“The Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution” is an argumentative text written by Arnold Toynbee in 1884. In this text the writer wants to analyse the most important events of Industrial Revolution.

In the first part of the text Toynbee explains in which countries and in what period developed. Industrial Revolution didn’t involve just England but also the western world.

Toynbee gives the definition of Industrial Revolution as the substitution of competition for the mediaeval regulations that it controlled the production and the distribution of wealth.

Analyzing this process, one of the consequences is the growth of two thought’s systems: Economic science and Socialism. Economic Science had four great English economists: the first is Adam Smith that wrote in 1776 “Wealth of Nations” and he investigated the causes of wealth. The second is Malthus that in 1798 he wrote “Essay on population” and he analysed the causes of poverty and he found in them his theory of population. The third is Ricardo that he had done “Principles of Political Economy and Taxation” in 1817. He inquired the laws of distribution of wealth. The forth is John Stuart Mills, he wrote “Principles of Political Economy” in 1848. He made a distinction between the laws of production and distribution ones and he tried to solve in which way these should be distributed.

After on the writer illustrates the main facts of Industrial Revolution. One of these is the growth of population that is demonstrated with quantitative data. In contrast to this there is the decline in agricultural population. Toynbee presents the causes of decrease in rural population. These are the destruction of common-field system, the enclosure and the consolidation of small farms into large. From the last cause there is the consequence of the reduction of lands distribution.

In that period there were a lot of improvements in agriculture, for example the breed of cattle, the rotation of crops and the stem-plough.

Thanks to mechanical discoveries the labour was more simple and fewer employments. The growth of industry was caused by the mechanical inventions (spinning-jenny, water-frame, steam-engine, cotton meal and power-loom) that these increased the productions and the way of communication (canal system, turnpike roads and railroads) expanded the commerce. Toynbee says that manufactury industry had transformed the agriculture because new inventions had produced the movement from countries to cities. Besides the growth of  the factories transformed the jobs.

The altered conditions of the markets produced rise in rents and a change in the balance of political power and in the position of social classes. In manufacturing  world were social changes: the employers became a distinct class, there wasn’t a relation between masters and employees. These created a class conflict because the well-being was in the hands of few people and the other population lived in the poverty.

Toynbee points out his thesis that “free competition may produce wealth without producing well-being”. The wealth is not distributed equal in the society and the changes of a revolution doesn’t produce well-being or wealth to population.