Short essay on the Industrial Capitalization in Europe

In the second half of the eighteenth century the changes in agriculture and industry brought about by the application of technology were such that they revolutionised British economy and society. The term Industrial Revolution came into vogue in late nineteenth century and numerous explanations have been provided for it.

However it is very difficult to isolate any factor and attribute the causation of industrial Revolution and focus on the interaction of factors like politics, cultural values, population and able utilisation of resources. When the king (monarchy had been restored in 1660 tried to re-assert his arbitrary powers, the absolutist powers of the monarchy were curtailed in 1688. England became a constitutional monarchy in which the parliament became the effective ruling institution.

The events of 1688 constituted the Glorious Revolution. It involved no bloodshed and established the supremacy of the rule of law. English society and parliament saw a steady rise in the influence of the gentry (improving landlords practicing commercial agriculture) and businessmen after the Glorious Revolution.

The landlords utilised them for production, for the market to reap profits. Moreover, a series of changes in the technology of production, e.g. rotation of crops and intensive farming, use of new tools and fertilisers, reclamation of marshy land with the help of modern pumps, etc. brought about increase in agricultural productivity.

The changes in production techniques and agrarian relations in often called the English Agricultural Revolution. In eighteenth century England wheat production increased by one-third and the average weight of livestock doubled. By 1830 England was producing ninety per cent of its domestic grain requirements.

One very crucial outcome of enclosures was ejection and eviction of peasants J from their lands. The landlords consolidated their land holdings with state support and the peasants no longer remained peasants. They joined the ranks of the landless wage labourers.

This process is called ‘depeasantisation’ which the peasant no longer remained a peasant. What happened to this large class of landless labourers? Under ordinary circumstances they would have been in distress, but the circumstances then prevailing in England provided them with alternative employment. This is explained by the nature and structure of demand and market.

One may consider them the various sectors of the markets:

i) Domestic or home market,

ii) Export Market,

iii) Market provided by the State

The significant aspect of the home market in England was its size and steadiness. It was growing on account of several factors. As we have seen more and more peasants were forced to become labourers in the process of depeasantisation. Many of them were employed by landlords to work in their fields as agricultural labourers. Many others migrated to cities and found employment as workers in trade, manufacturing or domestic service.

Now, they were all paid wages in money with which they purchased food, clothes and other essential items. In other words they were increasingly buying goods from the market and thereby increased the demand for goods as customers. More English homes were using coal in their fire places. From mid-18^th century population growth provided cheap labour for manufacturing activities which developed with the onset of Industrial Revolution.

Within the export trade there was a massive rise in colonial trade. Around 1700 colonial trade constituted fifteen per cent of commerce which increased to thirty-three per cent by 1775.

Britain’s supremacy by the end of the eighteenth century was also possible because of the aggressive foreign policy. Britain participated in five major wars during this period and won recognition as a great power. The was willing to colonize and wage wars for economic benefit unlike her rivals like France. Britain was willing to dedicate everything in her foreign policy to economic ends. The result was that Britain was able to reduce the influence of her rivals like the French and the Dutch by the end of the eighteenth century. This brings us to the third component of the market.

The market provided by the state. Political stability, a growing demand and society equipped with the will to industrialize brought England on the threshold of the Industrial Revolution. Many historians regard the thirty years from 1750-1780 as the period of take off into the Industrial Revolution.

By this it is meant that the necessary combination-of capital, entrepreneurship and technology occurred to mechanize production for the exploitation of a mass market. Such was the pace of growth after 1780s that it revolutionised production and the foundations of the modern society which today is no longer limited to Britain or Europe.

The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth century occurred in Britain was not because its society was more scientific compared to other European countries. The discoverers, inventors, scientists and thinkers mentioned above came from all parts of Europe, France, Italy, Germany etc.

But, the utilisation of scientific ideas through innovative technology occurred first in Britain because of the dynamism its economy and society possessed in the eighteenth century, which was the product of a specific historical evolution seen already.

By the eighteenth century Britain had earned the reputation of being the shopkeeper of the world. In France, on the other hand, apart from the absence of a steady homogenous market and adequate supply of capital and labour, money was invested more in buying court positions, land and states.

The upper classes and the government were not flexible and dynamic enough towards business as in Britain. The Dutch were successful in trade and finance, but they were unable to make the crucial transition to large scale mechanised industrialisation.