In 1884 Arnold Toynbee wrote a text concerning the Industrial Revolution with its radical effects to the imaginary collective. In the beginning he said that the Industrial Revolution substituted the completion for the medieval regulation which had previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth. These facts led to growth of two systems of thought: Economic science and Socialism. Then the author introduced the facts that brought to this revolution: the first fact was the great rapidity which marked the increase of the population (there was a decennial increase from 3% to 18%); the second fact was the relative and positive decline in the agricultural population (decrease from 35% to 28%). Then there was a decrease in rural population because of 3 facts: the first was the destruction of the common-field system of cultivation; the second was the enclosure of common and waste lands; the third was the consolidation of small farm into large ones. There were also many agricultural advances as the breed of cattle, the rotation of crops, the invention of the steam-plough and the agricultural societies. With the Industrial Revolution there was a great increase of the industry production because due to the urban drift, people moved from countryside to cities and they contributed to an improvement of the industries with their labour. There were mechanical inventions in the textile industry such as the spinning-jenny, water-frame, spinning mule and the self action mule, but the most important were the steam engine and the power-loom; these machineries increased the productions but the products were of low-quality. In the iron industry there were also mechanical revolutions like the smelting by the pit-coal and the steam engine to blast furnaces. In the beginning the high production of iron and steal brings England and then the entire Europe, to use them to produce infrastructures as railways and bridges. The results of this Industrial revolution were the overproduction and depression at first, and the substitution of the factory system for the domestic system. The distribution of  wealth rised in rent because of 4 reasons: due to money to improvement; rental of lands; consolidation of farms and high price of corn. This brings to the formation of a new class of great capital employers and as a consequence the relation between masters and men disappeared; the cash nexus was substituted for the human tie and there were class conflicts. The misery which came upon large sections of the working people at this epoch was often due to a fall in wages; other causes were the sudden fluctuation of trade and the high price of bread before repeal of the corn-laws. In my opinion this important revolution was an incredible innovate period but it brought an enormous difference between working class and capitalists.

Arnold Toynbee's essay deals with the chief features of the Industrial Revolution. It opens with an introduction where the Revolution is defined as an historical process. Also its economic and social consequences are illustrated at a global level.

The essayist goes on developing an argumentation in order to explain the radical change brought about by the Industrial Revolution. He explains it mainly consists in the substitution of competition "for the medieval regulations which had previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth".

The consequences of the process meant the birth of the difference system of thoughts economic science and socialism which are exactly the opposite.

The Industrial Revolution brought with himself the growth of population and the relative and positive decline in the agricultural population.

The agricultural changes were the destruction  of the common-field system of cultivation: the enclosure, on a large scale, of common and waste lands; and the consolidation of small farms into large. The increase of lands brought a new method of cultivating: the rotation of crops.

Others great inventions altered the character of the cotton manufacture: the spinning-jenny, the water-frame, Crompton's mule, self-acting mule, steam-engine, the power-loom.

There were also a great advance made in means of communication; in that period people built canal systems, water-ways, turnpike roads and railroads.

Unfortunately this period brought rise in rent caused by due to money invested to improvements, rental of land, consolidation of farms and high price of corn. As consequence a new social class born: the class of capitalists in opposite of the working class. At the end Arnold Toynbee ended his essay saying that the competition may produce wealth without producing well-being