First Industrial Revolution And Its Effects On Society

Capitalism: A Side Effect of the First Industrial Revolution and Its Effects on Society The First Industrial Revolution led to Capitalism, which enforced a class system based on profits and the acquisition of capital, resulted in the repression of natural or instinctual urges, leading to psychological damage and aggressive behavior within communities and encouraged “Social Darwinism,” an ableist rationalization of privilege and who has it. During the First Industrial Revolution, people all over England moved out of rural communities into urban ones. The new factories needed workers, and because they were paying more than working as a farmhand, people flocked to the jobs. The factories created a strict hierarchical class system: the people who worked in the factories, the “toiling proletariat” and the people who owned the factories, the bourgeoisie. Even people with specialized skill, such as the small business owners and tradespeople, were forced into working in the proletariat because technology rendered their skills obsolete. (SparkNotes Editors) Many small business owners were forced to close down because they couldn’t compete with the wages the factories were offering, much like how nowadays “Mom and Pop” stores can’t afford to lower their prices the same way big brand stores like
Sigmund Freud claims that the sublimation of inappropriate actions or impulses was a sign of civility. (Freud, 79) Freud claims that human beings are inherently egocentric and driven to satisfy our instincts, and when we deny them, we work through our emotions or urges in other ways. Freud calls these pathological forms as the “return of the repressed.” (Gray) Society, paradoxically, both brings people together in a community where mutual support can be found and results in repressed urges which can cause lashing out, aggression and conflict or even guilt, feelings of inadequacy, or