Britain has an excess of labor, which drives the cost of labor
way down, leading to lots of people looking for jobs and having
to settle for dirt wages. This teeming mass of cheap labor means
that manufacturing—which was formerly done on a small scale,
producing mostly luxury goods—begins to produce cheaper goods
on a much larger scale that are marketed to anyone who can afford
them. The general trend from the early 19th century to the present
is mass production, standardization, and craftsmen and farmers
changing into wage-paid workers. The most important early new source of energy is James Watt’s
steam engine. This new technology is not only important in stepping
up production and making factories themselves possible, but also
the existence of steamships and railroads means that goods can be
moved faster, farther, and cheaper to more customers.Society and the Industrial Revolution
Society changed in a major way as a result of the Industrial
Revolution. Workers no longer made their own food and household
items for their own consumption, and they didn’t even buy them
from the local craftsman anymore. In the industrial age, the
manufacturer basically has to guess what the consumer wants or
spend a fortune convincing the consumer that he or she wants it,
even though it may not be in the consumer’s best interest to buy it.
Other negative effects of the Industrial Revolution include the iron
smelting and slag heaps that are waste products and the pollution
from burning coal. In fact, many environmental historians contend
that since the 18th century, we have entered into a new geological
epoch called the Anthropocene, in which humans have an
unavoidably large effect on the environment. The industrial revolution produced enormous amounts of wealth
for the privileged bourgeoisie, but the workers never felt like the
product was theirs or that they had a stake in it or pride that it was
being used by someone they knew. The industrial process takes all
of the pride and creativity out of making things, and that capacity