Background on the Industrial Revolution

First a quick review. Some terms:

• Revolution and tradition
• Reason and Feeling
• Imagination and Nature
• Common language and common people: art and the subject(s) of art
• Rights, Freedom, Liberty or Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote (and was quoted by J. S. Mill): "the end of man, or that which is prescribed by the eternal or immutable dictates of reason, and not suggested by vague and transient desires, is the highest and most harmonious development of his powers to a complete and consistent whole;" that, therefore, the object "towards which every human being must ceaselessly direct his efforts, and on which especially those who design to influence their fellow-men must ever keep their eyes, is the individuality of power and development;" that for this there are two requisites, "freedom, and a variety of situations;" and that from the union of these arise "individual vigor and manifold diversity," which combine themselves in "originality."
• Economics, rights, justice, tradition (we'll see more of this in Wordsworth
• Urbanization and the loss of community (or the refashioning of new communities (the project of the 19th century in Britain)
• Economics, rights, justice, and an oppressive tradition (as in Blake's Songs)
• Industrialization and the Industrial Revolution

Notes on Industrialization

These notes are from Hobsbawm's The Age of Revolutions, 1789-1848.

1)      What does it mean to say the Industrial Revolution “broke out”?

a)      Some time in the 1780s, and for the first time in human history, productive power of human societies became capable of constant, rapid and up to the present limitless multiplication of people, goods and services—what economists call the “take-off into self-sustained growth” (29)

b)      “To ask when it was complete is senseless, for its essence was that henceforth revolutionary change became the norm.” (29)

2)      Revolution initiated by Britain (29)

a)      The source of Britain’s advantage?

i)        Not scientific and technological superiority

ii)       Not educational or theoretical—an educated person would read Adam Smith, yes, but also French economists as well.

b)      The Right Conditions (31)

i)        Some power vested in people (certainly since 1649)

ii)       Private profit and economic development seen as the primary object of government policy

iii)     Agricultural advances

(1)   increased production and productivity to feed a rapidly increasing non-agricultural workforce

(2)   surpluses for cities and towns

(3)   provide a mechanism (land) for the accumulation of capital

c)      1793-1815 War eliminated all rivals

3)      The Example of British Cotton (33)

a)      Cotton industry created and nourished by colonial trade

i)        Cotton and slavery linked (34)

(1)   money from Indian cotton goods used to buy slaves

(2)   Slaves worked the cotton plantations of the West Indies

(3)   Planters used their money to buy cotton checks (a kind of fabric)

b)      The triumph of the export market over the home (35)

i)        by 1814 Britain exported four yards of cotton cloth for every three used at home

ii)       by 1850 the ratio was thirteen yards to eight

c)      Exploitation of colonial and semi-colonial markets

i)        Britain’s monopoly established by war, other people’s revolutions and her own imperial rule (35)

ii)       The Case of India (35)

(1)   systematically de-industrialized

(2)   former net exporter turned into net importer

(a)    in 1820 imported 11 million yards

(b)   in 1840 imported 145 million yards

d)      Exploitation of labor

i)        In colonies, slavery could be used to expand production (36)

ii)       In British Isles, mechanization introduced because of lack of labor (36)

iii)     Putting out system, domestic labor

4)      Consequences

a)      Social

i)        transition to new economy created misery and discontent (38)

(1)   Luddites (machine-breakers)

(2)   reaction against “fund-holders” (those who bought war bonds and were guaranteed a high rate of return for their investment)

b)      Economic flaws of the new economy (according to capitalists)

i)        Boom and bust cycle—seized on by critics of capitalism

ii)       Falling profits over time

(1)   Causes

(a)    competition

(b)   lowered production costs due to mechanization

(2)   “Remedies”

(a)    wage-cutting

(i)      substitute cheaper workers

(ii)    mechanize

(iii)   wages can go only so low—capitalists blame Corn Laws (tariffs attached to grain to shield them from foreign competition)

iii)     Shortage of profitable investment opportunities

(1)   Iron, coal and steel (43)

(2)   railway (44)

(a)    began as means of transporting coal

(b)   later became a consumer of coal pushing for greater coal-mining

(3)   comfortable and rich classes accumulated income so fast and in such vast quantities that they could not spend or invest it (45)

(a)    No attempt made to redistribute this wealth for social purposes

c)      Redeployment of Economic Resources (47)

i)        labour shifted from agriculture to industry (47)

ii)       agriculture mechanized and rationalized (due to fewer labourers)

iii)     enclosure to put more land under the plow (48)

iv)     rural destitution increases rural flight of workers (49)

v)      the right kind of worker (49)

(1)   factory life—the time clock; mechanized not seasonal

(2)   women and children seen as more tractable and cheaper (50)

(3)   de-skilling

5)      Conclusion

a)      “In this rather haphazard, unplanned and empirical way the first major industrial economy was built. By modern standards it was small and archaic, and its archaism still marks Britain today. By the standards of 1848 it was monumental, though also rather shocking, for its new cities were uglier, its proletariat worse off than elsewhere, and the fog-bound, smoke-laden atmosphere in which pale masses hurried to and fro troubled the foreign visitor . . . And both Britain and the world knew that the Industrial Revolution launched in these islands by and through the traders and entrepreneurs, whose only law was to buy in the cheapest market and sell without restriction in the dearest, was transforming the world. Nothing could stand in its way. The gods and kings of the past were powerless before the businessmen and steam-engines of the present” (51-52).