Impact of Agrarian and Technical Revolutions on Industrial Revolution

The Agrarian Revolution

The agrarian revolution started in England in the first half of the 18th century. There were changes in land property innovations in respect to farming techniques.

• There was a concentration of land plots (complots), in which common land became private property, meant the loss of rights of the peasant. As a consequence, part of the rural population had to migrate to the cities, where they looked for work in the factories, becoming part of the incipient proletariat.

The Technical Revolution

The technical revolution occurred particularly in two areas:

• Energy: The invention of the steam engine by Watt was the motor of change. The steam engine could be applied to the textile industry and to transport, of the steam train and the steam ship.
• Textile industry: it was the key sector in the first industrial revolution. Mid 18th century, there would be an accelerated invention of more and more spinning (hilar) and weaving machines. From 1792, steam power started to be applied to already existing machines (tejedoras).

Industrial Capitalism

The industrial revolution and the bourgeois revolution are two essential events in European and World history because they caused the implantation of a capitalist economic system and a bourgeois political system. The capitalist system is an organization of industrial society in which the means of production belong as private property to a group of people, called capitalists, that represent a different class group to those who are not owners of those means.

As new techniques were introduced in the factories, production became more complex – machinery- more expensive. It became more and more difficult to be the owner of the means of production; it was necessary to have capital.

The Capitalist Enterprise

The capitalist enterprise meant important changes, changes from the craft workshop to the factory.

• Sized increase. In the workshop around 5-10 people worked. In the factory, hundreds and even thousands of workers.
• Specialization or “technical division of labor”. The worker does not produce a product on its whole but makes only one part of the product.
• Machinery. Machines replace tools and the worker is submitted to the machine rhythm.
• Production for the market. The artisan produced for himself and sold a part of the production in the family’s shop. In the factory, all the production is for the market.
• Freedom of work. Guild (gremio) protectionism disappears and until (hasta) workers are able to organize themselves, capitalists are the great beneficiaries. Workers that work are those who sell their workforce cheaper. Conditions of living worsened at first. Exploitation of women and children was rampant, wages (salarios) were considerably lower (inferiores) than adult male salaries.
• Tendency to the concentration of capital. Big companies can sell cheaper and lead small ones to bankruptcy. There is a tendency to corporate concentration by the fusion of other big companies. This evolution makes it practically impossible for small businesses to compete with big capital.