Yes, my blog has been on hiatus, ostensibly for me to study. But as those who knows me well know, I've not done much of it.

And now its time to panic.

So yes, before any of you ask, the following post is all for my benefit: a last minute of recap of my history notes. Nothing to do with this blog or my thoughts. If you like, stay and enjoy the music, otherwise, get the hell out of here. Thank you.
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Industrialisation and its Effects

Industrialisation in Europe had far reaching consequences that lasted from the eighteenth century well into the ninteenth, and continues to shape world history. But how did it all start? What triggered off this momentous event that forever altered the political and economical geography of the region, and later, the world itself?

Ironically, its roots were in the form of conservative church doctrine.

In the late seventeenth century, after the fall of Napoleon, a wave of conservatism swept Europe, and the countries affected were plunged back into the days of feudalism the peasants thought were forever past. Things were no longer the same, the peasants had been riled up to revolt, and now, even though peace hung over the land, they would never stand for the same oppression of the old days. The power of absolute monarchy and the aristocracy was broken forever.

The Church, however, was still a force to be reckoned with.

Still being the only source of education in most of Europe that is availible for peasants, the Church's doctrine was accepted far and wide, preposterous as it may be. For example, potatoes were said to be from hell, as they grew below the ground. Even though this is a ridiculous logic, peasants accepted it as truth. As such, Church doctrine resisted free thought and the advancement of science, philosophers were thus persecuted and oppressed.

But all that changed during the period of the renaissance. Started in Italy, it was a period where free thought ranged, well, free. Philosophers were allowed to present their theories in bold strokes of art, literature, and other mediums. By the eighteenth century, these thoughts had revolved into practical solutions to the region's problems. Scientific advancements flourished past any limits the Church could put down. A man, overly smart, invented the steam engine, and this invention sparked off a series of events that led to the Industrial Revolution itself.

The steam engine was arguably the singular most important invention for the Industrial Revolution. It was used to revolutionalize work; no longer do humans need to do manual labour. The steam engine could do work for humans without need for any effort on any human except to oversee the process. Machines were invented that replaced human labour for planting, and this sparked the Agricultural Revolution.

Farms now could plant a variety of crops instead of one, and had no more need to let the land lie fallow. All year around, there would be a crop of some sort in the fields, and the whole field could be used. This significantly increased food output, feeding more people and drastically lowering deaths by starvation throughout Europe. Around the same time, hygiene standards were on the rise, and this increased the people's lifespan. The relative peace of the period also meant not alot of lives were lost to wide-scale war. As a result, there was a population boom in Europe.

This led rise to another phenomena, that of the Factory System. As the increased population searched for work in towns, there was a need for new employment. This problem was solved in the factory system, which was born, again, due to the steam engine. Smart alecks mechanized industrial manufacture, and connected it to the steam engine, which mean that now, manufacturers could create goods faster, cheaper, and with no need for manual labour.

More importantly, this invention made it that home-working is no longer possible. Entrepreneurs borrowed gold and built huge buildings instead, to house large numbers of these machines, and employed the people coming to town to look for work to oversee the machines. The result, a dramatic increase in production. As costs were cut down significantly due to machinery doing the work, industrial production became more than a viable business; it became a prosperous trade.

That was not all, the steam engines had been used to create trains, and also steamships, and both these, along with the Telegraph, cut down travel time drastically, and allowed for speedy communication across large distances. The Far East became open to the Europeans, and viable as a trade route, and communications could take place within extremely short times. All these helped to build up the budding business of the factories, and helped to furthur develope the banks who had provided the entrepreneurs with the money for the factories in the first place.

The Industrial Revolution cut down costs so much so that even the poorest peasants could easily afford clothes, which were once seen as an extravagant luxury, and the drastic increase in production meant far larger amounts of profit.

So why was Britain the only country to Industrialise, until decades later before the main continental European countries followed suit? Why, if the Industrial Revolution offered so much advantages, was Britain the first country to so rapidly industrialise while the others still wallowed in conservatism?

Britain was, for one, never touched adversely by war. She was removed from the main continental Europe, and war never touched her soil. Her navy kept her safe, and Napoleon's failed "Continental System" never affected Britain adversly at all. As a result, her trade and economies were already booming. With that much profit already flowing about, it became a simple matter to Industrialise, the capital-heavy process was no problem at all for Britain.

Furthurmore, Britain had a large amount of resources at hand. She could trade with virtually any port in Europe, and her Empire ceded her large sources of raw materials for Industrialisation. Her own homegrown resource, hard-working, willing peasants, made it that her factories were set up very quickly, without fuss, and soon turned the major cities of Britain into sprawling metropolises of factories and growing industry.

Also, the other countries of Europe were still mired by conservatism and Church doctrine at the time when Britain had already implemented a widely successful laissez faire economy. By the time Britain had industrialised, they were still bickering amongst themselves over the fine points of the failing system of conservatism. This allowed the English to take a jumpstart on her rivals in Industrialising.

Industralism thus established English supremacy very quickly.

However, other than the obvious and drastic economic benefits, Industrialisation also brought about social changes on a wide-scale. One of the most important of these changes was the introduction of Capitalism.

Capitalism is a concept of allowing the economy to run on its own, without government intervention. It is argued that, in that manner, the economy would prosper far better and far more than if the government had held on to control. In fact, Capitalism was centered about human greed. It would be the consumer's greed which drove them to buy from the producers, and thus creating profits, which would be invested to furthur expand the industry. Capitalism was a self-sufficient system which would find an equilibrium point where everyone is satisfied, and stay there, even if there is a disturbance.

For the consumers, driven by greed, would make decisions that eventually returned order to the system even in the case of crisis. As a result, governments, producers and consumers would all be satisfied, and the industry and economy would be ever growing and expanding. This system quickly replaced feudalism in Britain, and was an immediate success. Britain's economy was now far more advanced than any country's in Europe. Under this system, a new attitude of protection of private property was endorsed, and this encouraged people to work even harder, so that they had an incentive for what seemed like boring, endless work.

The result? Why, increased production and lowered cost, and greater efficiency of course. What did you expect?

Industrialisation, however, also brought the problem of overcrowding to the cities. As the population increased in the farmlands, and machines replaced the need for human labour, the excess children had no use in the farms. They were forced to go to the cities to find work instead. This rural-urban migration had great impact, in which it increased the population of the towns greatly, and also that it inundated the labour market with an excess of workers. This led to exploitation of labour, which would be discussed later.

These moves stripped the resources in the cities very quickly. Many were homeless and slept in the streets. A place for them to stay had to be found. The result was surburban development. Cities grew larger and more crowded, and there was no place to house the poor souls who came seeking refuge and work. The only possible course left was to expand the boundaries and build ramshackle houses for the new people in what came to be called the suburbs. This development ate up good farmland in the outskirts of town, but no other alternative existed.

Along with the people came even more industrialisation and factories as producers sought to take advantage of desperate people and employ them at excessively cheap wages. Whole towns made up of nothing but factories and lodging sprouted next to coal mines and other sources of power for the steam engines. As a result, the air in Britain grew thick with the fumes from the factories. Acid rain eroded the land, and overcrowding became more and more a problem in cities and towns.

Exploitation of labour was also rampant. Because of such a large amount of supply of workers, and because the factory machines needed no expertise to work, the employers could set very low wages, and driven by desperation, many would sign up. This allowed them to keep the costs low. Also, to provide the workers with a place to sleep that was close to the factory, they built cheap longhouses to give their workers shelter next to the factories, but in appalling conditions. There were not even basic sanitary amenities.

Workers were forced to work very long hours, with no rights except to their meagre pay, and they had no choice. They could work, or they would forfeit that money they so desperately need. Even children were used to provide cheap labour. They were the most cruelly exploited. Forced to work from day to night, with only short periods of rests in between, the children were a source of extremely cheap labour. Some even went unpaid, but unable to speak up.

The ever relentless drive to profit and industrialise kept the employers heartless, and the peasants over-worked under conditions not fit for man.

The decline of the aristocracy was another of the effects of the Industrial Revolution. The old families of the baronies and dukedoms were already in decline after the replacement of fuedalism by capitalism. They had almost no place in the new system. However, their decline was caused by none other then themselves. They, in their arrogant pride, refused to even contemplate industrialising themselves. They refused to invest their resources into the new system, and kept to the old ways.

While their income in no way decreased, the rapid growth of industrialised firms quickly overtook theirs and left them in the wayside. Within years, the aristocracy was poorer than almost all businessmen, and only slightly better off than the peasants. Those that held the reins of economic power were those businessmen who were first to throw off the mantle of the fuedalism and embrace the new order of capitalism.

And thus the aristocracy was fallen.

Other impacts, politcal and social, also came as an indirect effect of Industralism. However, these are the most direct effects.

Looking to the future~
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