Analysing of The Chief feature of Industrial Revolution

The Chief feature of Industrial Revolution is an extract from The Industrial Revolution by Arnold Toynbee. In this text the author would give to readers a detailed account about his ideas and considerations of an historical process that radically change the Britain island and the world.

The thesis of this argumentative test is: the I.R. and is consequences brought “wealth without well-being”. Toynbee organized his text in various paragraphs witch supported his thesis. At first he gave a definition of this process saying that the I.R is the change from the medieval way to think and act in economy and commercially situation. After the author brought the reference of four English economists who analysed the development of economic science in England. Respectively Smith and Malthus oriented them studies toward the causes of wealth (the first) and the causes of poverty (the second). Ricardo tried to analyse the laws of distribution of wealth and the last, Mill “asserted that the chief merit of his treatiese was the distinction draw between the laws of production and those of distribution”. Post this theoretic passage Toynbee exposed the facts of I.R that we can summarized in two principal: the growth of population and the decrease of rural population. Of the second the author gave the three effective causes: 1) destruction of common-field system of cultivation 2)the enclosure of common and waste lands 3)consolidation of small farms into large. After this passage the author opened a large reflection about the agriculturally advance and the growth of industry. The substitution of scientific for unscientific culture and the new big dimension of the farms contributed to advance in agricultural ambient as improvement of breed of cattle, introduction of rotation of crops, invention of steam-plough,institution of agricultural societies. The growth of industry was based on the inventions and discovers in cotton manufacture as the spinnig-jenny and water-frame, but also in the expansion of communication's meant. The important innovations as the canals,water-ways and the rail road brought an increase of commerce. This new situation produced consequence as the diverse worker's condition and as period of over-production or depression of trade, a phenomena never knew in the old system. In the ending of this analyse and argumentation Toynbee gave information about the life's change of farmers and workers. In agriculture the fact espoused before was an enormous rise in rent that was due to money invested in improvements, effect of enclosure system, consolidation of farms, the high price of corn during the French war. In consequence there was a great social revolution that brought a new class and a different condition and a different way to think the relation between the capitalist and the worker.

Improved Version

Arnold Toynbee essay's deals of the Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution. It opens with an introduction where the Revolution is definited as an historical process. Also his economic and social consequence are illustrated at a global level.
The essayist goes an developing argumentation in order to explain the radical change brought about by the industrial Revolution. He explains it mainly consist in the substitution of competition "for the medieval regulation which had previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth". The consequences of the process meant the birth of two different system of thought Economic science and Socialism which are exactly the opposite words. The development of science economic is England finds in four economists it landmarks. Respectively Smith and Malthus oriented them studies toward the causes of wealth (the first) and the causes of poverty (the second). Ricardo tried to analyse the laws of distribution of wealth and the last, Mill "asserted that the chief merit of his treatiese was the distinction draw between the laws of production and those of distribution".
The author comes on individuating the two principal facts of the Industrial Revolution: the growth of population and the decrease of rural population, each other supported by quantitative dates. After this objective informations that drive the readers to consider the existence of an agrarian revolution in the big Industrial Revolution, Toynbee gives us the three most important causes of the decrease of rural population. First of all the destruction of common-field system of cultivation, the enclosure of common and waste lands, the consolidation of small farms into large. The change in agricultural system brought an inferior farmers number and a large parts of land to cultivating. This situation carried great agricultural advance as improvement of breed of cattle, introduction of rotation of crops, invention of steam-plough,institution of agricultural societies. Passing to industrial world, the essayist underlines as the factory has substituted the domestic system incrementing the mechanical discoveries. Inventions about cotton manufacture are the spinnig-jenny, the water-frame, Crompton's mule and the self-acting mule, but the author marks as the steam-engine and the engine for a cotton mill signalizing the introduction of factory system. Toynbee comes on his argumentation calling attention on the important expansion of trade causing by the new means of communication as the canal, the water-way, the rail road. The commerce's increase and the new factory system brought a change from independence to dependence: the workers aren't the owners of what they product and there are the presence of over-production's and depression's period, a situation unknown in the domestic system. Progressing the test, the essayist analysing as the unregulated conditions of production cause a similar problem in its distribution, but all this situation in agriculture is an enormous rise in rent. This rise find it start in money invested in improvements, in enclosure system, in the consolidation of farm s and in the high price of corn during the French war. From this point the author gives his attention to the social revolution that is in act. The relation between worker and proprietary is change as the relation of labourer and the city's capitalist. The owners of big farm or industry are rich and live in a luxury world, while the workers are in difficult situation because they don't see the profit of them work but only the bad-being that them work causes in them life.