The Change In Society During The Industrial Revolution

There are many ways to define a revolution and many historians and philosophers have various ideas of what constitutes as a revolutionary time in history. However, a very simplistic definition would simple be that a revolution is a drastic change that happens in a relatively short period of time. This being said, the Industrial Revolution is truly revolutionary for many reasons including: changes to society’s way of living, different power dynamic in society, the rampant change in technology and the emergence of new ideologies; all of these reasons were revolutionary and made Europe more modern. The living conditions in which people were forced to live were not exactly pleasant during the industrial revolution. However, they did make Europe …show more content…
In the feudalistic society that still somewhat existed shortly before the Industrial revolution took place there was really only two groups of people being classified as the wealthy and the poor; there was no middle class or group to bridge the gap between the poor and the wealthy. The move to urbanization and industrialization changed this. This is significant change in society because it changed the way that power was distributed. It is well known that the wealthy lived good lives and held all the power and the poor struggled to survive so one can assume that the growth of a working middle class throws off previous concepts and structures of power that existed. The working would gain power over the course of time and wouldn’t be as silent as the lower classes because they had the power to speak. This change in politics can be seen as the start of a democratic society which shows that the revolutionary idea of a working class helped modernize Europe to eventually turn it into what the world knows it to be …show more content…
While there was rampant inequality, poverty and power discrepancies in the way that that industrial revolution worked there was also new ideas forming of what the ideal society should be. Much of this can be seen through the communist Manifesto with the rise of socialist philosophies most prominently Marxism. Marx states in the communist manifesto that “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.” He then goes onto say “The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.” Through these ideas and statements one can interpret why the rise of socialist thought was needed and it was created as a response to the new living conditions and power dynamics that people had to live in as a result of technological change. Socialism gave more emphasis on equal societies where people worked together and empathized with one another which is something that is still wanted today in our present Capitalist system. The reason that these ideas are revolutionary are because they are another dramatic shift in thinking from even just the beginning of the