Revolution, refers to the changing (the "evolution", indeed) of whatever came before. So, it is logical thinking that the Industrial Revolution is the overtaking of something. Well, that "something" is the Medieval concept of economical rules and production (more precisely how it works, the relationship between producer and labourer, etc.).

The Industrial Revolution marked the relevance of the idea of "free competition", and caused the birth of two antithetic mentalities: Economic Science, and Socialism. As to these two different visions of economy, the first one has been characterized by four different thoughts: Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo and Mill's ones; it is important to note how even in those men's ideas, free competition alone couldn't work for the society, ruining it (and so giving credits to Socialism, that gave more importance to the work-men's conditions).

Anyway, the Industrial Revolution was caused by two distinct factors: the first is the incredible innovation that characterized first of all the agrarian habit, but then also the industrial one; several were the new methods and machines invented : the spinning jenny, the power loom, the steam engine, the introduction of crops' rotation are only some of them.

The other one is the decline in agricultural population: a new enclosure system opposed to the old common-field one caused the lands to present less opportunities than the cities and this, "helped" by a fast population's growth, caused industries to have more manpower, and so their development (helped also by the innovations treated before).

As Industries grew, also production did: now large-scale production were possible, and economy itself was ruled by the law of demand; the market itself, was now the one deciding the goods' cost and value, and not the Government anymore. (this is the liberism and capitalism now ruling the Western world). The Wealth that Smith had theorized had now increased in an enormous way, but the same couldn't be said for the people's weel-being.

The big productions caused periods of over-produciton and depression, the prices raised enormously as the rich became richer and the poor poorer. The producers, the old middle class, became fastly rich in a way they would have never thought possible, and it changed them: they lived in luxury, and their relationship with the labourers disappeared.

The alienation predicted by Marx happened, and the workmen were taken a poverty that caused the birth of Trades-Unions, that fought against the capitalists as if they were mortal enemies.

All this, together, proved the Industrial Revolution's contraddiction: it was born in order to make wealth (and so well-being) increase, but it only marked the diference bewteen the richest and the poorest; it showed how free competition helped only who had the power, and proved how well-being and wealth, can be differing.