THE Industrial Revolution it was a process of great economic and social transformations that began in England in the 18th century.
The industrial mode of production spread across much of the northern hemisphere throughout the nineteenth century and early twentieth century.
Producing goods became cheaper and more accessible, but it brought disorganization to rural life and damage to the environment.
Summary
We call the Industrial Revolution the process that led to the replacement of tools by machines, of human energy by motive energy and the mode of domestic (or artisanal) production by the system factory.
The advent of large-scale mechanized production started the transformations in the countries of Europe and North America.
These nations became predominantly industrial and their populations were increasingly concentrated in cities.
Causes of the Industrial Revolution
The expansion of international trade in the 16th and 17th centuries brought an extraordinary increase in wealth to the bourgeoisie. This allowed the accumulation of capital capable of financing technical progress and the high cost of installation in industries.
The European bourgeoisie, strengthened and enriched, started to invest in the elaboration of projects to improve production techniques and in the creation of machines for industry.
It was soon found that greater productivity and increased profits were achieved when large-scale machines were used.
Consequences of the Industrial Revolution
The long path of discoveries and inventions was a way to distance the countries from each other, with regard to economic and political power.
After all, not all industrialized at the same time, remaining as suppliers of raw materials and agricultural products to industrialized countries.
These differences still mark the nations of the world that are divided between developed and developing countries. One way to measure whether a country is advanced is to assess how industrialized it is.
Phases of the Industrial Revolution
It was in England that the phenomenon of industrialization began and that is why the English Industrial Revolution was a pioneer. Several factors explain the reasons for this primacy.
England had the capital, political stability and equipment necessary to take the lead in the advance of Industry.
Since the end of the Middle Ages, a significant part of the population has moved to the cities due to enclosures (enclousers) from Camp. Without land, the peasants ended up entering the factories that sprang up.
It also had colonies in Africa and Asia that guaranteed the supply of raw material with cheap labor.
First Industrial Revolution
THE First Industrial Revolution it took place in the mid-18th and 19th centuries. Its main characteristic was the emergence of mechanization that operated significant changes in almost all sectors of human life.
In the socioeconomic structure, there was a definitive separation between capital, represented by the owners of the means of production, and labor, represented by wage earners. This eliminated the old organization of guilds or guilds that was the mode of production used by artisans.
In this way, the first factories were created that housed many workers in the same space. Each one will have to operate a specific machine to carry out their task.
Due to low pay, sub-human working and living conditions, the workers organize themselves. In this way, they joined labor organizations and unions to demand better working hours and wage increases.
Mechanization extended from the textile sector to metallurgy, transport, agriculture, livestock and all other sectors of the economy, including culture.
The Industrial Revolution established the definitive bourgeois supremacy in the economic order. At the same time it accelerated the rural exodus, urban growth and the formation of the working class. It was the beginning of a new era, where politics, ideology and culture gravitated towards two poles: the industrial and financial bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Factories employed large numbers of workers. All these innovations influenced the acceleration of contact between cultures and the very reorganization of space and capitalism.
In this phase, the State started to participate more and more in the economy, regulating economic crises and the market and creating an infrastructure in sectors that required a lot of investments.
Second Industrial Revolution
From the end of the 19th century, capitalism became less and less competitive and more monopolistic. Only a few companies or countries dominated production and trade. It was the phase of financial or monopoly capitalism, a striking feature of the Second Industrial Revolution.
At this time, the German Empire emerges as the great industrial power. With an abundance of iron ore and a military culture, the Germans, led by Prussia, carry out political and economic reforms that will unify the country and endow it with a powerful industry.
Since then, the bases of technological and scientific progress were established, aiming at innovation and constant improvement of products and techniques, to improve industrial performance.
Third Industrial Revolution
The culmination of industrial development, in terms of technology, began in the mid-twentieth century, around 1950, with the development of electronics. This allowed the development of information technology and the automation of industries.
In this way, the industries were dispensing with human labor and began to depend more and more on machines to manufacture their products. The worker intervened as a supervisor or in just some stages of production.
This phase of new discoveries characterized the Third Industrial Revolution or computer and technological revolution.
Industrial Revolution in Brazil
While in England, in the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution was taking place, Brazil, still a Portuguese colony, was far from the process of industrialization.
After independence there were only isolated initiatives to install industries in Brazil. At the beginning of the 20th century, textile factories, mainly, sprang up in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Industrialization in Brazil, however, only truly began in 1930, a hundred years after the English Industrial Revolution.
During the government of Getúlio Vargas, the centralization of power in the Estado Novo created conditions for the work of coordination and economic planning to begin. Vargas emphasized industrialization by import substitution.
The Second World War (1939-1945) brought a slowdown in the industrialization in Brazil, as it stopped imports of machinery and equipment.
Even so, Brazil, through agreements with the United States, managed to found the Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (1941) and Usiminas (1942).
After the conflict, the State would return to its investor activities and boost the creation of industries such as Petrobras (1953).
know more:
- Industrial Capitalism
- Industrial Revolution Questions
- Consumption
- Treaty of Meuthen
- Industry Types
- Liberalism
Bibliographic references
Bahamonde, Miguel & Villares, Ramón - El mundo contemporáneo, acronyms XIX and XX. 2008. Ed. Taurus: Madrid.
Schlutz, Helga - Economic history of Europe, 1500-1800. Craftsmen, merchants and bankers. 2001. Siglo XXI Publishers: Madrid.
