fixed capital. Structural change, however, was by no means confined to the industries whose technique had undergone extensive alteration. The increased facilities for transport affected almost every class of producers by extending at once the range of the market which they could supply, and of the competition which it was necessary for them to face. The result was a quite general increase in production for exchange and a narrowing of the number of distinct tasks to which an individual could profitably apply his labour. Further, this increase of exchange led to the growth of intermediary classes of agents and traders particularly important being the rise of banking, the development of produce markets, and of retail trade. 84. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION1 Our historical sketch requires for its completion a study of that later aspect of social development which we so often and so strangely call the "Industrial Revolution." This movement has done far more than shower upon us a series of "great inventions" or bless mankind › with a new technique." Appearing gradually and working indirectly, as well as directly, it has affected our whole world of thought, of action, and of institutions; it has modified our economics, our politics, our ethics, and even our religion; it has changed in nature, number, and form our baffling problems; it has written itself large in our culture. In view of its many-sidedness and the gradual way in which it has effected and is still effecting its changes, it seems amiss either to call it "industrial" or to refer to it as a "revolution." We look in vain for its beginnings. We know that early mediaevalism could have given us nothing which, even erroneously, could be called an "industrial revolution." Before it could appear the mediaeval scheme of values had to be transformed. Desires for earthly things had to be freed from their unethical taint; a wholesome respect for the world had to be built up; man had to acquire greater reverence for his own powers and functions; people had to learn to conform to the things of this world if they would transform it. This change in the attitude toward life and its problems was intimately associated with several other lines of development. There appeared a new interest in nature as nature, a new philosophy, a new mathematics, and a new physics. These laid the foundation of the new I Taken by permission from W. H. Hamilton, Current Economic Problems, p. 36-37. (The University of Chicago Press, 1915.) technique. Many discoveries of new lands were made, adding tremendous resources calling for utilization. There was brought to Europe gold alike serviceable for the furtherance of the new money economy and the more rapid accumulation of capital. Colonial ventures led to an extension of the market and a great increase in the size of the industrial unit. This necessitated a reorganization of the "factory" and a more extensive use of the principle of the division of ✓ labor. The last produced a minute specialization which both served to create an incentive for the invention of new machines and furnished an opportunity for their use. Together with accumulated capital and the necessary scientific knowledge this new organization led to the new technique. Even this is not the whole story; for in England the movement was hastened by conditions peculiar to the country. The indented coastline, by cheapening transportation and enlarging the market, must have been a factor of prominence. It has been suggested, too, that an institution, seemingly as extraneous as primogeniture, played its part by forcing into mercantile pursuits those whose veins contained the adventurous blood of nobility. The course of the "revolution" has been as comprehensive as its antecedents. The changes in technique are most clearly appreciated. Even here the tendency toward a "machine-process” embracing a large part of the industrial system is generally overlooked as is also the seemingly antagonistic fact that up to the present the conquest of the older system by the machine has been partial and incomplete. On the economic side, the increasing importance of capital, the rise of the "factory system," the disappearance of "domestic industry," the trend toward large-scale production, the separation of the laborer from the "tools of his trade," and increasing class differentiation based upon differences in industrial functions are most clearly seen. These aspects of the movement raise the questions of artificially controlling the tendencies inherent in the development of the machine-system, the determination of the size of the industrial entity, the social control of large aggregates of wealth such as railroads and capitalistic monopolies, the elimination of economic insecurity which alike attends la bor and capital, the equities of the distribution of wealth, and the urban enigmas of overcrowding, housing, sanitation, vice, and poverty. They reveal, too, just over the horizon the more ominous questions of property, inheritance, and the reconstruction of industrial society. The questions reveal but a single aspect of the influence of he Industrial Revolution. Political, ethical, religious, and social ques tions have all been involved in the general transformation of life and values. In many cases they are inseparably connected with economic problems. For instance, when the machine took over the work of the home, the latter became a new institution. One writer insists that the home, and woman as well, for all that, has not yet adapted herself to the new society. We all complain that the "machine-process" has entered our colleges, and that college instruction is being "standardized" and college graduates "tagged." We all, at least occasionally, complain of the inability of law and religion alike to adjust themselves to modern industrialism. And our friends in ethics tell us that the newer industrial life is effecting startling changes in our standards of social and individual ethics. And are we sure that we have reached the end of the "revolution"? Most likely we are in a second stage of the process where problems are vastly different from those met in the first stage which occupied the larger part of the nineteenth century. Perhaps there will be a third stage unlike the second. Clearly the end of the new technology is not as yet. The technique first introduced has not as yet produced its full complement of social results. Quite as important, the new technique is being rapidly extended over a wider and wider area, constantly affecting the fortunes of people less and less adapted to it. Its extension preserves a frontier where machineculture is constantly pushing back a civilization founded on a less complex technique. The reaction upon our system is fraught with grave consequences. |