THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

The Industrial Revolution started to develop in the end of 18^th century.

It is a process of production that is not important per England only but for all the world.

The essence of the Industrial Revolution is the substitution of competition for the mediaeval regulations which had previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth. On this account it is not only one of the most important facts of English history, but Europe owes to it the growth of two great systems of thought — Economic Science, and its antithesis, Socialism.

The development of Economic Science in England has four chief landmarks:

1. Adam Smith'sWealth of Nations, published in 1776 in which he investigated the causes of wealth and aimed at the substitution of industrial freedom for a system of restriction.

2. Malthus' Essay on Population, published in 1798. Adam Smith had concentrated all his attention on a large production; Malthus directed his inquiries, not to the causes of wealth but to the causes of poverty.

3. Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, which appeared in 1817, and in which Ricardo sought to ascertain the laws of the distribution of wealth.

4. John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy, published in 1848. Mill himself asserted that "the chief merit of his treatise" was the distinction drawn between the laws of production and those of distribution, and the problem he tried to solve was, how wealth ought to be distributed.

Coming to the facts of the Industrial Revolution, the first thing that strikes us is the far greater rapidity which marks the growth of population → between 1811 and 1821 the population increase to 18 per cent.

Next we notice the relative and positive decline in the agricultural population → In 1811 it constituted 35 per cent.

What were the agricultural changes which led to this noticeable decrease in the rural population? The three most effective causes were: the destruction of the common-field system of cultivation; the enclosure, on a large scale, of common and waste lands; and the consolidation of small farms into large → between 1710 and 1760 some 300,000 acres were enclosed, between 1760 and 1843 nearly 7,000,000 underwent 70 the same process. Closely connected with the enclosure system was the substitution of large for small farms.

Law of Revolution → competition

                               → price competitive

The marked is regulated the production and distribution → by the interchange between demand and resources.