In the mid-19th century, Western Europeans advanced their farming and trading strategies using agricultural methods. They adopted machine labor division and task specialization to make work easier. Society embraced the advancements because they revolutionized human tasks. The changes caused numerous modifications, including population growth, rapid city development, and advanced agricultural productivity. Besides, the transformation also facilitated capital expansion, better natural resource utilization, and efficient ways of organizing massive labor tasks. However, the revolution also had numerous negative impacts that affected the European community, necessitating the adoption of multiple strategies to respond to the negativity. The British Parliament passed legislation to handle the problems, but some criticize its incapacity to revive European society. Critics cite socialism/communism as the solution to failures of British legislation. The Industrial Revolution had multiple positive impacts but severely impacted people’s lives, leading to the introduction of the Miners Act and the Factory Act to prevent child labor.
Industrial Revolution’s Historical Context
Between 1450 and 1750, Western Europe began overseas expansions, which led to massive economic transformations. In early 1450, Europe recovered from the severe implications of the plague and marginal agriculture experienced in the 14th century, marking its journey to financial recovery. The transformation introduced a new growth period that had not happened before and led to medieval economic modifications. Europe’s international explorations changed its economic growth patterns and society. For instance, it adopted strategies to enter the economically established centers in India by sailing via Africa. In addition, Europe conquered and exploited new areas while crossing the Atlantic, leading to heightened business activity and a higher money supply, which caused the growth of capitalism. The changes transformed people’s lives significantly, and by 1750, people in the Western region had changed from selfless Christian saints into enterprising businesspersons. By relying on the growing global economy, including African slaves and American silver, the commercial activities in Europe expanded in a way that no other civilization dynamism could match. By 1900, Europe had acquired most global parts and significantly influenced other societies (Perry et al. 341). Nevertheless, though economic expansion advanced people’s lives, it had undesirable repercussions.
Negative impacts
The expansion of agriculture heightened land prices twice as much as other products. Farmers were ambitious and wanted to maximize the growing market to produce more products. The desire for better and extra production motivated some farmers to work harder and manage their lands better, leading to a significant price revolution. However, the inflation of firm prices inspired them to generate more profits. They launched lengthy attacks against the open-field system to adopt a market-based structure to garner more earnings. For instance, they fenced the commons to restrict tenants from using the common land, depriving them of the opportunity to continue producing. Onwards, they changed the tenure conditions to “leasehold” because “copyhold” was fixed and inheritable. They wanted a system for tenants to renew their tenures to reduce their payment capabilities (Perry et al. 353). Thus, the expensive rates forced tenants off the manners while others started working as farm laborers. The strategies heightened rural poverty and violence as most landlords evicted tenants from their lands.
The land changes left many peasants deserted, forcing them to find ways to supplement their incomes. They sought any employment available in their regions, including working as laborers, textile workers, and charcoal burners. At the same time, the areas recorded increased birth rates, aggregating the burden for rural wage earners and forcing the landlessness into beggary (Perry et al. 459). In addition, disposed farmers earned a living working as laborers for commercial landowners who gladly took cheap labor and resented poor peasants during the off-seasons, poor men, women, and children worked for farm owners (Perry et al. 353). Besides, the increased income landowners earned from exploiting peasants led to trade expansion. The growth heightened the demand for consumer goods, which later translated into capitalist systems, leading to the advancement of the cottage industry, where the poor worked (Perry et al. 355). Testimonies from people who experienced harsh working conditions revealed that children were offered free labor to earn a living. In a hearing from “From the Sadler Commission Hearings, 1832,” William Cooper explained how he started working in the factories when he was only eight years old. He added that he worked from five in the morning without a break until nine in the evening. They only had 40 40-minute lunch breaks at noon as they took breakfast while still working. Thus, they had no afternoon refreshments because, besides the 40-minute dinner break, they worked until night (Article 1 1). Besides forcing children into forced labor, landowners and cottage merchants exploited poor peasants, causing them to work in poor working conditions. They understood their desperation for an income and paid them whatever wage they wished.
Besides the poor working conditions and poverty, the economic expansion favoring Europeans allowed them to force poor people into slavery. As Europeans established their empires worldwide, the power and wealth belonged to the few while the majority languished in poverty and suffering. They focused on exploiting the tenants to keep them under control so they could obtain cheap and free labor without improving their living conditions (Perry et al. 349). Article 3 by Engels (1845) substantiates this information, proving the working conditions of the waged class in England. It stipulates that the manufacturing industry regarded people as the manufacturers, as they were the capital needed to keep the process running. They were employed in a single building, forming a village like a good-sized factory. In addition, the factory workers, especially the younger generation, accustomed themselves to factory work and developed skills to help them retain their jobs. When the mills could no longer sustain them, they lowered their wages. Other new immigrants willing to accommodate any wage to pay for their basic needs replaced them. Besides, constant immigration developed the tows, increasing the number of skilled laborers, and new establishments were built using cheap labor (Article 3 7). Thus, with increased labor supply, the wages sank lower, increasing the factories’ profitability and erasing the middle class, leaving the town with only the poor and the rich.
Factory workers suffered accidents due to poor working conditions. The testimonies in the Article on accidents in British factories reveal the horrendous state of the factories and the negative impacts they had on workers. Dr Ward from Manchester interview revealed the condition of textile workers in March 1819. He explained that he was an infirmary surgeon, and he witnessed many accidents occur, including children’s arms and hands trapped in the machinery. Their skin was striped, and sometimes, they lost a finger or two. According to Ward, more than half of the children working in the factories were injured. In addition, in a memoir of Robert Blincoe, John Brown recalled a ten-year-old girl who was very healthy and appealing and had a severe accident where her bones and head cracked into pieces as the machinery whirled her around (Article 3 4). These cases revealed the poor working conditions in the factories and how they impacted workers, mainly children. Most of them were inexperienced in operating the machinery, leading to severe accidents and sometimes death.
Government Response
The British government introduced the Factory Act (1883) to deal with workers’ problems. It was the first important legislation in the global arena, primarily targeting the regulation of child labor in the United Kingdom. It stipulated that no person below the age of 18 years would be allowed to work past eight in the evening and past five-thirty in the morning. The Act also prohibited the assignment of children in woolen, linen, flax, or factories where water or steam propelled the machinery. In addition, the Act prohibited the employment of underage children to work 12 hours in the mills or factories and no more than sixty-nine hours a week. The employers were also mandated to allow them one and a half hours of lunch break daily. Nevertheless, if children below 13 years worked in the mills after a medical certificate approval, they would only work ten hours daily (Article 4 10). Therefore, the Factory Act prioritized the working conditions of young children in factories and mills to minimize injuries and deaths.
Second, Lord Ashley gave a speech in Parliament in 1842, encouraging the evaluation of employment in coal mines. She mentioned that the jobs exposed young people and children to risky and challenging tasks, mainly in Lancashire, Cheshire, and South and North Wales. She explained that the children worked for many hours in intolerable temperatures. Lord Ashley presented The Mines Act, which became a law in 1842. It prohibited the employment of boys under 12 years in coal mines and regulated miners’ working hours (Article 5 11).
Socialist Thinkers Perspectives
F. Engels and K Marx’s communism manifesto identified various factors that enabled the poor working conditions affecting adult and child workers in factories and mills. They explained that class struggle shapes society and has existed for a long time. Whether it is a conflict between the oppressor and the oppressed, a freeman and a slave, or between opposing bodies, the struggles persist, leading to the failure of opposing classes (Article 612). Second, Engels and Marx have acknowledged the rise of the bourgeois and the proletariat classes. The two communists stated that though the bourgeois class has emerged to bridge the gap between the rich and poor classes, it has not helped eliminate the class struggles causing class imbalances. Instead, the emergence of the bourgeois has caused more split and antagonism, dividing the entire society into two primary classes directly facing each other. They further stipulate that the bourgeois emerged because of industrial development, fostering socioeconomic growth in society. On the other hand, adopting capitalist production strategies produced the working class as the source of labor to maintain production and manufacturing activities (Article 613). Thus, unlike the bourgeois, who have an influence, capitalist systems perceive the proletariat as objects to facilitate increased productivity and not as humans who have social connections with the rest. Thus, the rise of capitalism-controlled proletariat classes has devalued social connections.
Finally, Engels and Marx recommended revolutionary movements to overrule existing social and political order to eliminate class struggles. They explain that society could change if people overthrew all existing conditions and let the ruling class fall through a communist revolution. The change would form a society without any class, lower, middle, or upper, to put everyone on an equal operating base without capitalist competition (Article 6 15). Hence, the two communists encourage proletariats in all countries to unite and dismantle the bourgeois to create an equitable society without discriminative classes.
Conclusively, the Industrial Revolution in Europe led to economic, social, technological, and political developments, influencing the lives of numerous people. Though the transformations had positive implications, including expanding trading and agricultural activities, they exposed the working class to poverty, poor working conditions, and cheap labor. The UK government responded to the challenges by implementing the Factory Act and the Mines Act to stipulate the working conditions concerning children under 18. On the contrary, Karl and Engels recommended abolishing societal classes to establish a communist society where no one had higher or lower social ranks than the others. Their strategies encouraged dismantling the bourgeois class to give everyone societal power. The communist response was better than the government’s because it focused on a collective approach to transform society so that everyone could enjoy inclusivity. The government introduced the Acts to fight child labor, but they were impractical solutions to end the class struggle, which is the primary cause of societal problems. Consequently, Karl and Engle’s recommendations are more plausible and could transform society for the better.
Works Cited
Perry, Marvin, et al. Western Civilization. 10th ed., Wardsworth Cengage Learning, 2015.
“6 pdf files: Article,” pp. 1-6.
write