7/27/2019 Negative consequences derived from the demographic rise during the Industrial Revolution.pdf

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 A key that determined the success of the English Industrial Revolution was thedemographic expansion that took place in the country, especially in London, duringthe previous century. The city’s population increased from 400,000 in 1650 to900,000 in 1800, according to certain authors. The explanations are diverse: highbirth rates, low death rates, intensive agricultural development and tradebreakthroughs within an emerging capitalist society.

The immediate result was an extraordinary urban revolution. Not onlyquantitative but also qualitative and structural. Traditional way of life was graduallysubstituted by other customs more suitable for large urban centers. Household

structures were also modified. People took the features of a new mass culture. Theimportance of the city as a center of consumption was further accentuated. Thisallowed the establishment of modern industries, which could now develop theiractivities in a context of abundant human factor.

However, this increase in population and its consequent impact on thetransformation of the city led to social problems that were often ignored by the nowpowerful bourgeoisie, which controlled the means of production, owned a relevantpart of the capital and had a strong influence. Apart from them there was a newsocial class, the working class or proletariat, whose deterioration of their livingconditions was accentuated as the Revolution drew on. Despite the increases in realwages in England, distribution of wealth was far from equitable. Cities wereexperiencing the emergence of large working-class neighborhoods around theindustry, whose hygiene and sanitary conditions were dire. The consideration of theworker as a machine was the pretext for the establishment of inhumane workingschedules, and it was not uncommon to find cases of child exploitation. Evidently, inthis scenario, working mortality was very high.

Before long, the attention of large segments of the population called this seriesof events the "Social Question". The working-class discontent was channeled throughthe formation of the first labor organizations and trade unions as well as theproclamation of strikes. It also had an impact on the intellectual landscape, leading tonew ideologies as Socialism, Marxism and Anarchism. The opposition to the

unfavorable conditions of the proletariat was far from peaceful in many cases.Movements like Luddism were headed to the destruction of industrial machinery,which according to its supporters, threatened workers with unemployment.

Between 1830 and 1850 a series of revolutions made the situation graduallychange. The particular events of the working class were reflected in literature –mostly during Realism and Naturalism, with authors like Émile Zola or the SpanishGaldós- and many other artistic expressions as painting –Courbet, Daumier, Millet– orsculpture –Meunier, Vincenzo Vela–.

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid – Economic HistoryNegative consequences of the demographic rise during the Industrial Revolution

-Double Degree - Law & Economics -Guillermo Ortega 

-Grou 33