Second Industrial Revolution: Economic Shifts & Key Innovations

The Second Industrial Revolution: Economic & Technological Shifts

The depression of 1873 spurred a process of industrial and financial concentration. This era saw attempts to eliminate competition and create monopolies within specific markets, which eventually extended across national borders. Associations emerged where firms discussed production prices and deals for the domestic market.

Forms of Enterprise Concentration

• Cartels: Conventions among companies to reduce or eliminate competition.
• Trusts: Mergers of companies.
• Holdings: Financial companies involved in various businesses.

These concentrations developed especially in the U.S. and Germany. The power of some trusts often exceeded that of governments, making anti-trust laws difficult to enact and enforce.

Economic Protectionism and Tariffs

Protecting and defending a country's products against foreign competition became a key economic strategy. This involved imposing tariffs, a rate that importers had to pay for foreign products. All European countries significantly increased their tariffs on agricultural products. Allowing entry of lower-priced foreign goods would have caused ruin for the domestic agricultural sector.

Technical Progress and Innovations

The Second Industrial Revolution was characterized by the use of new materials and new sources of transformative power in industry. Steam and iron were replaced by oil and electricity. This period is often considered the era of steel.

Steel Production Boom

Steel production in France, Germany, Belgium, and Great Britain soared from 400,000 tonnes to 32 million tons by 1913. The significantly improved quality of steel enabled a vast array of new applications. It was used for the manufacture of new weapons, artillery, and naval fleets.

Revolutionary Inventions and Industries

The production of the machinery industry soared, driven by rising consumer demand for items like sewing machines and typewriters. The Model T Ford appeared, revolutionizing the automobile industry, with 2 million cars produced by 1914. In 1903, the first airplane flight took place.

Highlighting the increased purchasing power that made it possible for even less-resourced areas to buy expensive products, these power changes transformed the way people worked and lived daily. Electricity had many applications, including transport, everyday life, and communications. As gasoline, derived from oil, became essential for new combustion engines (cars, airplanes, ships), the chemical industry also grew significantly with new applications such as fertilizers and medicines.

New Organization of Work

The new organization of work introduced the production chain (assembly line) in order to save time and reduce production costs.