The riddle posed by the Industrial Revolution is nearly inscrutable. How could we account for the sudden flourishing of that acquisitive instinct that, long dormant, seized upon novel socio-economic contingencies and fortuitous inventions to transform the landscape of the Continent beyond recognition?
Stemming from obscure origins, the Industrial Revolution left highly dubious fruits - at least in its very immediate wake, before being tempered by the aggrieved public reaction.
My question to you then is to evaluate the immediate consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Looking at the glowing account of mechanization presented by Andrew Ure and the exceedingly grim stories of exploitation and mistreatment offered by the early factory workers, one cannot help wondering about the possibility of ever reconciling these views. To attempt to do justice to both of them is the task for you.
Stemming from obscure origins, the Industrial Revolution left highly dubious fruits - at least in its very immediate wake, before being tempered by the aggrieved public reaction.
My question to you then is to evaluate the immediate consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Looking at the glowing account of mechanization presented by Andrew Ure and the exceedingly grim stories of exploitation and mistreatment offered by the early factory workers, one cannot help wondering about the possibility of ever reconciling these views. To attempt to do justice to both of them is the task for you.
I think that this historical passage should be considered in two ways. They are impact on the future and the reflection of people’s essence.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this revolution is one more huge step in technological progress. It is a new area for new inventions. Before this revolution, employers had been concentrated on the human capital. After this revolution, they continued to work in technology distributions, too.
However, owners of factories forgot about people, and hell began from this point. Labour force was associated with slaves. Perhaps, employers thought that employees would have less tasks then before, because of new technologies, which had made their work easy and faster. I guess, that true was that employers were greedy enough to make their staff suffering. Capitalists became mad with new technologies and they tried to achieve maximum profit. And their campaign was successful… but not for long.
Industrial Revolution increased quickly, bringing wealth and power to Britain in the 19th century, but it had negative effects.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Industrial Revolution started, there were not laws to regulate new industries. For example, no laws prevented to hire a children to work full time on factories or what factories could do with their biohazard waste. Free-market capitalism meant that the government had no role in managmenting the new industries or planning services for new towns. One of the biggest features of the Industrial Revolution was the Urbanization. Before, around 80% of people lived in rural areas. As people moved from the countryside, small towns became large cities. Working in new industrial cities had negative effect on people’s lives.
In my opinion, government had to improve living conditions for the working class. If the government gave benefits to the poor, they would be more satisfied and did not look to other job.
If we consider the industrial revolution from two points of view, then it will be more pluses than minuses. The industrial revolution is progress. It is in our Nature to want to rise about our limits. Think about it. We were cold, so we harnessed fire. We were weak, so we invented tools. Every time we met an obstacle, we used creativity and ingenuity to overcome it. It is not spared the industrial revolution, because it was moving forward. The development of the textile industry, economics and engineering, and the invention of the steam engine made no appreciable contribution to the history of mankind, as well as changes in the structure of society. In place of the feudal lords and the peasants come industrialists and businessmen. But if you ask yourself:” Whether it was a good result?”…I guess that will depend on how we approach it.
ReplyDeleteAlbert Einstein said, “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal”. We can verify this: exploitation, mistreatment and environmental degradation, in addition began to falling economic role of women in the family, thus increasing the role of inequality. Humanity begins to kill himself inside… But it cans too loud word. But I think the main disadvantage is that there was no competition, but the competition is the engine of industry and economy, as the result of this was disastrous.
But despite the disadvantages it still had changes. And change never comes without pain.
One of the break points of humanity, the Industrial Revolution, which took place from the 18th to 19th centuries, was a period during which predominantly agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America became industrial and urban. Industrialization marked a shift to powered, special-purpose machinery, factories and mass production. And all of these things are changed totally native way of developing economy. After IR people started to improve technological resources, instead of human resources as usually. And if you look to forward we know that power was in hands of country which has the newest and the best technology. Of course IR is the result of people's interest. If it will be used in right way , that's ok. But some countries used IR for developing their military forces... That is the black side of IR, when people used their own knowledge to themselves. It is the humanity's quality to be aggressive if another one get some achievement.
ReplyDeleteI think IR was the irreversible process. However, it was very necessary for humanity. Because, humanity every time wants to know more and more. And through this way humanity will meet a lot of things like IR.
All the negative aspects of the industrial revolution are justified. Moreover, the negative side were needed. Through trial and error, humanity evolves. Unable to come to freedom, not being a slave. We can not build a good society, without flaws in it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the consequences of the industrial revolution was the transition from an agrarian society into an industrial. During this period, developed urbanization - people moved to the cities. The first generations lived in cities without basic sanitation. There was terrible overcrowding in the apartments. However, without these cases, there would be no concept as "health standards". Identified the problem, society solved this. This is development.
The Industrial Revolution is one of the stages of human development. It was necessary, this step was needed to pass. Solution of negative sides gives to a humanity positive sides.
If I understood the question correctly, it is essentially about two views on Industrial Revolution at its beginning: industrial revolution brought more damage to workers and people in general; industrial revolution was a key to reorganizing labor and economy in general.
ReplyDeleteBut really, is it a fair question? I don't think there is any 'justice' that can be done posing question like that. Both of these points of view cannot be discredited, but seeing only one and not taking into account another is a mistake. Was there any way of minimizing damage brought by this event? Probably there was, many people were simply not prepared for this happening, and maybe if revolution came in slightly slower there wouldn't be so many victims of illnesses and insecure workplaces. But people really couldn't possible know how to adjust to such changes. Eventually, if we take a look at the bigger picture, through these 'exceedingly grim stories of exploration and mistreatment' we gained a lot: insurances, healthcare, regulating child labor and general establishment of workers' rights and etc. So taking that into account, such costs can be regarded as a 'necessary evil'. Eventually it moved whole Europe closer to the way it is in XXI century.
The Industrial Revolution certainly can be seen from manifold stances. On the one hand it boosted the production of goods to the tremendous extent and gave rise to the manufacturing of articles which had never been produced before. It begot the production quantity to skyrocket by means of introducing brand new inventions of science into the industrial domain, enabling to obtain high profits out of relatively cheap resources. The extensive consumtion of fuel by steam machines necessitated a great demand for their supply, thus resulting in the development of coal mines. The need for swift transportation of commodities led to the rise of the vast network of railroads across the island and the extraction of a prodigious amount of iron.
ReplyDeleteBut, to look from different perspective, even though the process of industrialization was destined to somewhat release the «toilsome» handwork of non-factory workers, de facto there had been the omnipresent exploitation of the sort of work which required nothing more than a mere «thoughtless» repetition of certain actions assigned to you from your overseer. And the workers were occupied with this on the consistent basis day in and day out fourteen or even sixteen hours a day stating nearly from the very infancy. I think that by Andrew Ure reducing the occupation of the work-people to the mere exercise of vigilance and dexterity leaving him to perform nothing more but the same succession of bodily movements on a daily basis by no means could contribute to the content of the worker as well as his qualification, let alone the creative thinking. Recent discoveries in neuroscience revealed that a man can be satisfied by the product of his work only if he contrived it in the first place and has been leading its development though the every stage of production.
The Industrial Revolution impoved the skills of the workers just in terms of cheap labour yielding cheap goods capable of being exchanged for a great deal money which, in my opinion, were very dubious to invest into the public favour, but rather into the pockets of factory holders.