Industrial Revolution
Before analyzing the concept of the institution defined in the title of the chapter, it is necessary to give explanations to its components.
Industry is a process, or a number of interconnecting processes, that produces goods by converting raw material into finished goods, with the help of tools, machinery and manpower. The finished goods are to the use of the general public, or only for a part of it. Let's translate these last sentences into simple language.
The meaning of goods at the time of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, was something one could touch or take into his hands. Today, we are looking at intellectual efforts as goods, so we recognize software industry, publishing industry, etc. but two hundred odd years ago goods were visible and touchable.
The means of industrial production was usually manual work, although even in very early times there were simple machines, powered by hand, or even machines that were powered by wind or water. A spinning wheel or a weaving loom were muscle-powered machines. Flourmills were usually powered by wind or by water. The metal industry had a water powered stamping machine from very early times on.
Industrial production employed a great number of people, even before the Industrial Revolution. Looking back at those times with our modern, calculating, minds, it is certain that either the products must have been very expensive, needing much more manpower than is needed today, or that the wages paid to the workers was very low. It seems that both assumptions were correct.
Western Europe had a large textile industry since the Middle Ages. The industry was centered in two distinct geographical areas; one in Italy and the second is in the Low Countries. That the textile products were expensive one could see that peasants, even in northern Europe, wore dresses only in cold weather. In the summer, they went without clothes. Clothes were expensive but all manufactured articles were deemed as family heirlooms to be bequeathed in wills. Even Shakespeare thought it necessary to leave his bed to his wife, at Stratford-upon-Avon.
In classical times, industrial workers were slaves. Later on, European industry, whenever it was feasible, employed piece workers, who were working for contractors and were paid by the number of products. It was the practice of practically the whole textile industry of Europe, which was run by workers who had spinning wheels and weaving looms in their homes, received raw material from the merchants who employed them and returned the material in the form of finished product. The system of piece workers was the practice until the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution. There are villages in the highlands of Scotland where every house was built with the windows pointing to the west; allowing the workers to receive the last rays of the setting sun and continue working until it was light. Those villages are silent witnesses of pre-Industrial Revolution practices.
The relation between the subcontractors, who were the piece workers, and the rich merchants who supplied the tools and the raw materials, and paid for the finished products, was less than harmonious. The history of Toscana and that of the Low Countries, is full of conflicts, sometimes even violent ones, between the rich merchants and the little people who worked for them.
There were industries that could not be organized by a system of piecework. Such industries were the mines or workshops where heavy tools were built.Industries like that paid daily or weekly wages. Judging from historical evidences, even those wages were not high. The German family of Fugger from Augsburg operated the copper mines of northern Hungary. That family left their name in the Hungarian language. 'Fukar' – the Hungarian transliteration of Fugger, means stingy in Hungarian. One can imagine in what circumstances the name of the family has entered the Hungarian language.
Except in special circumstances, like in case of building heavy tools, industrial goods were produced for general use. English wool that was sold to Flemish woolen mills ended up in the fairs of Champagne, as rolls to be sold to drapers or to itinerant merchants. There were, however, industries that worked on orders. Spinning wheels and weaving looms had to be built as they included knowledge that only special enterprise had. Those machines were the mainstays of the textile industry. Neither the people who worked in the cottage industry, nor the people who employed them, had the knowledge to build those machines.
So, before the Industrial Revolution there was an industry that went back to a very long time, probably even to prehistoric ages. Jericho was probably the oldest town in the Near East. The earliest layers of Jericho went back to before 7000 BC. In the excavations of the earliest layer of the town, Turkish obsidian from the Van Lake area, shells from the Red Sea and turquoise from Sinai were found. Before the introduction of metal tools and weapons, obsidian was an extremely important trade item. Without obsidian (flint) tools one could not make weapons and tools. It had to be shaped by skilled people. Not everybody had the necessary skill to do it. It probably means that the pieces of flint that were found at Jericho and elsewhere, were not pieces of stone but manufactured articles.
So, there is a concept of Industry that reaches back to very early time, and according the title of the chapter, it underwent a revolution. What was indeed the meaning of the world revolution in the expression 'Industrial Revolution''? The world revolution means a radical change in a situation that can be national, religious, social or other. We call Neolithic Revolution the process that has basically changed the method of acquiring food for human societies. It was not violent, it went on a very long time but it did change the face of the earth.
The Industrial Revolution also lasted for a long time. Although it was associated with the introduction of the steam engine, but in fact it started earlier and it went on until the steam engine was replaced by electrical power. But, it was the steam engine that originated the Industrial Revolution and changed the face of the earth, not less than the Neolithic Revolution did ten thousand years ago. Why the steam engine? After all, much before the invention of the steam engine, there were industrial productions that relied on mechanical power of wind and water. They did not initiate the Revolution; the steam engine did.
What the steampower did was to mechanize and increase production, and together with the production, gave employment to the constantly growing population and at the same time provided it with needed industrial products.
There were, however, a number of internal conflicts that created the negative impressions that remained since the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Simonde de Sismondi, one of the earlier French economists who lived in the first half of the 19th century, visited England, which was better developed than France as far as industrialization was concerned, and asked that why is it that a seemingly beneficial production of goods by machinery "brings on poverty in the midst of plenty?". He also observed that the Industrial Revolution has split labor from capital, and makes them enemies. In addition, with overproduction, the owners must seek foreign markets and thereby precipitate national wars, while at home a class struggle goes on. Sismondi wrote that in 1818, the year when Karl Marx was born. There were people who saw the inherent contradictions much before Marx, Engels and other saw them.
There were a number of reasons that caused the contradictions. Some were inherent in human nature, like the drive to succeed and to be a leader. Others were caused by the demographic explosion that compelled unemployed people to accept any wage, however low it was, because there was a relentless competition of unemployed peasants who were streaming to the towns in search of employment. Of course, that competition drove the wages low. There were two more causes that created the myth of the 'satanic mills'. They were connected to the technology of the steam engines and to the economy that was created by them.
The Industrial Revolution was based on the steam engine. It was originally developed to pump water from deep mines, then it went on to drive ships and finally trains. For all these applications, it was admirably suitable. A steam engine is a heavy, stationary machine, with the steam creating a horizontal motion that can easily be converted to circular motion. It needs a constant supply of fuel, water and close attention. Human ingenuity and the need to increase industrial production adapted the heavy steam engines for industrial use. That adaptation has caused a great number of problems.
Steam engines are very large and powerful engines. When that power had to be used directly in pumping water, or driving ships and trains, there were no problems. The ratio between the power of the engine and what was needed for the job was one to one. If there was a pump that needed a power of a 100 HP then one had to install a steam engine of100 HP. However, if the machine that had to be powered was a weaving loom, which needed much less power, then some mechanical system had to be designed to divide the power of the engine to hundreds or thousands of manufacturing operations. The result was that a factory became a tangle of shafts and belts transmitting power and motion from the stationary steam engine to the end users.
There were constant improvements but the basic problems were inherent in the tool itself, and could not be changed. The best and only solution to the problems would be to add the motivating power directly to the production machines. It was impossible to do while the steam engines were the motivating power. That solution could come only with the advent of electricity. But it was still far in the future. Even in the second half of the 20th century there were factories that even when they replaced the steam engines with electrical power, they replaced the central power station, which was run on steam, by a large electrical power station. Disliking the idea of redesigning the factory, and wishing to reduce costs, they used electrical power to drive the shafts and the belts and as far as the efficiency of the factory was concerned, there was no change.
It is said that the fast economic recovery of Germany and Japan after the Second World War was connected with the fact that their factories were destroyed during the war and they rebuilt them in a more efficient way,' by eliminating the old transmission methods. The factories of the winning powers remained more or less intact, so they became less efficient than the factories of their former enemies.
The technological constraints had a number of unexpected results. One of them was that production plans and setups could not be changed at short notice If a textile factory had hundreds of spindles, all driven by the same steam engine, it was difficult, next to impossible, to shut down part of the spindles and change the product. It meant that because of technological considerations, the most economic way to run a factory was to produce one product at a time. It certainly was not what the home market wanted. The result was that technological constraints turned into marketing imperatives, to export as much as possible, with the potential conflicts usually associated with export marketing.
There were additional considerations, although they rather belonged to the field of economy. Building a factory that was powered by steam was expensive to build, and even more expensive to maintain. Moreover, the factories were unhealthy and dangerous. They were also notorious of employing women and children, seven days a week, who lived in miserable hovels in shantytowns near the factories and were paid a pittance. All these together contributed to the image of the 'satanic mills'. As is the rule with most of 'common knowledge' the image was partly correct, at least for the most notorious textile factories, but then most of the elements in the harsh image were caused by the inherent structure of the steam engine and were not caused by the greed of the owners; although there was plenty of that too.
The primary problem of industry powered by steam engine was the high cost of investment and even higher cost of maintenance. The high cost of investment compelled the owners to seek economy in size. Why attach 1000 spindles to a steam engine when for a slightly higher investment 1500 spindles could be attached. After all, the original design called for a long revolving shaft to transmit power from the steam engine to the production machines. Adding a few hundred more spindles would only extend the revolving shaft and attach more belts connecting the shaft and the spindles. Similarly, if a worker was responsible for the smooth operation of 8 spindles, why not increase the number to 10 or even to 12?
As the maintenance of the transmission system was one of the major expenses of steam powered factories, even in the cost of maintenance there was an economy in size. It was not always so, but it could be presented that way.
Anyone, who reads these lines and who saw factories with clean and shining machines, properly cleaned and ventilated working space, and with each machine having its own safety switch, automatically activated for any possible malfunction, cannot imagine the environment of a steam powered factory. The difference between the two is primarily in the manner of powering, and only secondarily in legislation.
If a factory owner wanted to create a system of ventilation in a steam powered factory, then an extension to the transmission system had to be created and maintained. Additional cost in investment and maintenance. So, the factories were unhealthy and dirty places to work, full of dust of the yarn, where probably the sole means of ventilation were a few open windows. No wonder that the biggest killer of the 19th century was tuberculosis.
As with health, so it was with safety. The factory floors were full of operating machines, powered by belts between them and the revolving shafts overhead. Even with the best of maintenance, belts sometimes slipped from their wheels or split into two. One of the most common industrial accidents of those times, were the bodies of workers, sometimes mangled beyond recognition by flapping belts. It is possible that the owners were callous and neglected safety procedures, but even if they would have been angels, which they certainly were not, accidents could not have been avoided. The problems and the accidents were inherent in the system. There were complaints, strikes and legislation, but only the replacement of steam by electricity changed the picture. Not that modern factories are accident free; any closed space full of people, machines and materials is prone for accidents whose number can be reduced but not eliminated altogether. However, electrically powered factories are a different world from their steam-powered predecessors, and many of the ills of industries have evaporated with the change of the source of power. This book describes the Industrial Revolution at its very beginning, powered by steam and beset with the ills described above.
In addition to low pay, unhealthy and dangerous working conditions, there were more unpleasant side effects that were connected with early industrialization. Because of technological and economic constraints, factories were big. It was the principle of economy in size. Large factories needed many workers working long hours. Public transports were not yet in existence, at least not in a way we know it and certainly not with a price that factory workers could afford. People, who worked long hours in a factory, could not walk long distances to and from their homes. What this combination has created was that wherever a large factory was built, the immediate neighborhood was built up with shantytowns of hovels. Sometimes, the factory owners initiated building of tenements for their workers. Some of those tenements still exist in old factory towns.
Whether hovels in shantytowns or tenements in row houses, they were teeming with children. Many of the economists of the period, like the Rev. Thomas Malthus, warned against the danger of overpopulation. However, as practically the only form of entertainment a worker could afford was that of the bed, and the best what the Rev. Malthus could offer was a life of abstinence, the warnings were not heeded by the population, if they even heard about them.
It is known now that the Rev. Malthus was wrong. The Industrial Revolution was not the cause of the demographic explosion; it was part of the solution. It provided work for the additional population and supplied much-needed industrial products. It certainly did not solve the acute problem of overpopulation. Chart 3 shows that the rate of increase of the population continued to rise until the second half of the 20th century. Only after that did the rate of increase drop. What has caused the drop in the rate of increase is still an open question. It is possible that the real cause of the drop is a high standard of living and the fact that the states have taken over most of the functions, which a few generations ago belonged to the families, extended or nuclear. Before the intervention of the states, having many children was a form of social insurance. It is also a possibility that the cause of the drop is the decline of the Western Civilization. There are not many similar trends in historical times, except maybe at the end of the Classical Age, so no empirical decision can be made.
It is certain that even late in the age of the Industrial Revolution, the fact of the demographic explosion was very much alive in European consciousness and political thought. Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia, a colonial statesman, at the end of the 19th century, has written:
"In order to save the forty million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines. If you want to avoid civil war, you must turn imperial".
To show that it was solely a question of overpopulation, there is another quotation attributed to Cecil Rhodes:
"I would annex the planets if I could."
It is possible that Cecil Rhodes was an inveterate imperialist, but it is also possible that in the constraints of the late 19th century he saw no other way out of the quandary of the Western World.
(Both sentences were quoted by James Burke and Robert Orenstein: The Axemaker's Gift, 1997, p.221)
In order to see the seriousness of the threat of civil war in overpopulated Europe, it is worth while to read H.G. Wells' science fiction novel, The Time Machine. Although the story of that novel is placed in the far future, it has a direct connection to the social relations of the writer's time, who was a contemporary of Cecil Rhodes.
If the citation from Cecil Rhodes gave the impression that overpopulation was a specific problem of the United Kingdom, it is a mistaken impression. Many of the historians who analyzed the causes of the First World War, put the blame on Germany, because of her policy of competition with the United Kingdom, both in naval shipbuilding and in her aggressive commercial competition in overseas markets.
Kurt Niezler was a senior advisor to Bethman-Hollweg, the German Chancellor at the beginning of the First World War. He wrote a memorandum to the Chancellor after the outbreak of the war. It showed that Germany was in the same situation as Britain was according to Cecil Rhodes. Both countries and many others were caught in a historical situation over which they had no control and no knowledge either. Niezler wrote:
"The population of the young German Empire…grows annually by 800,000 – 900,000 people and for these new masses food must be found, or, what amounts to the same, work…The demands of the German nation for power and prestige, not only in Europe, but throughout the world, have increased rapidly."
(quoted by Immanuel Geiss, Origins of the First World War. London, 1972, p.64.)
The Industrial Revolution was a solution to the demographic explosion but not the cause of it. If we analyze the important parts of that Revolution we see the following points:
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It provided employment to the ever-increasing work force. The employment was underpaid, unhealthy and dangerous. This is how it looks to us, and that is how it looked to its contemporary critics. However, the millions who streamed from the countryside to the towns, did not see it that way, otherwise they would have remained in their villages. It seems that, as usual, it was a question of alternatives and the 'satanic mills' were not the worst, although they were bad enough by any standard.
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The Industrial Revolution has opened up the world. The new industrial base of Europe, or in general the Western World, needed raw material for their production and market for their output.
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In addition to the constant need for raw material, Europe became depended on imported food. The population of the western World has quintupled between 1800 and 2000, and multiplied by two and a half times between 1800 and 1900, The local food production did not increase in such a rate so importing food from outside the western World became imperative. It affected the race for the colonies.
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The competition for raw materials, food supplies and markets for finished products have pitted the western nations against each other. The result was a period of wars, between 1914 and 1945, or as some claim, until 1989.
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There were other, more beneficial results too. The Industrial revolution succeeded in fields where previously were only failures. First it brought a common measuring system. It was a must, as otherwise no country could have used products manufactured in another country. As usual with all ingrained habit, the changeover was a slow process and it is not yet fully completed. There are still meters and yards, kilograms and pounds, liters and pints, but it seems that eventually the metric system will be accepted everywhere. It is a logical system, based upon the multiples of ten. When will it happen? Not soon, but eventually it will.
Together with the measuring system, the monies were standardized too. It seems that today all the currencies of the world had been decimalized.
There were other standardization too, that were accomplished because serious causes demanded it. Before the introduction of train transport, each village or town had its local time. It was set each day at noon, when the sun was exactly overhead. It was possible that 12 o'clock in one village could have been 12:10 or 11:50 in another village, depending whether the village was to the east or to the west from the first one. With the introduction of the train service, this archaic method had to cease, as there was a danger that a train will arrive at a station before it has left the previous station. Since then, there is a system of global time zones and identical times within each zone.
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* * *
Humanity had two revolutions. Both were long, drawn-out affairs, without political movements, slogans and ideologies. The participants had each contributed one small step to the success of the revolution, without being aware of it or even being aware that there is a revolution. The definitions of both revolutions were coined by posterity. Both had to find answers to challenges that were being put before them. They were not even aware of the challenge, but the instinct of staying alive in the case of the first revolution, and the urge to succeed in the case of the second revolution, were sufficient for their doing their parts.
The first revolution was the Neolithic Revolution and the challenge was the change of climate in the Eurasian landmass, with desiccation in the south and deglaciation in the north. The result of the climatic changes was that the previous existence of the hunter-gatherer human bands was threatened. The solution was neither fast nor easy. The testimonies of archaeological excavations tell a grisly story, of deformed skeletons showing signs of starvation and illnesses. It was a very long process. If the establishment of urban civilizations is an indicator for success, then it was nearly six millennia between the start of the revolution and its success. The reason that the establishment of Urban Civilizations was taken as a signpost of a success, because it was the first sure sign that agriculture could support not only those who actually worked in it, but it had a surplus, sufficient to feed non-productive people. Whether that surplus was donated out of the free will of the producers or was taken from them by coercion, is an important element, but in this particular case, it has no importance.
The success of the Neolithic Revolution presupposed certain conditions. It is certain that the prehistoric hunter-gatherer groups had an intimate knowledge of their environment, just as presently living hunter-gatherer groups have today. If they knew where grain-bearing grasses were growing, they could attempt to extend the fields and the same with fruit-bearing trees. They also could experiment with improving the yields of the fields.
The second revolution was the Industrial Revolution, the subject of this chapter. It also answered a challenge that no one at that time knew its source, only its results. It should be added here that in the case of the Neolithic Revolution there must have been a constant deterioration of the climate and changes in the composition of the herds, on which they preyed, but it must have been a long process, until it became apparent that without doing something the family or the tribe will starve. The choices they had were limited. They could follow the herds, north or south, and become embroiled with other hunter-gatherer bands in fight for territory, they could do nothing and eventually starve, or attempt to increase the yield of their piece of territory. Some succeeded, some did not.
The changes of the first revolution were bad, as far as the people, who had to make the decisions, were concerned. The changes of the second revolution were excellent as far as the people who eventually created the Industrial Revolution were concerned. The challenge of the Industrial Revolution was that there were more people and more demand for everything. The merchants and manufacturers had an incentive to invest in research, new factories and machinery as they saw the growing market.
If we wanted to classify the Industrial Revolution, then it would be something whose direct ancestors were the advance in pure and applied science on one hand, and the basic wish of entrepreneurs to succeed and get rich, on the other. There was a third element too, the demographic curve that started to climb at the end of the 17th century. However, the demographic increase was a direct outcome of the improvement of public health and general cleanliness, which was connected to the advancement of the sciences.
The Industrial Revolution was an internal European affair, it had no counterpart in the rest of the world. It started much earlier than the 18th century, which is its accepted date. Its real starting date can probably be placed in the 12th century AD when European society has left the Dark Ages and started to expand to all directions. From that century onward there was a surplus population that had no place in local agriculture. The pressure of that surplus was behind the attempts to expand in the Iberian peninsula, in the Middle East and in Asia. There were internal movements too, like the Germans in Slavic Eastern Europe and the Flemish in the British Isles. However, the possibility of finding new agricultural lands was limited, so the majority settled in the towns. They were the seeds from which the Industrial Revolution has grown.
Between the 12th and the 18th centuries AD there were many events that contributed to the eventual success of the Industrial Revolution: the Renaissance, the Reformation, the constant advance of sciences, the demise of the feudal system and its replacement by nation states, and finally the ascendancy of the middle class.
The list of the historical events represents links in a chain connecting the 12th with the 18th century. They were inevitable events because they were nourished by a demographic increase in Europe that started in the 12th century and will come to an end sometime in the middle of the 21st century. It is not a post hoc, propter hoc statement, but recognition of the contribution of each link in the chain to the final success.
One cannot have a rational industry on a base of a feudal political system. Putting the two together is an oxymoron. The feudal system was based upon land holding and agriculture. Political systems based upon land are rigid and cannot easily be changed. Land is permanent and moreover, it is extremely conservative. The political system of the great landmass stretching from Morocco to India, or even to China, is still in the feudal age. It explains the expression of 'Oriental Despotism' and their weak economic and social standing.
It was a demographic process that caused the demise of the feudal system and the ascendancy of the middle class. The expression of 'middle class' has been changed so many times, that it is worthwhile to define it again.
In the feudal Age there were three orders. The first order was the aristocracy, the second the Church, and the middle class, the city burgers, were the third. The people who actually worked, the serfs and the workers, were not even in the picture. There was no fourth order. The belonging to the first order was hereditary, or by elevation by the king; the second, the church, was supposed to be based on merit, but more often than not, it was an attachment to the aristocracy although there were notable exceptions. The third order, the middle class, was based upon money, but it had a considerable amount of mobility and talented people usually had the opportunity to go ahead. That included the serfs too. Showing capability and having luck, a talented serfs could advance.
As most of the demographic increase of Europe eventually reached the towns and increased the importance of the middle class, by the end of the 18th century the upper reaches of the middle class were much richer than the aristocracy and they could rely on a large reservoir of talented people, thinkers and artists who represented them. It was the picture in France at the end of the 18th century, when the 'de facto' ascendancy of the middle class became 'de iure', but it was the general picture all over the western world.
There was a final impetus that prepared the Industrial Revolution, and that was the improvement of public health and the medical profession in general. It considerably reduced the mortality of children and that was the trigger that caused the demographic explosion, as it is shown on Chart 1. Improvement of public health and medicine means science and science means middle class. When we check the origin of most of those who contributed to the advance of science, there are very few, if any, aristocrats amongst them. The clergy had more part in science, but the great majority came from the middle class.
The challenge of the Industrial Revolution was an unprecedented demographic increase, fueled by the reduction of rate of children mortality. That increase brought the population of the West from 167 millions in 1750 AD to 1064 millions in the years 2000. It was a sixfold increase in 250 years. What was the response to that challenge? There was no planet-wide declaration of emergency or a clarion call to do something. Still, already at the end of the 18th century there were comments and analyses, like the one made by the Rev. Malthus. A hundred years after Malthus, the problem was generally recognized, as was shown by the quotation by Cecil Rhodes and by Kurt Niezler.
The only real response was that of businessmen, capitalist who saw in the challenge of the demographic explosion not a threat but an opportunity to make profit. It ought to be said in their favor that while greed and profit motivated them, they were also aware that the price of failure was steep. There were strict bankruptcy laws and the debtors' prison was very much a credible threat. That was the environment of the Industrial Revolution.
Both revolutions were a resounding success. They did not return the situations as they were before the challenge, The Neolithic Revolution did not return the climate as it was before the change, but it found the way to replace the bounty they had from the environment before the challenge by man-grown agricultural products. It was not an easy way; there were many failures and starvation, but from that period until the present, agriculture and husbandry eeds humanity. The social price that humanity paid for that success is very great but it is beyond the scope of this book, Judging from the present state of the world, which are analyzed in the last chapter of this book, it is not sure that the capability to feed humanity will last indefinitely.
The Industrial Revolution is also a success. As the first revolution it also did not turn back the clock. However, its success can be measured in two points:
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It gave employment to a great part of humanity, thereby alleviating somehow the pressure of the demographic explosion. The increase of employment was either directly in production or indirectly, in growing or mining raw material, or participating in transport, distribution and commerce of the finished products.
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Before the Industrial Revolution manufactured articles were expensive. It was not surprising. In a technical book from the 16th century, the manufacturing process of sewing needles was explained. There were 74 separate operation to produce a sewing needle from steel wire. It is no wonder that a sewing needle was expensive. Before the Industrial Revolution, everything was done by hand, or by simple muscle-driven machines. Pots and pans, tables and chairs, beds, and eating utensils were family heirlooms to be mentioned in wills. After the Industrial Revolution when a single machine could manufacture thousands or tens of thousands sewing needles a day, the whole set of values had to change, and change they did.
That was the measure of success of the Industrial Revolution. That success can even be quantified if one compares the prices of simple household articles before the revolution and their prices after it. Of course, the comparison has to be made by identical measurement. It is possible that by this measurement, at least two-thirds of the present population of the world gained by the Industrial Revolution. It is certainly true for the rich part of the world, but is also true for a great part of the underdeveloped world. In simple words, the Industrial Revolution has changed the threshold of poverty in the world
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The three chapters: Nation States, Middle Class and Industrial Revolution completed the building of the foundation on which the modern world was built, and upon which the subsequent historical processes will be shown. The three foundation chapters were more or less contemporaries, although as it was shown, they commenced at different times and they are still in process. Curiously, the creation of the Middle Class and a preliminary industrial development were the first to start, sometimes in the 12th century AD. The Nation States was a much later development.
However, the expressions of contemporary and consecutive are relative expressions; the subjects are dynamic. There is no need to worry overmuch about the proper dates of starts and ends. It is a fact that the Industrial Revolution could not have occurred without a dominant middle class and no dominant middle class could have existed in feudal society. That they came true shows that the processes occurred in a proper order.
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