Arnold Toynbee has written a clear an detailed essay about the Industrial Revolution, and has expressed his opinion that Industrial Revolution has  produced wealth without producing well being.

To make us understanding the writer introduces the viewpoint of some important economists of 1700 like Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. The 1st one investigated the causes of wealth and expressed his opinion that Political Economy should increase richness and power of a country. Malthus directs his inquires to the causes of poverty and found them in the growth of population (that implies a large consume of goods in few time). Ricardo showed how wealth is distributed under a system of industrial freedom and Mill studied how wealth ought to be distributed.

After Toynbee showed how population has really increased and how agricultural population has decreased in the same time. The causes of the decrease of agricultural population consists in the destruction of the common field system of cultivation.

So the writer introduce the mechanical discoveries that has made possible the process of industrialization like the spinning-jenny, Compton's mule, water-frame, the steam engine. The innovative means of communication (a canal system and the first railway system) increased the rapidity to distribute goods, so increased the production.

With the Industrial revolution a new class of capitalists made an enormous fortune, but employees were bad-salaried and worked in hard and non-self condition. Bread's price was high, so Industrialization advantaged few people. According to Toynbee's thesis, the Industrial Revolution has produced wealth without producing well being.