The Industrial Revolution

"America is a Cult..., an Assembly Line Cult..."

by Chris Bertram

A change in the basic production of goods took place in Britain in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries that was successfully marketed as the Industrial Revolution. A technology improvement based upon steam power had such a profound effect on production of basic goods that notions of nationalized economics took place and society responded with ideas of separation of the classes and of control of disparate forces driving the rapid change. This change brought about organized labor unions, social ideas of Marxism, Capitalism, and the introduction of those that opposed the change. The change in increased production at a lower cost spread through Europe and launched a shift in new Economic power in the United States as the technology improved.

In 1769 James Watt patented an improved steam engine that increased the efficiency of the steam engine to the point of making the use of it safer and commercially viable as an industrial tool. The steam engine tools were turned to manufacturing problems and a reduction in costs resulted as a greater efficiency of resources was harvested with lower overall production costs. The steam engine was the landmark of the starting of the Industrial Revolution and primarily drove the Industrial Revolution (Rempel, 2009).

After a European economic boom and during the subsequent boom the United States began to see it manufacturing processes increase in efficiency.

According to Scientific American (February 1859)“A comparatively new American art embraces very original Industrial age— manufactures of iron composite-work, such as railings, fences, household furniture, and such. It was known long ago that wrought iron was stronger and more flexible than any material employed in the arts, and that it was indestructible by the elements of the atmosphere, when protected with paint. But to forge it out of rods and bars into a great variety of forms, pleasing to the eye as well as useful and durable in character, was out of the question, owing to the great expense incurred for hand labor. The genius of the inventor was required to reduce wrought iron to practical purposes. The result is manufactures such as the New York Wire Railing Company.”

The more economic railway parts made possible by the more inexpensive manufacturing process made way for a transportation grid across Europe and the U.S. enabling industries to transport and receive goods from their suppliers and distributors. Eventually the United States auto manufacturing industry increased to global economic dominance with the more efficient use of resources, the decreased costs of production, and the increased volume of production that could be wrought. After the European boom the United States seemed to ride a second tier Industrial Revolution with its automotive assembly lines and improved manufacturing process.

Marxist ideas began to form when the people failed to receive the benefits of their labor in what Marx called Alienation shortly after the Industrial Revolution. The industrial revolution was seen as a failure due to a class division and the division between the upper and lower classes. Capitalism brought on by The Industrial Revolution only brought actual prosperity to a select few (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2009).

Labor Unions primarily were started in Britain as a direct result of the Industrial Revolution:

“… Although there were associations of journeymen under the medieval system of guilds , labor unions were essentially the product of the Industrial Revolution. In Great Britain after the French Revolution, fear of uprisings by the working classes led to passage of the Combination Acts, declaring unions illegal. Although those acts were repealed (1824), little progress was made in union growth until the organization of miners and textile workers in the 1860s, after which the struggle for legal recognition was waged with vigor (Columbia Encyclopedia, 2009).”

After the Steam Engine was improved in Europe and a process was established to stream-line the manufacturing process in basic production of a few key basic industries, the Industrial Revolution was born. A second Revolution took hold in the U.S. Soon after only a select few people were receiving direct benefits of the wealth and the mass of people working in the factories under the new Industrial Revolution began to formulate and espouse ideas of a class struggle. Labor unions were formed based upon craft guilds. The unstoppable change in lower production costs and increased production and the unstoppable demand brought about by The Industrial Revolution has only powered a global economic juggernaut with its separation of the classes of people that has become the hallmark of our entire civilization as we know it.

Bibliography

Rempel, Gerhart (2009). “The Industrial Revolution.”

Retrieved Feb 04, 2009, from

http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/industrialrev.html

"Marxism." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007. Retrieved February 04, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1B1-371443.html

"Labor union." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Retrieved February 04, 2009 from

Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-union-la.html

"America is a Cult..., an Assembly Line Cult..." Anonymous (American Philosophy circa 1950)