Social Classes & Industrial Revolution Impacts
Lower Social Classes: Workers and Peasants
Distinction is made between agriculture (peasants) and industrial workers. Both groups make up the proletariat, living in precarious situations. Field workers produce food, the base of wealth produced by the industrial proletariat. Workers generally endure workdays up to 16 hours in exchange for meager wages and undignified living conditions. They live threatened by lack of protection against illness or unemployment, conditions that can condemn them to poverty and begging.
The Formation of the Proletariat and Social Problems of Industrial Cities
Current life can be characterized by urban predominance. This urban development occurred during the Industrial Revolution, moving large numbers of rural people to urban centers seeking work in factories. This influx created housing needs, overcrowding, infrastructure problems (water, hygiene, sanitation, drainage), and provisioning issues (food, transport). Psychological problems also arose (individualization, loneliness, lack of communication and solidarity).
Urban population growth is due to the excess of births over deaths, migration of farmers, and foreign immigration (e.g., Italians and Irish to New York).
The Making of the Proletariat
The growth of cities and companies concentrated workers, previously dispersed in small towns. This concentration gave rise to the proletariat. Although of Roman origin, the term was applied in the eighteenth century to people with many children. In the nineteenth century, it denoted the poorer social class. This group was not only employed but poor, lacking ownership and unable to meet family needs with one wage.
Industrial Cities Characteristics
- Increasing functions and activities
- Rapid and sometimes messy growth
- Diversified market with rising demand
- Appearance of factories and workers’ quarters (overcrowding)
- Segregation of bourgeoisie and nobility residences
- Planned expansion of larger cities in the late nineteenth century
Social Problems of the Industrial Revolution
- Workers no longer own their work
- Monotonous and repetitive work
- Deplorable hygiene and safety conditions
- Low wages
- Strenuous work hours
- Lack of social protection and employment
- Overcrowded housing with minimal infrastructure
- Greater exploitation of women and children
- Industrial diseases
- Labor uncertainty
Beginnings of Labor Legislation
For a long time, skilled British workers were not allowed in associations, much less women and children. This was significant because female and child labor, being cheap, drove economic development in the nineteenth century. Sir Robert Peel, impressed by the poor working conditions in his factory, pushed for protective measures for children and women in the House of Commons in 1802. England was the exception; the United States followed in 1813, Russia in 1838, and others later. This delay was due to liberal laissez-faire thinking, viewing labor law as state intrusion.
Glossary of Terms
* Stratified society: Initially defined as a closed social group, belonging to individuals performing similar functions in society, endowed with legal status and privileges (private law). Privilege determined the exclusive and closed nature of the estate.
* Bourgeoisie: Until the eighteenth century, it described different social groups, varying by city. During the nineteenth century, it gradually denoted those with more wealth and social dominance.
* Unlink: To treat welfare as their owners with full ownership.
* Dispose: To pass or transmit to another’s domain something or the right to it.
* Movable property: Goods without fixed location that can be removed: money, securities, shares, electricity, oil, etc.
* Real estate: Goods that cannot be moved, often set apart from one site to another: houses, buildings, farms, land, etc.
* “Mayorazgos”: A system to keep a set of interrelated goods together, passing them linked to the heir (usually the eldest son), preventing asset dispersion and ensuring wealth accumulation.