The Industrial Revolution is an historical process; it implies the substitution of competition for the mediaeval regulations which had previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth. It brought radical changes in 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 4 English economists:Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, 1776), Robert Malthus (Essay on Population, 1798), David Ricardo (Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817) and John Stuart Mill(Principles of Political Economy, 1848).

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

The main causes of the decrease in rural population were: the destruction of the common field system of cultivation, the enclosure of common waste lands and the consolidation of small farms into large ones. In addition, agricultural advance was due to many different causes like: the improvement in the breed of cattle, the rotation of crops and 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 mechanical inventions in the textile industry like: the Spinning-jenny (by Hargreaves), the water frame (by Arkwright), Crompton’s mule and the self-acting mule (by Kelly). However the most important inventions were the steam engine by Watt and the power loom by Cartwright.

What’s more, a mechanical revolution was recorded in iron industry thanks to the invention of smelting by pit-coal and the application of the steam engine to blast furnaces.

Another important improvement during the Industrial Revolution regarded the means of communication, indeed the Canal system, roads and railroads registered a rapid development.

All these facts led to an extraordinary increase in commerce and to the substitution of factory system for domestic system (and so a change from independence to dependence for workmen).

These altered conditions in the production of wealth necessarily involved an equal revolution in its distribution, that in agriculture meant the rise in rents caused by: money invested by landlords in improvements, the enclosure system, the consolidation of farms and a high price of corn.

Strictly connected to the revolution in the distribution of wealth, were social changes both in country life and in the manufacturing world. In the first situation, many farmers held their farms under beneficial, therefore they made large profits and decided to cease to work (since this social class suddenly became very rich, it changed its behaviour starting to live luxuriously); While, on the other side, labourers felt the burden of high prices and saw their wages falling and their common-rights being taken away. Similarly in the manufacturing world the new class of great capitalist employers made enormous fortune and took little part personally in the work of their factories, therefore all their workmen were basically unknown to them. The consequences of the changes in the manufacturing world were: the passing of relations between masters and workmen, the substitution of “cash nexus” for the human tie and class conflicts.                                                                                                                  In addition, the misery of working people was often caused by: the conditions of labour under the factory system, the rise of price (especially of bread) and the fluctuations in trade that expose labourers to recurrent periods of bitter distress.

All in all, the effects of the Industrial revolution prove that free competition may produce wealth without producing well-being.

Activities of  "Of The Principle Of Utility"

a)    By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure,  good, or happiness or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered.

b)    Utility is based on the principle of interest: a thing is said to promote the interest when it tends to add to the sum total of his pleasures or to diminish the sum total of his pains.

c)    Policies may said to be dictated by the principle of utility, when in like manner the tendency which it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any which it has to diminish it.