THE CHIEF FEATURES OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

That’s an argumentative text, and it’s an account of the historical process known the Industrial Revolution, which brought radical changes in nineteenth century in England and in the western world.                                                         

The text is organized in ten paragraphs that have got different functions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                The Industrial revolution is the substitution of competition for the medieval regulations which have previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth.Two new system of thought spread in that period: Economic Science and Socialism. As far as Economic Science, there were four chief landmarks. The first is the publication of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” in which he investigated the causes of wealth and aimed at the substitution of industrial freedom for a system of restriction. The second is Malthus’ “Essay on Population” in which he directed his inquiries not to the causes of wealth but to the causes of poverty. The third is Ricardo’s “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation” in which he tried to ascertain the laws of the distribution of wealth. The fourth is John Stuart Mill’s “Principles of Political Economy” in which there is the distinction drawn between the laws of production and those of distribution and the question he tried to solve was how wealth ought to be distributed.                                                                                                                                                                                Two are the causes of the Industrial Revolution: the growth of population in the 1751 (explained by examples in per cent) and the agrarian revolution in the end of eighteen century. This agrarian revolution brought the decrease of population because of the destruction of the common-field system of cultivation, the enclosure of common  and waste lands, and the consolidation of small farms into large. Closely connected with the enclosure system was the substitution of large for small farms. The consolidation of farms reduced the number of farmers, while the enclosure drove the laboures off the land, as it became impossible for them to exist without their rights of pasturage for sheep and geese on common lands. In spite of this decrease in rural population, there were distinct improvement from an agricultural point of view, in fact the period was one of great agricultural advance: the breed of cattle was improved, the rotation of crops was generally introduced, the stem-plough was invented and agricultural societies were instituted.                                                                                                                                                                                                            Passing to manufactures four great inventions altered the cotton manufacture world: the spinning-jenny (by Hargreaves), the water frame (by Arkwright), Crompton’s mule and the self-acting mule (by Kelly). But none of these by themselves would have revolutionized the industry: James Watt took out his patent for the steam-engine. Sixteen years later it was applied to the cotton manufacture. But the most famous invention of all is the power-loom (by Cartwright). At first machinery raised the wages of spinners and weavers owing to the great prosperity it brought to the trade (Golden Age), but later the condition of workman was very different. Meanwhile, the iron industry had been equally revolutionized by the invention of smelting, by pit-coal and by the application of the steam-engine to blust furnaces.                                                                            

The growth of the factory system took space independent of machinery and owed its origin to the expansion of trade, an expansion which was due to the great advance made at this time in the means of communication. The canal system was developed throughout the country, the roads were improved and was opened the first railroad. These improvements caused an extraordinary increase in commerce. A consequence of this expansion of trade was the regular recurrence of periods of over-production and depression, a phenomenon quite unknown under the old system. These altered conditions in the production of wealth and involved an equal revolution in its distribution. In agriculture the prominent fact is an enormous rise in rents. Much of this rise was due to money invested in improvements, to the enclosure system, to the consolidation of farms and to the high price of corn during the French war. Whatever it represented a great social revolution, a change in the balance of political power and in the relative position of classes. The farmers ceased to work and live with their labourers and became a distinct class, and this caused changes in their habits (new food, new furniture, luxury and drinking). But the conditions of the labourers was exactly opposite and most disastrous because of the high prices and the lost of commonrights. So the new class of great capitalist employers made enormous fortune, they took little or no part personally in the work of their factories, their hundreds of workmen were individually unknown to them and as a consequence the old relations between masters and men disappeared. Workmen suffered from the conditions of labour under the factory system and from the rise of prices, especially from the high price of bread.                                                                                                                                             The effects of the Industrial Revolution prove that free competition may produce wealth without necessary producing well-being.