Effects of Industrialization and the Conditions of the Working Class in

Effects of Industrialization and the Conditions of the Working Class in England In the middle of the 19th century the industrial revolution was flourishing in England. With all of the advancements in machinery there would be new opportunities and drawbacks for citizens. Many would leave their lives on the farms and work in factories with unsafe settings. Karl Marx felt that the new advancements in society were able to support the fourth stage of human development, Communism. Along with these new advancements the people would have to learn how to self-govern themselves in the workplace and understand their new responsibilities. England possessed the right settings for the autonomous operation of the economic forces that generated industrialization. Before the industrial revolution England was mainly an agrarian society. Then there was a radical change that moved the citizens from farms and into cities. With the large rise in England’s population there was also a larger demand for goods. There was a necessity for quicker and more efficient methods of producing those goods. During the beginning of the 19th century there was a large push of inventions to help create a more mechanical society. By 1848, when the "Communist Manifesto" was written, machinery had already been assimilated into society.1 The industrial revolution made transportation, commerce, and communication more accessible to the masses. Britain already had many navigable rivers and also utilized the inventions from the revolution to improve even more.2 One of the biggest contributions to those was that of the steam engine. Thi s invention was the first automatic machine that allowed people to work uninterrupted for longer periods of time, ... ...k : Longman, 1985),3,32. 2. Kevin Kitano and Anthony Morejon, "Essay on the Industrial Revolution," 2 November 1997, <http://members.aol.com/mhirotsu/essay.htm> (23 October 2001). 3. Sidney Pollard, Peaceful conquest : the industrialization of Europe, 1760-1970 (New York : Oxford University Press, 1981),22. 4. Donald L. Donham, Studies in Marxism and Social Theology: History, Power, Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 60-61. 5. Kevin Kitano and Anthony Morejon. 6. Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party. 7. Pollard,27. 8. Kemp,5. 9. Kevin Kitano and Anthony Morejon. Links: http://www.neo-tech.com/businessmen/part6.html http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1981/2/81.02.06.x.html http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ENLIGHT/INDUSTRY.HTM http://members.aol.com/mhirotsu/kevin/trip2.html