Question

The Industrial revolution created the pace for higher standard of living, but at the same time it was against the principle of socialism. Comment

Answer 1

Approach:

• Highlight the positive and negative consequences of the Industrial Revolution.
• Explain how it was against the principle of socialism by comparing it with the principles of socialism.

The Industrial Revolution was a period of rapid economic and social growth during the mid 18th and early 19th centuries. The Industrial Revolution affected society in both positive and negative ways. Basically the revolution created two classes of people, Industrial middle class and working class. It raised the living standard of middle class but exploited the working class.

Factories could produce goods more cheaply than hand labour, so people could buy more goods and enjoy a higher standard of living than before. But this was limited as factories put many craftspeople out of work. Factories required large numbers of workers, which caused huge migrations of people from the countryside to the cities where they worked long hours for low wages while living in crowded and unsanitary conditions. Dozen people might be crowded together in one small room in a run-down apartment building called atonement. Even small children worked as many as 16hours a day becoming so tired them fell into machinery and were crippled or killed. Due to a lack of sewage facilities, filth was everywhere, and infectious disease killed one child in four before the age of five.

The Industrial Revolution was making a few people very wealthy, but countless others were poor and living under miserable conditions. Ownership of machinery, land and other factors of production were limited to the capital owning class. Unions were discouraged and fair wages were difficult to come by. Collective bargaining power of the labour class was suppressed at all levels Not surprisingly, many working-class people were attracted to the ideas of socialism, an economic philosophy that called for a more even distribution of wealth.

People started questioning the merits of capitalism. They started promoting that that the means of production should be operated by the people who did the work or by the government So Socialism was a response to the concentration of wealth and power among the capitalists or the Elite. Calling it the opposite of capitalism is simplistic.