Was The Industrial Revolution Beneficial Or Detrimental For Britain?

For years, historians have debated whether the Industrial Revolution was beneficial or detrimental for Britain. While William Blake, an English poet, called the early factories “satanic mills,” the English doctor John Aikin contested that the Industrial Revolution was what allowed Manchester to become one of the commercial capitals of the world. (McKay 694, Aikin) This controversy shows that the Industrial Revolution had both benefits and costs. Although the Industrial Revolution led to horrible working and living conditions for proletarians, it was primarily advantageous because it led to rapid growth of industries and long-term economic prosperity.

The main benefits of the Industrial Revolution were primarily economic. The Industrial
George Stephenson’s 1825 locomotive led to the widespread use of railroad transport. In Great Britain, the railroad network expanded in just twenty years: from 157 kilometres in 1830 to 9,787 kilometres in 1850 (Strayer 836). In addition, Robert Fulton’s 1807 steamboat opened the door to transporting goods between places before deemed too far. The length of navigable waterways in Britain quadrupled between 1750 to 1820. (“Trends in International Trade”). These developments led to many significant economic benefits. First, prices of food and other products were 60% lower in 1850 relative to the 1700s as a result of a reduction in freight charges by 95% from 1700 to 1850. (Bogart, Clark). Second, the expansion of transport routes transformed local markets to national and international ones. Britain’s world output of industrial goods increased from 2% to 20% from 1750 to 1850. (McKay 694). Improved transport contributed to increased trade and capital inflows, which in turn, led to economic
According to Friedrich Engels, a German social scientist who contributed to the development of the Marxist theory, “Every improvement in manufacturing leads to unemployment and the greater the technical improvement the greater the unemployment.” During the years of 1811 and 1816, many English hosiery weavers became unemployed as they were replaced by stocking frames. (Caldwell 371) A group of handicraft workers, named the Luddites, attacked factories and destroyed new machines in northern England to protest industrialization. The Luddites’ uprising is an example of class warfare, that later contributed to the development of socialist ideology in