England: Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and its Global Impact

England, Home of the Industrial Revolution

This kingdom was small but industrially a head movement, its leadership for a century due to the following conditions:

1. It was the nation most favored by the commercial revolution.
2. It had obtained the most valuable colonies in the Western Hemisphere.
3. A large proportion of profits from overseas trade was available for productive investments.
4. Its military expenditures were lower, and it had excellent administration.
5. Nowhere else in society was trade as developed; it was organized as a legal business and had the best banking system in Europe.

Impact of the Industrial Revolution

• The development of capitalism and the rise of the bourgeoisie in the 19th century.
• The Industrial Revolution brought commercial development alongside a boom in the banking and financial system.
• This development was encouraged as Europe continued to receive precious metals from America, such as Brazilian gold and Mexican silver.
• In England, the Bank of England was created in 1694, a distressing time for public finances, and it was well received. In France, a bank was founded in 1715 in Paris.

Marxism or Scientific Socialism

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels published the Communist Manifesto. Marx raised the main ideas of socialism.

Dialectical Materialism: Proposes that matter is the only reality and suggests that every fact has three stages (thesis, antithesis, and synthesis).

Historical Materialism: Proposes that the mode of production causes the problems between workers and business owners. To avoid these differences, it proposes:

• Abolition of private property; therefore, the wealth of individuals must be the product of their work.
• The struggle between the proletariat and the capitalist is a stage of history that has always existed since there has been an exploiting class and an exploited one.
• The class struggle will disappear when capitalism is destroyed.

The Industrial Revolution: A Transformation

The Industrial Revolution consisted of major changes that transformed a purely agricultural and trade-based economy into an industrialized one through the application of machines in industry. This permitted producing more in less time and saving on costs.

Causes:

• Population Growth: The cause of this increase was the decrease in mortality due to improvements in nutrition, health, and hygiene.
• Agricultural Revolution: Increased agricultural yields through the application of new production techniques such as the use of fertilizers, improved livestock quality, the use of new farm instruments, and the concentration of properties to be exploited more rationally and cost-effectively.
• Commercial Expansion and Communications: Foreign trade brought significant benefits through trade with the colonies and also caused the growth of cities like London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow. Internal trade benefited from transportation, especially canals and roads.

Reactions to Industrialization

Marxist ideas aroused the working class, who formed unions recognized by the authorities and also made changes in their working lives.

Anarchism: Proposes a society without rules and rejects all institutions that impose rules or laws on people, such as marriage and the church. Anarchists propose taking over industries through institutions called societies in resistance.

Encyclical of the Church (Rerum Novarum): The church's response to the challenges of the proletariat was developed in France and Germany, presenting programs related to workers' propositions, respect for human dignity, and promoting the organization of cooperatives.

• Pope Leo XIII, in 1891, published the social encyclical of the Church, Rerum Novarum.
• The Church condemned economic liberalism for violating human rights.
• It encouraged workers to organize unions and earn a fair wage.