Did Industrialization bring an improved standard of living?

The industrial revolution was a big victory for Great Britain to get ahead of the rest of the world in producing and exporting. Machines were much more efficient in producing goods and this capability helped Britain to gain wealth and more power than the rest of the world by leading in the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was the first step to take the advantage of the scientific revolution to industrialize the economy and achieving human domination over nature.

To understand the social impact of the industrial revolution, we need to know the life before the revolution. According to the authors of Steam and Steel published in 2016; “Seventeenth-century Europe was entirely different from what we know today. For most inhabitants, the highest aim was to survive in a hazardous world. They were contained in an inelastic frame by their inability to produce more than a certain amount of food or to make goods except by hand or using relatively simple tools and machines.” [1] With the industrial revolution, machines were the main investment for big factories to produce more efficient way and it decreased the prices of goods. Another social impact of the industrial revolution was population growth, “In 1750, the total European population stood at an estimated 140 million and by 1850 to 266miliyon almost twice its 1750 level” [2]

No doubt, the industrial revolution brought better life quality for the wealthy and more wealth for the middle class, however for the poor, it was not the case, especially for child labor and women workers. “Unquestionably, in the early decades of the industrial revolution places of work as early factories were called, were dreadful.” [3] In the early nineteenth century, women and children were labored to work in the mining or cotton industry under terrible conditions, long hours, short breaks, and low wages. Moreover, child labor was not an issue for some according to Jane Humphries who is the author of Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution; “The idea that children should be useful as soon as they were able and that work was better than idleness was certainly widespread in both eighteenth- and nineteenth-century autobiographies.”[4]

Employees who worked under bad conditions were united to improve the worst conditions of the industrial revolution. “in the 1820s and 1830s. the union movement began to focus on the creation of national unions… As a national federation of trade unions, its primary purpose was to coordinate a general strike for the eight-hour working day.”[5]

In conclusion, even though the Industrial Revolution did improve the quality of life in Europe, it did not benefit every citizen equally. While the first generation of industrial workers was experiencing a decline in their living standards, the wealthiest 1 percent of the population increased its share of the national product from 25 percent in 1801 to 35 percent in 1848.[6]

Sources;

1] Wolfe, James, and Christine Pools. The Industrial Revolution : Steam and Steel. Britanica Educational Publishing, 2016.

[2] Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization Volume II: Since 1500, 10. Ed. pg. 605

[3] Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization Volume II: Since 1500, 10. Ed. pg. 612

[4]Humphries, Jane. Childhood and Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[5]Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization Volume II: Since 1500, 10. Ed. pg. 615

[6]Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization Volume II: Since 1500, 10. Ed. pg. 615