The Social Impact of the Industrial Revolution
Overview
The Industrial Revolution increased the material wealth of the Western world. It also ended the dominance of agriculture and initiated significant social change. The everyday work environment also changed drastically, and the West became an urban civilization. Radical new schools of economic and philosophical thought began to replace the traditional ideas of Western civilization.
Background
The Industrial Revolution precipitated the world's second great increase in economic productivity. The first occurred 15,000-20,000 years ago during the Neolithic Revolution, when small communities became less nomadic and began to base their existence on animal husbandry and agriculture. The Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-1700s and lasted into the mid-1800s, was similarly a revolutionary experience. It increased material wealth, extended life, and was a powerful force for social change. It undermined the centuries-old class structure in Europe and reorganized the economic and philosophical worldview of the West.
Preindustrial Europe was static and based upon privilege. The most powerful social group was the aristocracy. Its power came from the ownership of the means of production; this consisted of possessing the land and the mills that transformed the crops into material that could be processed into food.
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