Industrial Revolution Essay Sample

Agrarian revolution and industrial revolution

The enlightenment era was commonly referred to at the age of reason. In the late 17th century the kinds of John Lockie and Isaac Newton were challenging the societal norms. Isaac coined a law of gravity whose pegging was not for any spiritual being. Lockie on his part insisted on the power of the people to set the government and do away with oppression. There were beginning to be doubts as to which God will let humans suffer in eternity while exhausting a tyrant king. With these ideas, Europe would take a new route towards transformation. The Enlightenment concepts included revolution, social contract, natural rights, and reason.

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Apart from the agrarian revolution about ten thousand years ago, industrial revolution in eighteenth century, Europe is marked to have had a remarkable influence on the human race. The change would see a turnaround in consumption, family, human labor, society structures as well as fundamentals of thoughts and the soul. Is revolution went beyond the bounds of technology and included industrial revolution. During the twelfth and thirteenth century, there were enormous technological explorations that impacted on labor and production. We do not dispute the input of technology, but we expand the thinking to attribute the revolution to social changes as Europe advanced from Agriculture and rural setup into an urban capitalist economy.

British Enlightenment

There is no quorum as to when exactly the British Enlightenment started or ended. Most historians attribute it to the struggle for political power in 17th Century had a great effect in its enlightenment. The power struggle recorded in 1649 saw the death of King Charles 1 by execution and as a result the rise of Oliver Cromwell who established the Commonwealth. This reign that is common termed as experiment lasted for a decade, afterward, they reverted to the monarch leadership under King Charles the second.

Problems caused by environmental pollution

There was a lot of pollution from both the factories and the workers living in slums. During this error, there was urbanization that led to congestion of the industrial cities. Child labor became an issue when the work demands skyrocketed especially in mines because of their size, and the population was unable to satisfy the demand. Karl Marx is considered the father of capitalism, his ideas triggering industrial revolution and soon afterward the problems. The jobs became limited, prized natural resources were getting depleted, and in other words, the workforce became unnecessary. The immigrants to the city will bring diseases due to poor sanitation in the factories and soon people were dying of those diseases. Cottage industries started facing high produced costs, and limited production and this meant Industries acquired raw materials at higher costs making production expensive.

Solution to problems caused by industrial revolution

The solution to child labor was the establishment of organized labor unions which advice their members in matters of benefits wages and working conditions. The solution to overcrowding cities was political activism where workers gained the right to elect leaders who promised to improve their lives. Pollution was then resolved through social welfare where employees were offered disability payment and unemployment benefits to help them cope with the economic times.

The industrial revolution was witnessed between 1920 and 1940. During this period, there were a lot of changes that happened globally, and these changes laid a great foundation of the current manufacturing industry. The adverse effect of the industrial revolution was mass production and expansion of markets. With the development of the market, the role of consumer and workers adversely changed. As mass production was being experienced, other factors such labor and capital were influenced, and they shifted to those places that they were required. Such transformations led to the development of arbitrage theory that transformed the notion of wages and that workers were paid during that period (Allen, 2006).

Innovative People

With mass production, some individuals become wealthy as other remained poor and this divided the society into two halves; the poor and the rich. The rich people accumulated more wealth and started their companies, and this resulted in economic growth. The rich people had to be innovative and creative for their industries to remain competitive in production. This innovation was facilitated by the money and the resources that rich people possessed, and this resulted in a class of individuals that was referred to as researchers. This led to the formation of capital markets and media publicity. One of the extreme influence capitalism was the share markets and share trading. As industrial revolution continued, the society continued to divide as the wealthy dominated in the society (Allen, 2006).

The notion of work drastically changed as a result of an industrial revolution. With a growth of industrialization, the use of the machine in production intensified and hence more people were required to work in a mechanized society. The labor that was previously traditional now depended on more on mechanized work. Workers now had to adjust to the new changes and learned on how to use machine technology as a result of industrialization. The production increased, and employees output was high with the help of the machine which in turn led to large-scale production of goods. New manufacturing methods were invented, and more individuals became more well-informed of various kinds of work (De Vries,1994).

To enhance unity among workers so as to speak with one voice, trade unions were formed to demand more wages in respect of specialization. This drastically affected growth as workers organized strikes and boycotted their jobs something that negatively affected the productivity and output of the workers. This created a division between the employers and the workers as the employees felt as if they were being paid less yet their employers became richer hence the society remained divided. It created a society called the haves and the have-nots (De Vries,1994).

Even though industrial revolution came with a lot of challenges, it remains the essential foundation of the current technological advancement, especially in the manufacturing industry. The United States remained innovative and came up with new manufacturing method that has enabled it to remain the leader in the manufacturing sector. The other thing that helped the growth is the development various kinds of transport to facilitate smooth movement of goods. The industrial revolution led to large-scale production and more roads and communication network were developed something that Americans are still enjoying up to today. The American lives dramatically changed after the revolution as new channels of work came out. However, some of the negative impacts that are still being felt are the division that it created in our society up to today.

References

Untitled Document. (n.d.). Retrieved March 09, 2017, from http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/modernworldhistorytextbook/industrialrevolution/ireffects.html

The Impact of Enlightenment in Europe. (n.d.). Retrieved March 09, 2017, from http://www.ushistory.org/us/7a.asp

Hooker, R. (n.d.). The Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century. Retrieved March 09, 2017, from http://richard-hooker.com/sites/worldcultures/ENLIGHT/INDUSTRY.HTM