMY Increased demand in the international
  market for European goods also drove the
  conversion to a marketing economy.
• FLEET in place policing foreign markets from the
  mid nineteenth century.
• COLONIES which could furnish raw materials and
  act as captive markets for manufactured goods.
• WARFARE As almost every war that Britain fought
  in the eighteenth century resulted in the
  acquisition of foreign territory, the country
  monopolized overseas trade.

7
Why did Britain succeed at home?

• 1. A STRONGLY CAPITALIST GOVERNMENT. As a result,
  there was much parliamentary legislation that
  favoured mercantile interests.
• 2. ENCLOSURE LAWS The enclosure laws of the
  eighteenth century saw an increase in
  agricultural production and turned the
  established rules of land ownership on their
  head.
• 3. DISPLACED LABOUR FORCE AVAILABLE FOR
  FACTORIES. Enclosure caused the displaced
  peasants to head for the cities. Subsequently,
  there was an abundant labour supply to mine coal
  and iron, and man the factories.

8
4. A STRONG MIDDLE CLASS

• The revolution moved economic power away from the
  aristocratic classes and into the hands of the
  new middle class, the bourgeoisie.
• This new force in society was intent on making
  money, as much and as quickly as possible. Adam
  Smiths account, The Wealth of Nations, proposed
  that the only legitimate goal of government and
  human activity is the steady increase of the
  overall wealth of the nation. Wealth had replaced
  religion, politics and power as the driving force
  of society.

9
The Legacy of the Industrial revolution

• It changed the face of nations, giving rise to
  urban centres requiring vast municipal services.
• It created a specialized and interdependent
  economic life and made the urban worker more
  dependent on the will of the employer than the
  rural worker had been.
• Relations between capital and labour were
  aggravated, and Marxism was one product of this
  unrest. Doctrines of laissez-faire, developed in
  the writings of Adam Smith and David Ricardo,
  sought to maximize the use of new productive
  facilities.

10
Interventionism or Laissez-Faire ?

• But the revolution also brought a need for a new
  type of state intervention to protect the
  labourer and to provide necessary services.
  Laissez faire gradually gave way in the United
  States, Britain, and elsewhere to welfare
  capitalism.
• The Industrial Revolution also provided the
  economic base for the rise of the professions,
  population expansion, and improvement in living
  standards. These remain primary goals of less
  developed nations.