This text is an essay by Arnold Toynbee about the Industrial Revolution. The writer poses a thesis: free competition may produce wealth without producing well-being.
Right from the title the intelligent reader can understand writer's intentions which are to analyse causes, consequences and main facts of the Industrial Revolution.
In the first paragraph the essayist declares his intentions. After this, he gives a definition of Industrial Revolution: the Industrial Revolution is the result of the substitution of competition for the medieval regulation which ones control the production and distribution of wealth. It is not only important for history of England but Europe owes it the growth of two great system of thought: Economic Sciences and its antithesis, Socialism. About the Economic Science, Toynbee quotes four books written by famous economists of that period (the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century). The first book is Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith investigates the causes of wealth. He's interested in the production of wealth and he wanted to increase the riches and power of the country. The second book is Malthus's Essay on Population (1798): he was interested in the causes of poverty and found them in his theory of population. The third is Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817) in which he tried to discover the laws of distribution of wealth. The last book quoted is John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy (1848): he tried to distinguish between the laws of production and those of distribution and he studied the ways in which wealth ought to be distributed.
After this the essayist starts with the facts of the industrial revolution. The first thing that the writer notes is the rapid growth of population and the positive decline in agricultural population brought by the agrarian revolution. The three causes that brought the agrarian revolution are: the destruction of common-field system of cultivation, the enclosure of common and waste lands and the consolidation of small farms into large. To support these facts the writer quotes the ideas of two scolars. Going on Toynbee describes agricultural advances which brought an improvement from an agricultural point of view. New inventions were: breed of cattle, rotation of crops, steam plough and agricultural societies.
In the following paragraph the writer deals with the growth of industry. The consequence of machanical discoveries of the time was the substitution of the factory for the domestic system. The mechanical inventions in textile industry were: spinning-jenny, water-frame, Crompton's mule and the self-acting mule. But the most important inventions were the steam engine and the power-loom. Thank to these inventions there were also a mechanical revolution in iron industry.
In the later paragraph Toynbee analyses the growth of the factory system from a different point of view: the improvement in means of communication (opening of new canals, water ways and railroads). This brought an expansion of trade and a radical change in workmen conditions. In fact the merchants began to provide for their shop a number of workmen who worked for them and produced goods so there were workmen who passed from an independent condition to a dependent. Moreover there was a regular recurrence of periods of over-production of wealth and of depression.
After this the writer analyses the revolution in the distribution of wealth. In agriculture the prominent fact is an enormous rise in rents which was caused by four facts: money invested in improvements, enclosure system, consolidation of farms and high price of corn. Furthermore there were a great social revolution: the balance of political power and the position of classes change. The consequences were a change in habits, alienation between labourers and farmers and class conflict.
After analyse the misery conditions of working people, Toynbee express specifically his thesis: free competition may produce wealth without producing well-being.