The Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution by Arnold Toynbee

The Industrial Revolution is an historical process: it implied the substitution of competition for the mediaeval regulations, which had previously controlled the production, and distribution of wealth. It brought radical changes into England and in the western world.

It led to the growth of two systems of thought: Economic Science and Socialism. The main landmarks of Economic Science were four English economists: Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo and John Stuart Mill.

The main facts of the Industrial Revolution were the rapid growth of population and the decline in the agricultural one.

The main causes of the decrease in rural population were: the destruction of common-field system of cultivation, the enclosure of common and waste lands and the consolidation of small farms into large ones. In addition, also agricultural advance was due to different causes, like: the improvement of the breed of cattle, the rotation of crops, the use of the steam plough which all together brought to the birth of agricultural societies.

At the same time, a growth of industry was recorded, due to new mechanical inventions in the textile industry, like: the spinning Jenny, the water frame, Compton’s mule and the self-acting mule. However, the most important inventions were the steam engine and the power loom engine.

What’s more a mechanical revolution was recorded in iron industry thank to the smelting by pit-coal and the steam engine to blast furnaces. Indeed, there was also an improvement of the means of communication, for example the development of a canal system, the construction of turnpike and the opening of the first railroad.

The results were on one side an extraordinary increase in commerce, but on the other a gradual substitution of factory system for domestic one.

The effect of the Revolution were also perceived in the distribution of wealth, and in particular in rise of rents. Much of this rise was due to money invested in improvements, the effect of enclosures system, the consolidation of farms and the high price of corn.

Social changes hit not only country life, with an alienation between farmers and labourers, but also the manufacturing world. As a consequence, the disappearance of links between masters and men, the struggles of Trade Union and last but not least a class conflict.

Misery came upon large section of working people and was often cause by the condition of labour under the factory system, the rise of prises, especially of bread, and the fluctuation trade.

Industrial Revolution, with its consequence, proved that “free competition may produce wealth without producing well-being”.