The Effect of the British Industrial Revolution
Abstract
The Industrial Revolution which had happened in England has been a major area of study and debate amongst scholars over the past few decades. The term though means ‘revolution’, yet it had some limitations which is the main area of study in this paper. Breaking down the stereotype, the paper will focus on the impact, mainly on the negative aspects of the British Industrial Revolution. It is necessary to focus on and investigate the detrimental results of this 18th-century revolution to understand the results and outcomes it had created on society. The paper will begin with a short introduction and the causes of the Industrial Revolution, mainly why it was Britain who had taken the lead, and then would focus on the impact that it had exerted on the British society. The paper will finally conclude with a short analysis of the detrimental results generated by this Industrial Revolution.
Introduction
The Industrial Revolution in the 18th century is a landmark phase in the history of the world political economy. The drastic economic transformation in the 18th century spearheaded by technological innovations inaugurated a new age. Over the years, there has been a great debate amongst historians regarding its causes of origin and its impact. I argue that technological inventions brought into existence by the humans have got both positive and negative attributes that in one way push the humanity to the world of advancement and progress and on the other hand push the mankind to oblivion in such a sense that certain historical episodes are remembered as a period of superficial progression, suited for the certain selective class of people. It is not to be wondered that inventions and revolution though mark the beginning of a new age, yet it is not fully free from the clutches of dereliction and incompleteness. Revolution is a boom that can be either political or economical driving the mortals to go gaga in order to bring a remarkable change in the existing scenario for the betterment of mankind. But is it always so?
The historic episode of the 18th-century Industrial revolution had started in Britain that later spread to other parts of the world. The oceanic trade conducted by the private companies under the behest of their respective national government helped them to extract profits in a massive scale which contributed to the development of the industrial process. But it is to be remembered that, there were certainly other factors that paved the way for this process. Historian Arnold Toynbee was the first to propound the conceptual term - ‘Industrial revolution’; a phase that witnessed Britain’s economic advancement and transformation from 1760 to 1840. According to W.W. Rostow, this was the period when Britain experienced a ‘take-off’ and entered into a period of self-sufficient growth. But what were the causes that led Britain to carry the flagship as the progenitor of the Industrial revolution? Was it solely determined by the economic causes and factors? The answer has been given by E.J. Hobswam who had said that “the industrial revolution is not merely an acceleration of economic growth, but an acceleration of growth because of, and through, economic and social transformation”.
The Napoleonic wars created ruptures throughout Europe which lingered the economic growth of the European countries like France and Germany. Though Britain was involved in the Napoleonic war, she could struggle out of this phase of turmoil due to her strategic geographical location. The wars caused a great rise in the price of the market goods but Britain maintained a safe distance from such turmoil by investing her economy on the growth of the industries. In the 18th century, Britain witnessed an increase in the population which has been termed by the scholars as a ‘demographic explosion’ which increased the home demand of the materials and ensured an abundant supply of labor to the factories and markets. The introduction of the enclosure system helped the Brits to utilize their agricultural technologies in a proper way that increased productivity and ensured a timely supply of raw materials to the industries and factories. This particular system of enclosure developed the primary industries of Britain and the profits earned from the agricultural sales led the Brits to invest it on the development of the industries. Rapid urbanization in the 18th century led Britain to develop her urban economy which in turn strengthened her industries. It is said that by 1800 near around 25% of the population in Britain lived in cities whereas the other parts of continental Europe lagged much behind. To focus on the usage of the large scale technology, E.J. Hobswam had argued that the British technology was simple and not much advanced like that of the French jacquard loom or like that of the German technological institutions but Britain managed to champion the situation due to two factors - firstly, the agility by which Britain captured the external markets and secondly, by razing off the competition between the other countries through colonization and craftiness. According to David Landes, the payment of high wages to the laborers in England created a steady market as the English laborers invested money more behind the purchase of goods and thus helped in the development of the industries. According to R.H. Tawney, the social character of the British society also helped in the development of the British industry through this argument had been rejected by Hobswam. The establishment of the joint-stock companies by the English gentry helped in the economic advancement which led the manufacturers to utilize the financial institutions effectively. One major factor that promoted the growth of British industrialization was the policy of non-interference adopted by the government. This helped in the buildup of the private enterprises which the British government supported by providing it with efficient transportation and economic aid.
I have tried to give a brief outline of the causes behind the origin of the Industrial Revolution in Britain though there were many other features such as the introduction of the steam engine, development of the cotton industry, development of the iron industry, development of the transportation industry and etc. It is not possible here to elaborate on each dimension due to the constriction of time and space. My intention in this paper is not to outline or investigate the causes of the origin of the British Industrial Revolution but to focus on the impact, it had exerted upon society.
The Impact of the British Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution inaugurated the age of machines which led to the displacement of manual labor. This revolution generated a massive amount of industrial production which led the new sources of power and energy to replace the older modes of sustainability. The proliferation of factories replaced the smaller workshops and homes which had once been the locus of the production of goods. According to E.J. Hobswam, British industrialization was not a one-day process rather it was a continuous economic development that laid the final platform. By the end of the century, the impact of the Industrial Revolution was felt throughout the British country whose effects soon did spread over the other European countries. As said by Arnold Toynbee, “the industrial revolution represented a great social revolution, a change in the balance of political power and in the relative position of the classes”.
The most notable impact of the Industrial Revolution that Thomas Malthus had noted was the massive increase in the population. As Malthus believed that a high increase in the rate of the population was the causative factor behind the origin of poverty. Though Arnold Toynbee had argued that the increase in the population was not the direct contribution of the Industrial Revolution, yet it had a significant impact on it. The 1801 census of Britain noted the significant disappearance of a large number of diseases and epidemics and the reduction of the mortality rates. Diseases like smallpox, plague and etc demised as the health of the people improved due to an adequate supply of food. However, the industrial development in England was not at a uniform pace as the development was initially rooted in central and northern England. Thus the haphazard growth of industrialization along with the population boom created congestion in the cities. Overgrowth of the population led to a severe shortage of lands as it had to be divided amongst the people for accommodation causing many of them to become homeless wanderers. This also led to an unequal distribution of wealth as the rich and powerful facilitated themselves with basic needs while the poorer could not and thus poverty became a concern among scholars like Thomas Malthus. The pressures of diminishing returns constantly reduced the potential gains from innovation and capital investment.
Places like Ireland starved from poverty and nearly half of the population was decimated and the rest flocked to other European and American countries. The massive increase in the population led these units of people to face shortages of food and as a result, rural folks migrated to the urban areas in search of jobs which created unruly situations in the city life that concerned the government. As Arnold Toynbee had said that the capitalist classes amassed a huge amount of wealth without any concern for the lower stratum and in places like agricultural fields and factories, started the intensive practice of absenteeism, thereby maintaining a distant relation with the workers and thus “cash– nexus substituted the human tie”.
Urbanization was a feature that was intrinsically related with the process of industrialization. Investors and entrepreneurs chose the urban areas for the investment of profits that led to the erection of large-scale of industries. Urban towns well supported by the transportation system were by default the first preference to build manufacturing plants and factories that induced the jobless people from the distant places to seek employment. As noted in a report, that by 1800 London had a population near about to 1 million which later increased to 2,363,000. The population boom in the capital city indicates the disastrous picture that Britain was going through. It is said that by 1850, Britain was forced to import foods due to the decline in the amount of agricultural laborers. The question now emerges that what were the authorities doing? With no such concrete evidence, it is hypothesized that either the city dwellers lacked the enthusiasm for the management of the cities or that they didn’t have any idea of controlling the city administration as most of the people around that time were the industrialists and factory owners.
The cities were compartmentalized into three parts: the suburbs where the wealthy people or the middle classes lived; in the inner ring of the city there were the small houses of the artisans and lower middle class and in the center were the houses of the industrial workers. The situation was pathetic as there grew industrial slums that ghettoized the labor classes. Heavy congestion in the cities filled it with garbage and human waste that smelled terrible and extremely unhealthy. Besides this started the practice of adulteration of food and the customers were cheated by charging high prices, which despite complaints the government refused to take any action as they were only interested in extracting profits. On this context, I would like to invoke Arnold Toynbee’s great saying that, “the effects of the industrial revolution prove that free competition may produce wealth without producing well being”. The most important and significant impact that happened as a result of the Industrial Revolution was the emergence of the new middle class. As we know that there are two types of classes - bourgeois and proletariat. Originally the term bourgeois meant the town dwellers but soon as the wealthy people began to purchase the land the section of the bourgeois came to include certain more other types of people and the contradistinction between the segments disappeared. By 1850, in Britain at least, the kind of traditional entrepreneurship that had created the Industrial Revolution was declining and was being replaced by newer forms of the aristocracy. The industrial middle classes strived hard to eliminate the difference between them and the landed elites in order to be recognized as the bourgeois class and also tried hard to separate themselves from the lower working class who later came to be constituted under the category of the proletariats.
The condition of the proletariats deteriorated. The working hour increased somewhat to sixteen hours per day without any security of employment and wages. Children formed the bulk of the industrial working class and they were employed and used intensively in the cotton industry. Children aged seven years were also not spared and were used as laborers as they guaranteed cheap labor costs. They were not paid properly and were deprived of the basic means which caused many of them to starve to death. By the Factory work of 1833, the children were replaced by the women as laborers in the industries and factories. Both the children and women were subjected to brutality and harsh treatment as the motive of the employers were to extract a huge amount of profit. These conditions propelled the workers to form trade unions in order to raise their voices against the harsh conditions they were subjected to and thus began the conflict of interest between the bourgeois and the proletariats. Karl Marx believed that “it was labor, rather than capital, which produced the surplus … and thus the laborers were cheated”. In this context, I would like to invoke Arnold Toynbee’s statement that, “the stronger side will dictate its own terms; and as a matter of fact, in the early days of competition the capitalists used all their power to oppress the laborers, and drove down wages to starvation point”.
Conclusion
It is necessary to conclude the paper here due to the constriction of time and space. I have given a brief picture of the detrimental impact of the Industrial Revolution, yet it must be remembered that Industrialization not only had negative attributes but also some positive features which demand little attention in this paper. The Industrial Revolution which happened in Britain not only revolutionized the market structure of the British industry but also reoriented the cash-nexus structure of the other European countries. It was a glorious moment for Britain, as the Brits boasted for laying down the edifice of the Industrial Revolution. But, it is necessary to understand that the revolution which reoriented the market and industrial structure, widened the gulf between the rich and the poor. Since the only intention was to secure profit, there was hardly any concern on the part of the state for the deprived section of the people. Scholars blame this factor as the deleterious effect of capitalism as capitalism understands only the institution of profit. It was this deleterious effect of the Industrial Revolution that was prominent not only in Britain but also in the other European countries. The Industrial Revolution sharpened the conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariat and the latter inaugurated another momentary phase that happened to be a landmark in the history of the countries like Russia, which needs little attention here. To conclude, it must be noted that industrialization accelerated globalization which increased the lust for profits and it was this lust for the profit-based economy that encapsulated itself in the form of capitalism which continues even today, widening the gulf between the have and the have-nots.
Bibliography
- Toynbee, Arnold. 1956. The Industrial Revolution. Boston: The Beacon Press.
- More, Charles.2000. Understanding the Industrial Revolution. London and New York: Routledge.
- Hobswam, E.J. 1999. Industry and Empire : From 1750 to the Present Day. New York: The New Press.
- The Industrial Revolution and Its Impact on the European Society. Accessed from: https://webpages.cs.luc.edu/~dennis/106/106-Bkgr/20-Industrial-Rev.pdf on (03/04/2019).
