Industrial Revolution and Key Economic Concepts
Key Terms of Unit 2
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period of significant technological and economic change, initially in Britain (c. 1750-1800). It began with the accumulation of trading capital and the mechanization of the textile factories of northern England and then Scotland. Dependent on the application of steam power, it also required factory production and an urban workforce. Populations grew, and the working classes suffered in the new towns. Industrialization was stimulated by the wars of the 18th and early 19th centuries, whose technology was transferred to the iron and steel industries, improving railroad construction. Certain inventions are traditionally associated with the beginning of industrialism, including J. Watt’s steam engine (1775), J. Kay’s flying shuttle (1733), J. Hargreaves’s spinning jenny (c. 1754), S. Crompton’s spinning mule (1779), and Edmund Cartwright’s power loom (1785). The Industrial Revolution thereafter spread to other countries: France after 1830, Germany after 1850, and the United States after 1860.
Anarchism
This ideology rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat and proposed an ideal society based on individual freedom, life in communes, and direct action to defend people’s interests. For some anarchists, direct actions included violent attacks and even murder.
Assembly Line
An assembly line is an arrangement of machines, equipment, and workers in which work passes from operation to operation in a direct line until the product is assembled.
Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is a method of agricultural organization established in England characterized by an emphasis on fodder crops and by the absence of a fallow year, which had characterized earlier methods. It consists of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons; it improves soil structure and fertility.
Capitalist
A capitalist is a person who invests their capital in trade and industry.
Division of Labor
Division of labor is the division of a work process into different parts; each part is carried out by a different person. The division of labor made textile manufacturing more efficient.
Enclosure Acts
The Enclosure Acts were a series of United Kingdom Acts of Parliament that enclosed open fields and common land in the country, creating legal property rights to land that was previously considered common.
Economic Liberalism
Economic liberalism is the theory that freedom of production and free trade are essential elements for economic growth and development to take place. It is based on the ideas of Adam Smith, the father of economic liberalism.
Factory
A factory is a building in which goods are manufactured by machine.
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that together form a way of understanding how societies, economies, and political systems work.
Import
To import is to buy goods from another country; the opposite of export.
Industrialization
Industrialization is the process through which economies dominated by agriculture become dominated by industrial production. Individual manual labor is often replaced by mechanized mass production, and craftsmen are replaced by the assembly line.
Invest
To invest is to put money into something with the expectation of making a profit.
Left-Wing
Left-wing describes ideologies and political parties that favor greater social and economic equality, the redistribution of wealth, and state intervention to promote these objectives.
Marxism
Marxism, also known as Socialism, is an ideology developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism’s ideal society was based on the class struggle, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and a new Communist society in which everyone would be equal.
Metallurgical
Metallurgical relates to working with or extracting metals.
Mining
Mining is the extraction of raw materials like coal or metals from the ground.
Network
A network is a system or collection of interconnected parts.
Protectionism
Protectionism is an economic theory that defends the imposition of tariffs on the entry of foreign products in order to make them more expensive. This situation immediately raises the price of imported goods, making them less competitive when compared to locally produced goods.