Industrialisation

• Industrialization is the period of social and economic changes that transforms a  human society from an agrarian society into an industrial society for the purpose of manufacturing in which the industrial population is divided into a small group of owners for the means of production. A larger group of workers sell  their labor  power (i.e., capacity to work) to their capitalist employers in exchange for wages.
• The Industrial Revolution had various effects on different groups, as one might imagine. The gentry and aristocracy prospered as the rents on the estates they possessed increased (due to more extensive demands of agricultural products and the mines and railways which passed through their lands). The changes in social structure were unaffected.
• After Industrialization, the vast majority of the new group became the foundation of the new ‘middle class.’
• They were politically active and more well-represented, and  took intellectual inspiration from liberal economic concepts, which grew in popularity during this time.
• The most significant disorganization and disturbance occurred in the lives of the workers. They were now solely reliant on pay for survival. They acclimate to the regularity and monotony of industrial employment, frequently under duress and always with difficulty. Workers’  primarily spent their lives in the Dickensian squalors of the new cities, where illnesses were common.
• Until the late 1800s, the grotesquely unequal situation of employees in the new system was recognised, and legislation was enacted to alleviate their plight.
• The waves of outrage and anger that erupted during this time expressed the general public’s desperate displeasure with the new way of life.
• For them, the English Industrial Revolution had stripped away the old ways’ moorings while providing precious little in return. To put it another way, “wretched, cheated, oppressed, crushed human beings lying in bleeding shreds all over the face of civilization,” as one contemporary observer put it.
• Unsurprisingly, the initial army of industrial workers found the first Industry Revolution to be unconcerned about their needs. It is undeniable that the history of the industrial revolution ushered in a new, more comprehensive phase of industrialization.
• Without the benefit of hindsight, many current observers thought such a flurry was improbable. The poor people’s poverty hampered the growth of domestic markets, and when industrial production had saturated the enormous colonial markets.
• Profit rates decreased as well, especially in colonies. Regrettably, economic orthodoxy did little to alleviate the problem.
• The benefits of more excellent wages, in the form of higher mass demand and improved productivity, were neglected due to its insistence on the most increased possible diversions of incomes to profits and the law of subsistence wages.
• The workers did not have enough to eat. The industrialists did not make enough money to justify reinvestment, resulting in a vicious spiral represented in numerous demands for reform from both the middle and working classes.
• Despite the landed interests ‘ opposition, they worked together to demand parliamentary reforms and repeal the Corn Law. However, their interests and movements diverged after that, with the working-class movement finding autonomous expression in Chartism and Luddism, eventually culminating in the formation of an organized political organization in the form of the Labor Party.
• With such a startling statistic, the possibility of a social revolt became quite natural. It did not happen mainly due to the second phase of industrialization, which followed the first and was built on coal, iron, and railways.
• The domestic market was more significant and stable, with a slower growth rate. On the other hand, the external market was more dynamic but changing.
• The size and character of the domestic market are determined by factors such as population, per capita income, distribution, and tests. In the case of mercantilism England, comparative advantage and a strong mercantile tradition, and military strength controlled the content and growth of international trade.
• England possessed colonial possessions all over the world. By the early nineteenth century, even the more established colonies, such as India, had switched from exporting manufactured goods to importing raw materials and British manufactured goods. The triangle pattern of commerce intensified the ‘Drain of Wealth’ from colonies to England. The aggressive state policies of the mercantile aided her dominance in international trade. The state implemented protectionist measures by imposing high tariffs and quotas on final produced textile imports from India and other countries.
• Since the mid-nineteenth century, British international trade policy has been more influenced by the laissez-faire concept. However, England had established itself as the world’s only industrialized and most competitive country in the industrialization aftermath. As a result, she could abandon protectionist tactics as long as other competitor nations, such as Germany, did not emerge.

Conclusion

This chapter gives detailed knowledge about Industrialization and how it affected different markets. It also provides knowledge of how different Phases of Industrialization occurred and impact on economic growth in the nineteenth century. The spread of industrialization changes human growth from an agrarian society into an industrial society. It provides  knowledge about different factors that influence industrialization including natural resources, capital, workers, technology, consumers, transportation systems, and a cooperative government.

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