Unit 3: The Industrial Revolution (1780-1870)
1) The roots of Industrial Revolution in England
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The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the late 18th century and spread throughout Europe. It was a change that affected all areas of society. It was such a transformation that it has been compared to the Neolithic Revolution.
It seems like everything started with a revolution in the fields...
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1.1) Agricultural revolution.
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We have already studied something on this point in previous unit: England was a trading and naval power (remember the War of Spanish Succession, the Treaty of Utrecht, the trading routes it controlled all around the world...) and invested a good part of its profits from colonial trade in the internal development of the country. This caused a modernization of the countryside that brought a chain reaction: increased food production, decreased hunger, increased population, increased labor and the number of consumers. This process, as is logical, fed back.
There were three fundamental innovations:
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1) Reduction in the number of fallow lands: there are crops that deplete the nutrients of the land, such as cereals, so that, after the harvest, the land must be left to rest for a year to recover those nutrients. However, there are other crops that help the soil fix these nutrients, such as forage plants. By alternating the planting of these two types of crops on the same land (cereals one year and fodder the next) there was no need to leave the land fallow, so its use was much greater. This method is called the Norfolk System, after the place in England where it began to be practiced.
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2) Mechanization: new machines appear that maximize production, such as Jehtro Tull's seeder, which we saw in previous units. Crops that come from America (potato, corn, tomato...) and the use of fertilizers become widespread.
3) Enclosures: Until the eighteenth century there was a large amount of communal land in England. It was land that belonged to an entire town and that was exploited by all of them, but this changes radically with the Enclosure Acts of 1845. The rural bourgeoisie bought these lands and fenced them. Private property is established in the countryside and the new owners think of producing a lot of food to sell it for profit, and not to survive.
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1.2) Demographics
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From all of the above it follows that there is a population growth. It occurs throughout Europe and especially in England, as we will see.
The mortality rate is reduced, as a consequence of greater access to food, better hygiene and medicine. It is necessary to highlight the widespread use of soap and the invention of the smallpox vaccine by Edward Jenner in 1796.
The birth rate increased at the beginning of the century due to the improvement in the economic situation, although it decreased again in the second half, since as many children did not die, families had fewer. In the cities, people begin to think that it is not necessary to have large families.
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1.3) New energy sources
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The first industrial machines were powered by hydraulic power, but in 1769 James Watt and his friend Mathew Boulton patented the steam engine, which produced energy from the combustion of coal. It was a revolutionary invention, since it could be applied to very different machines, printing much more energy than the old sources. The locomotive or steamboat are perhaps the best known examples.
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1.4) Transportation
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The increase in both agricultural and industrial production caused England to seek ways to supply the cities faster and better. Roads were improved and canals were built to transport goods by sea.
On the other hand, the great revolution in transport was brought by the railway, which could transport a lot of cargo over long distances and at a speed never seen before. In addition, it was also used to transport people and, therefore, ideas. The locomotive, patented by Stephenson in 1829, was powered by a steam engine. England and then all of Europe were filled with railway tracks.
The new ships, faster than the sailing ones, worked with the same mechanism.
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1.5) The capitalist economy
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These advances and innovations led to the beginning of producing any type of good in large quantities. Capitalism (an entrepreneur owns his own means of production and tries to produce as much of a product as possible at the minimum cost, in order to obtain the maximum profit) became widespread.
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
2. New sources of energy and new industries
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​2.1 Mechanization and the manufacturing system.
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The new sources of energy, especially the coal that is applied to the steam engine, as we have already seen, favor the appearance of new machines. This technological revolution means that the work that a person took a long time to do, is now done by a machine in much less time, with better quality and without human cost. A machine can work day and night, is not paid, does not get sick or tired, and can be easily replaced. By producing more with less expense, the price of the product falls and sales become massive. With this, the ghost of unemployment appeared, since a worker who could handle a single machine did the work of six people at the end of the 18th century. For this reason, the first workers' protest movements aimed at the destruction of machines (Luddite movement or Luddism).
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The places where machines began to work were the large factories, which brought together dozens of workers. This new form of production is called the factory system. The domestic system gives way to it and mass production begins. The small workshop of the craftsman who belonged to a guild almost disappeared. Only those that are very specialized or that manufacture luxury products (jewelry, fine wood furniture, tapestries, musical instruments, etc.) remain.
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2.2) The cotton industry
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The textile sector was the first to become a factory, since clothing is a basic necessity product. Cotton came to Europe from India, mainly through English merchants. Being a comfortable and cheap fabric, it became very popular. The demand grew enormously.
To meet this demand, cotton manufacturers introduced new inventions in weaving machines: the flying shuttle, the Spinning Jenny or the Mule Jenny, which was the first mechanical loom to incorporate the famous steam engine, increasing fabric production exponentially.
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2.3) Metallurgy and Steel Industry
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Metallurgy is the processes of extraction and transformation of any type of metal.
The steel industry is a branch of metallurgy that includes, specifically, the processes of extraction and transformation of iron (the most used metal in the world) and steel (alloy of iron and carbon)
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The steel industry experienced a notable advance with the incorporation of coking coal, of mineral origin, with much higher calorific power than charcoal of vegetable origin.
On the other hand, Henry Bessemer patented an iron-to-steel converter to manufacture it in series. We have seen before that Stephenson invented the locomotive in 1829. This invention caused Europe to be filled with train tracks, with which the production of steel multiplied.
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2.4) Mining
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The extraction of the main source of energy of the First Industrial Revolution is coal, and one of the most used minerals is iron, so mines are opened in many places and those that exist are made deeper to extract more material. Galleries crossed by rails are built inside these mines to speed up and maximize extraction.
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2.5) Expansion of industrialization
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The first industrial country was England, but, seeing its success, the rest of the countries wanted to imitate its model.
The second industrialized country in Europe was Belgium, with abundant coal reserves, followed by Germany, which developed a large industrial zone in the Ruhr area, rich in coal and iron, and which, to this day, remains the industrial zone most powerful in Europe.
In Italy, France and Spain, industrial development took longer to occur, partly due to the scarcity of raw materials and large regional imbalances: in some areas the economy remained fundamentally agrarian, while in others it became industrial.
In Eastern Europe, where the Old Regime was most deeply rooted, the industry also settled slowly, although Russia would experience strong growth at the beginning of the 20th century, when it wanted to catch up with the great powers in military material.
Outside of Europe, the United States also achieved strong industrialization due to the mineral wealth of its vast territory and the entrepreneurial spirit of its people. Japan, which had its own political revolution, Meiji Japan, industrialized very quickly.
The Spinning Jenny
Bessemer's converter
Industrial Revolution texts
3. Capitalism
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The transition to industrial society meant the transition from the small craft workshop to the large factories. The guilds couldn't control this huge new production system and most of them ended up disappearing. Now, to start these big factories with their big machines, money was needed. This was obtained in two ways:
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Banks: they grant loans to companies that they believe will make a profit.
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Stock companies: several partners come together and contribute the necessary capital to set up a company.
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The liberal theories of Adam Smith on the non-intervention of the state in the economy had a powerful influence on this way of operating: the new entrepreneurs wanted to be free to found companies or invest their money wherever they wanted, whether in companies of their country or others, with no other concern than their own economic benefit. These businessmen were already moving away from the protectionist mercantilism of the 17th century.
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Large companies are usually incorporated in the form of joint stock companies. A group of investors get together and agree to form the company. This group is known as the General Assembly of Shareholders, or simply the shareholders. They decide to contribute capital, which can be in the form of money, premises to install the company, machines, raw materials, etc. In addition, they elect a Board of Directors, who are the ones who run the company. The members of this council hire the workers and pay them a salary. These, in exchange, carry out work whose product remains with the company, which sells it on the market at a profit. At the end of the financial year (normally one year) the profits are distributed or reinvested.
4) The transition from the Old Regime to the Industrial Society in the field of work. The labor movement.
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We have already seen that the society of the Old Regime was divided into estates or states. The Third Estate was the one that encompassed the workers: from the business bourgeoisie to the artisans and peasants. The new industrial society is no longer divided into estates, but into classes. These classes are mainly two: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat or working class.
The nobility and the clergy continued to exist, of course, but their political relevance is diminishing, although they continue to enjoy a very comfortable position in society.
We also know the harsh working conditions of the manufacturing world: the excess of labor leads to grueling hours, miserable wages and the absence of labor rights. For a working-class family to survive, the labor of women and children is necessary. The thing did not end there: any association of workers to defend their rights was prohibited, for which laws such as the English Combination Acts were enacted between 1799 and 1800, although they were repealed in 1824 due to popular pressure.
The first worker reactions were strikes and Luddism, especially present in the textile industry.
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4.1) The first unions and Chartism
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The proletariat born of the industrial revolution decides to organize itself. We have already talked about the Luddite movements, somewhat chaotic and not very effective in the long term. Subsequently, associations of very different types arise. A very basic type of association was that of Mutual Aid: the workers came together and contributed an amount of money each, with this money a member who needed it for being sick and unable to work, widows and orphans was helped. of workers or was kept to buy food and basic necessities in case of a strike (resistance box).
In the United Kingdom, cradle of the industrial revolution, workers' associations had been prohibited, but popular pressure caused these laws (Combination Acts) to be repealed in 1825. Then a multitude of unions appeared according to the different labor sectors that existed. Some of its members are the authors of the People's Charter (1838), a document that they sent to parliament and that claimed:
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Universal male suffrage
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Suppression of the property certificate to be a member of parliament, so that not only the rich could be deputies
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Reduction of working hours to 12 hours, and then to 10 hours.
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Parliamentary immunity, so you can express your ideas in parliament without fear of reprisals.
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The People's Charter (or Chartism) did not get what it asked for, but it was the first large-scale joint action of the organized proletariat.
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4.2) Marxism
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It is the culmination of all the previous currents of socialist thought. Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German economist who tried to find a whole new model for socieaty based on the proletariat power.
The basic points of his doctrine are formulated in the Communist Manifesto, and he will develop them later in Capital. Briefly, these are:
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1- Dialectical conception of history: All history is a confrontation. The producing class, workers, peasants, slaves, etc., that make up this infrastructure, have always been exploited and oppressed by the ruling class (kings, masters, lords, bosses, religious and political leaders, etc.), which also produces all an ideology to justify and maintain their power: laws, religions, economic and thought theories. This ideology is what Marx calls the social superstructure.
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2- Class struggle: There are three kinds of struggle: political, economic and ideological. When the worker, the proletariat, becomes truly aware of their exploited situation, they will unite internationally and carry out a revolution against the exploiting class, which in Marx's time was basically the commercial upper bourgeoisie.
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3- Dictatorship of the proletariat: It is one of the most controversial points of Marxist theory. In this class struggle, the proletariat would emerge victorious and would conquer the state. So, it would use the very mechanisms of this state to bring down capitalism. This would have to be done despotically and unceremoniously. The dictatorship of the proletariat would be a transitory phase.
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4- Classless society: finally, once capitalist society does not exist and the means of production are collective (machines, factories, etc.) it will not make sense for there to be social classes, since there will only be one: that of workers in brotherhood . The state will gradually disappear, because in this society of free workers it will not make sense either. There will be neither oppressors nor oppressed.
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4.3) Anarchism
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Like Marxism, it pursues the creation of a new society in which there are neither oppressors nor oppressed, but there are differences: while Marxism opts for class struggle based on political parties and a dictatorship of the proletariat once has won that fight, anarchism rejects all forms of authority and only participates in politics through non-hierarchical unions. For the anarchists, the revolution had to be made from below, from the peasantry, while Marxism never showed much faith in the revolutionary capacity of the peasants, obsessed, after centuries of hunger, with becoming owners of their own land. Finally, Marxism showed a strong doctrinal coherence, as it adhered to a carefully designed program in the Communist Manifesto and, later, in Capital, both by Karl Marx; For its part, anarchism encompassed a multitude of very diverse currents whose common point was the rejection of authority (its famous motto says: No gods, no masters) but which included from preachers of the violent revolution (the propaganda of the deed) to convinced pacifists.
His most outstanding theorists were:
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Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876): according to this Russian theoretician, the social revolution must be the work of the peasants, getting rid of the landowners and, ultimately, of the state and the armies, repressive institutions by definition. Finally, the population would be grouped into communes where the work tools and the land would be collective, but not their fruits, since Bakunin thought that each one should receive according to the work done. His main work is God and the state. This current was called Colectivist Anarchism.
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Piotr Kropotkin (1842-1821): His position is similar to Bakunin's in that he advocates the abolition of the state, although with certain differences. Kropotkin's idea of ​​anarchist society can be summed up in three points:
1) morality should be based on freedom, solidarity and justice.
2) The concept of mutual aid: societies whose members cooperate for the common good advance more than those that compete selfishly, and are happier.
3) Everything must be collectivized: both the means of production and capital (machines, land, factories...) and the product, since obtaining a fruit in which many people have participated makes it impossible to discriminate what part of the production corresponds to each person. This current was called Anarcho-communism.
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4.4) Workers associations
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Labor movements have tried to unite positions. In 1864 the International Working Men's Association (IWA) was founded in London, bringing together communists, anarchists and syndicalists. The differences between communists and anarchists were not resolved and this group left the association to found their own. After the Russian Revolution, Social Democrats and Communists also split up and each formed their own association.
The divergence of ideas and disunity has been a constant in the history of the labor movement, however, parties and labor unions continue to work day by day to improve the working and living conditions of the world's workers.
Mikhail Bakunin
Piotr Kropotkin
