THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION - SUMMARY

The Industrial Revolution is the historical process which brought a lot of radical changes in nineteenth century in England and in the western world. The essence of the Industrial Revolution is the substitution of mediaeval regulations, which had previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth, with the development of Economic Science.
The four greatest English economists of nineteenth century were: Smith, Malthus, Ricardo and Stuart Mill. They all argued that the economy is related to the production of wealth, not the welfare of man, indeed they also focussed on the causes of poverty. So the problem they tried to solve was how wealth should have been distributed.
Coming to the facts of the Industrial Revolution, the first thing that strikes us is the great rapidity of the growth of population. It was caused especially by: the destruction of the common-field system of cultivation; the enclosure, on a large scale, of waste lands; and the consolidation of small farms into large. So we notice even a relative and positive decline in the agricultural population, thanks to the agrarian revolution, just as the revolution in manufacturing industries. Anyway, the consequences about the consolidation of farms reduced the number of farmers, while the enclosure drove the labourers off the land, as it became impossible for them to exist without their rights, so, even if the period was one of greatest agricultural advance, soon popultaion divided itself into two distinct classes: farmers (the new class of great capitalist employers who made enormous fortunes and profits by farms) and lauborers (who lived in difficult economical and social conditions).
In conclusion the effects of the Industrial Revolution prove that free competition may produce wealth and innovations (for examples water-frame, power-loom, etc.) but without producing well-being.