Eighteenth-Century Society
Diversity
Four major groups: nobility, clergy,middling sort, peasants
Nobility:
2-3% of population
Power derived from land
Living off peasants
Advisors and military commanders
Rich or poor, but with rights and privileges
Clergy:
Reduced influence
Tensions between higher and lower clergy
Questions of election, piety
Middling Sort/Bourgeoisie:
Merchants/manufacturers
Largely urban, expanding class
Tensions with nobility resenting bourgeois
Peasants:
75-90% of population
Financial and other burdens
Free and serfs
Tensions with upper classes
Start of Industrial Revolution:
From 17th c. Improving agriculturalproductivity in England: fertilisers, croprotation, enclosure
Some improvements in Europe
Start of Industrial Revolution:
More food, leading to…
Population growth, leading to…
More demand for food, leading to…
Better farming, leading to…
Start of Industrial Revolution:
Growth of workforce leading to growth ofcottage industries (domestic system/putting-out system)
Circumventing guilds in England, expandingworkforce
Start of Industrial Revolution:
New technologies, with limited impact
James Watt (1736-1819): steam engine (1769)
James Hargreaves (c. 1720-79): spinningjenny (c. 1764)
Birth of factory system
Britain as economic power:
Booming trade, with support of Bank ofEngland
Investment in transportation
Careful involvement of government
Impediments on expansion of economiesof other European states
Adam Smith (1723-90)
Scottish philosopher and political economist
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causesof the Wealth of Nations (1776)
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