Industrialisation occurs when the
factory replaces the
workshop and
cottage as the unit of
production. The
prosperity of nations rests less on the
land and its produce and increasingly on manufactured goods and
trade. Automation irrevocably changes the pattern of life for millions of poeple, as they move to the cities to work in factory lines.
Artisans become more-or-less
obsolete as goods are mass-produced and standardised.
An industrial
revolution takes place when
capital becomes available for investment in manufacturing industries to either
private (usually middle-class) or
government enterprise. After
Britain became industrialised other nations found that they could not compete with the immense amount of trade she generated and so also built
factories to keep up. There was no shortage of workers, as there were millions of
peasants who sought a better
standard of living.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to industrialisation. On one side, production is improved dramatically, as is the level of trade.
Transportation becomes much faster and convenient, and
inventions make
communication methods more
economical and
practical. Advances in public health and
medicine, progress in
science and
technology and the coming of universal
education all combine to make a new sort of society. At the other end of the spectrum, poor working conditions may cause dissatisfaction and unrest, though this is usually negated over time.