The industrial revolution

The XVIII century is a period of radical changes in the society and in economy. The industrial revolution contributed widely to bring this changes in the society.

Furthermore the industrial revolution changed the way of distribution of wealth and introduced new ways of thinking, as a matter of facts two of the greatest way of thinking developed during this period: the Economic Science and the socialism. the development of Economic Science is connected with four important figures. The first is Adam Smith who published "Wealth of Nations" in 1776, the second Malthus with his "Essay on Population" published in 1798, then comes Ricardo who wrote "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" in 1817 and the last one is John Stuart Mill who published "Principles of Political Economy".

Another feature that the industrial revolution has brought is the rapid growth of population, as a matter of facts before 1751 the largest increase was 3%, in the next years the increase fluctuated between 9% and 18%. In contraposition to this fast increase there is the important decrease of agrarian population caused by the destruction of common fields system, the enclosure of common and waste land and the consolidation of small farms into large. All these changes in agriculture are strictly connected with the agrarian revolution occurred in the period of the industrial revolution. In addiction a further advance in agriculture is caused by a more scientific approach, indeed the rotation of crops was developed and generally introduced, the breed of cattle was improved and the steam-plough was invented.

In the industrial field during this period there is the transition from domestic system to the factories, this transition was caused by the mechanical discoveries, such as the water frame, the spinning jenny and the self acting mule and the most important steam engine and power loom as regards the textile industry. Regarding the iron industry the most important inventions were: the smelting by pit-coat and the application of the steam engine to blast the furnaces, through this discoveries the iron manufactured nearly doubled itself.

In addiction to mechanical discoveries the industry had another advance brought by improved communication. As a matter of facts many canals were built to connect the most important cities, more than a thousand miles of turnpike road were constructed and the first railway was developed. As a result the commerce had a huge increase. All this led to a revolution of distribution of wealth:

• the rise of rents in agriculture caused by the enclosure system, the money invested in improvements;

• the farmers made a lot of money and they changed their habits by living in luxury;

• a new class of capitalist employers was developed.

In contrast to this there was the misery of working people caused by the bad condition of work and the rise of prices.
As Arnold Toynbee said "the effects of industrial revolution prove that free competition may produce wealth without producing well-being".