The industrial revolution was very important to the Western world as gave rise to the two main ways to see the economy that of economic science and that of socialism. The development of economic science can be divided into four periods each characterized by a particular economist the first one of Adam Smith who wrote about the wealth caused by the new system of production; the second of  Malthus who searched the causes of the poverty of the people; and the other two period characterized by Riccardo and John Stuart Mill who wrote about the distribution of the wealth.

The effects of the industrial revolution was a strong increase of the population caused by the increase of the wealth and another effects of it was the depopulation of the campaigns caused by the enclosure the destruction of the common field system that permitted to the very poor people to survive and because of the transformation of small farms in bigger one. Also if the number of people decrease in the field the production increase because  of the new agricultural techniques as the rotation of corps, the steam-plough and the born of an agricultural society.

In the manufacturing sector there were also a lot of changes; the place in wiìhich the goods were produced were no more the house of the family but in the factory and there were also a lot of invention that improved the production of goods as the spinning-Jenny, the water-frame, the Crompton’s mule and the self acting mule; but the most important invention of this period were steam engine and cotton mill that marked the introduction of  the factory system but above all was important the invention of the power-loom because thanks of it the production of cotton trebled.

Important improvement was also made in the iron industry thanks at the invention of the smelting by pit-coal and the application of the steam engine to blast furnaces.

All those goods must be transported around the country and so started a big improvement of the road but especially in England were built a lot of waterways that connected the most important cities for example London, Liverpool and Bristol; in this period to simplify the transport was also built the first railway.

However, the industrial revolution did not bring only benefits to the population, such as increased rents resulting in the disappearance of small farms that were purchased by rich farmers.

In addition there was also a clear separation between the owner who earned a lot of money without doing anything and workers who produce instead remained poor and then organized themselves into unions.

wealth was poorly distributed, and therefore many of them were poor to the working condition because of the price and also to market fluctuations that exposed to periods of depression.