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Industrial Revolution: Countries
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On the eve of the Industrial Revolution, less than 10 per cent of the people of Europe lived in cities. The rest lived in small towns and villages scattered across the countryside. These people spent most of their working day farming. Unless they could sell surplus food in nearby towns, they grew little more than they needed for themselves. The people in rural areas made most of their own clothing, furniture, and tools from raw materials produced on the farms or in forests.
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Historians still disagree on why the Industrial Revolution happened when it did, and why it happened in England first. It built on a new spirit of studying things through science in the 17th century, a period called the Enlightenment by historians. England ... was a politically stable country throughout the 1700s with no wars at home (although it had many abroad).
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America and Australia, two of the richest countries on earth by any measure, have made a fortune since the industrial revolution out of polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gasses and other undesirable emissions. That's why America and Australia must stop mucking about and join with Europe, Japan and the rest of the OECD to implement measures to manage the serious risks associated with global warming. Yes, large emissions from rapidly developing economies such as China and India need to be targetted too but this is an area that requires international cooperation and new thinking - not the Flat Earth Society mindset favoured by the neo cons of Sydney and Washington. The Clean Development Mechanism developed as part of the Kyoto process lets a power plant in London, for example, offset its emissions by providing gas cooking facilities for hundreds of villages in India. A power company in Osaka may provide solar electricity generators to thousands of remote setttlements in Laos and Yunnnan province in China to offset its emissions in Japan. The CDM is one of a number of market based mechanisms that have evolved over thepast decade to deliver guaranteed emission reductions and provide business with the certainty they need via fixed-cost, market based carbon management tools.
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The lower class in countries beside Western Europe and the US benefited little from the Industrial Revolution. Russia was very late in its efforts to industrialize because of its feudal system. As one historian put it, "An Industrial Revolution, to be successful, required large numbers of educated and independent-minded artisans and entrepreneurs." Russia had no middle class. Its aristocracy tried to push industry on the people mostly by importing existing ideas and trying to adapt them to the Russian countryside and tradition. Unable to compete in the global market, Russia fell back to supplying its natural resources in exchange for industrial products.
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The social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution were significant. As economic activities in many communities moved from agriculture to manufacturing, production shifted from its traditional locations in the home and the small workshop to factories. Large portions of the population relocated from the countryside to the towns and cities where manufacturing centers were found. The overall amount of goods and services produced expanded dramatically, and the proportion of capital invested per worker grew. New groups of investors, businesspeople, and managers took financial risks and reaped great rewards.
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Several systems of making goods had grown up by the time of the Industrial Revolution. In country districts families produced most of the food, clothing, and other articles they used, as they had done for centuries. In the cities merchandise was made in shops much like those of the medieval craftsmen, and manufacturing was strictly regulated by the guilds and by the government. The goods made in these shops, though of high quality, were limited and costly.
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