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During the Money Changers' reign as emperors over finance, the First Industrial Revolution was in the process of becoming a major era in mankind’s social, cultural, and economic development, which allowed for important technological advances to vastly improve the production of the economy on the backs of the lower and middle classes. It’s time we take a deeper look into the large technological innovations that were occurring from 1760 to1848 that drove the lower and middle classes to revolutions after years of mistreatment and their labor allowing the rich to get richer.
An economist named Robert Gordon summarizes it well: Imagine you are living in England sometime around the 1820s. You are most likely a farmer, working in agriculture, and have very few goods or property to your name. You have no running water, electricity, or vehicles to transport you long distances in short amounts of time. Time is calculated based on the relationship of the sun and moon to the sky. Cooking, cleaning, and labor are mostly done by the hands of the poor who work long days with little to no reward. In most respects, the life you are living as a farmer in England in the late 18th and early 19th century is extremely similar to how someone was living in the time of Jesus Christ, and in some cases better. Now imagine if you go into a coma and wake up 100 years later in the year 1920. Cities are built with skyscrapers; cars fill the roads and machines are doing most of the labor. Radios can transmit messages through thin air and you may occasionally see a large bird-like metal contraption called an airplane flying in the sky (Robert Gordon). The world was beginning to evolve and a lot of those innovations were sparked by the first industrial revolution that was occurring while the Money Changers were ruling over the financial sector of the globe.
There was no single moment that started the First Industrial Revolution, nor was there one single innovator that change the course of humanity. This monumental century of new technologies was a combination of incremental improvements to the expertise around creating tools and ideas that were used by everyday citizens and workers, in combination with the Money Changers' ability to facilitate and finance international trading.
Now that wealthy families were beginning to concentrate capital in their hands, they were able to directly benefit from the innovator's business projects by financing the founders of the ideas, taking their patents or buying out companies, and spreading their goods to the world. With a growing European population witnessing the progress other regions around the world were making in manufacturing, they sought to have the same luxuries as their competitors. As time went on, suppliers could no longer resist the potential profits they could capture if they were able to fulfill the city’s growing demand for higher quality goods.
To put some perspective on how massive the shift in production was, in 1750 Britain imported around 2.5 million pounds of cotton that was to be refined by the hands of the poor. However, this amount did not satisfy the needs of a growing population. Low-income inventors began creating textile devices able to collect and refine materials faster and cheaper. As a result of the advances in the textile industry, by 1850 the British used almost 590 million pounds of cotton, which was mostly retrieved and processed by machines (Hopkins, Eric. Industrialization and Society. 2000). Wool and Silk were also part of the inventions that were sweeping the nation, with each having its respective processes and machines. If you remember or go back, most of the Money Changers we talked about first started in the textile industry. Thus, automation allowed the wealthy to see the popularity and efficiency of factories across the globe and helped push the industrial revolution forward. Money Changers were able to take advantage of the poor’s cheap labor and move the products to their international trading subsidiaries to be sold to nations across the globe at a profit.
However, the textile industry was not the bread and butter for the Money Changers, the real profit-generation tool was the financing of large government and private industry infrastructure that would create the foundation for the economy to be built on. The economy needed the earth’s resources to be formed in a way that was usable before the Money Changers would be able to take full advantage of the growing economy and docile population that was the labor behind the operations. One of the first industries that went under these changes was the iron business.
The iron industry underwent vast changes to its production methods which allowed private and public entities to create large infrastructure projects that would be funded by the Money Changers. During the middle of the 18th century in the United Kingdom, the production of iron was focused on charcoal iron, which has unfavorable characteristics and requires a higher temperature to melt. In 1750, Great Britain produced 24,500 tons of charcoal iron and 2,500 tons of carbon iron. After 58 years of innovations in the production and refinement of iron, in 1808 Great Britain produced 7,800 tons of charcoal iron and 250,000 tons of carbon iron (Tylecote, R. F. (1992). A History of Metallurgy). This iron was used by the private industry and government in the construction of new buildings, bridges, machines, textile mills, and more all while being funded by the wealthy European banking families we have discussed. In addition, many household products began to arise that made the quality of life better and household tasks easier such as pots, pans, stoves, machines, and more.
The Iron Bridge, Shropshire, England, the world's first bridge constructed of iron opened in 1781 (Ironbridge Gorge. UNESCO World Heritage Centre).
The next major development from the Industrial Revolution was the commercial use of steam-powered engines. The use of steam-powered engines would allow the newly forming factories to have machines that operated faster and with fewer stoppages than water or wind-based engines. In addition, steam-powered engines would allow for fast-moving locomotives that could transport supplies and final goods to destinations across Europe for production or consumption. Without these innovations, Money Changers such as Amschel Rothschild wouldn’t have been able to create railway systems that covered Austria and allowed him to become extremely wealthy in Europe.
Transportation was another major improvement that took place during the first industrial revolution. Transportation methods such as bridges, canals, and roads were made possible by the rediscovery of cement, which had been lost for nearly 1300 years, and the refined production of iron (Encyclopedia Britannica (2008). All of these large infrastructure projects would be funded by either private or public debt that was borrowed from the Money Changers we previously discussed, allowing them to charge high-interest payments on money that was in demand. Essentially, our world was created on the backs of slaves and the poor and financed by the rich who profited the most from our ancestor’s labor.
During the Industrial Revolution, machine tools, chemical production, agriculture, lighting, glass making, paper production, and other vital goods were part of the discoveries and innovations of this time that led to the progression of European and world society. However, historians mostly agree that the value of the progression was concentrated in the hands of the wealthy and government, “studies have shown that real wages in Britain only increased 15% between the 1780s and 1850s, and that life expectancy in Britain did not begin to dramatically increase until the 1870s” (Feinstein, Charles (September 1998). And Szreter & Mooney; Mooney (February 1998). The population and production were increasing at exponential rates, yet the standard of living was only gradually getting better if it was improving at all.
These increases in population and technology generate massive production, but the Money Changers were hoarding the revenue for themselves, directly enabling their power and wealth to grow by focusing on cheap labor in factories and loaning out money that was in high demand. With these advancements in the financial industry, securitization of multiple products and new technologies lowering the cost of production, and more money coming into the system from novice investors, Money Changers were able to create systems that built-up infrastructure and machinery that could transport goods and services faster, giving the Money Changers opportunity to lend out high demand money at every level of the economy that was needed for projects of all sizes. These projects created more goods and services the Money Changers could sell, creating a positive feedback loop for their profits. More factories, create more products which create more money. More money creates more factories which creates more product that creates more money. It’s another perpetual money-making machine, except at some point in investing, the musical chairs stop and the economy matures.
The technological and financial impacts effects on society allowed civilization to get a taste of what was possible with the discoveries and collaborative efforts of a motivated population. However, some of the effects were not to the lower and middle classes' benefit.
The first biggest difference in the life of underprivileged citizens during the economic industrialization was the creation, utilization, and growth of factories. Before these major advancements in technology and machinery took place, most of the European population made a living by working in agriculture or by owning farmland. Within family units, members wouldn’t be assigned specific responsibilities, but rather the family would all help in a collaborative effort to make sure the household work was complete. Tasks such as knitting clothes, preparing and cooking food from the livestock, and producing and fixing tools, all while tending the farm was paramount to the family’s success. This system of isolation and generalization of skills was extremely inefficient because the requirements of tending the farm were so high, that it gave the families little time to accomplish the other necessary tasks, come up with any sort of innovation or gain expertise in any one skill.
Now that farms were beginning to see higher crop yields from the use of machinery and technology that was produced during the industrial revolution, large populations were no longer required on the farms. As a result, the growing population began to move into urban areas to seek work in the newly created factories that were in high demand of labor, “the population of England had more than doubled from 8.3 million in 1801 to 16.8 million in 1850” (Statistics.gov.uk). More specifically, this labor would be extremely specialized. Not only would you work in a mine, but you would also have a very specific role in the mine. Not only did you work in a factory, but workers also had very specific tasks inside of the factory. This use of specialization and assembly-line style production methods allowed the factory owners and Money Changers to produce more products and services, allowing them to garner more profits from their investments at the cost of the emotional, physical and spiritual health of their workforce. Automation and machinery caused large migrations of Europeans from rural areas to growing cities which shifted the demand for labor to urban areas and resulted in a lack of demand for labor on farms.
As families began moving their loved ones and few belongings to urban cities in England, they failed to find adequate housing that could provide shelter or sanitation, and many remained homeless and exposed to the elements. Financing of large industrial projects was absorbing most of the Money Changers' money and resulted in there being little capital to fund new housing projects. As a result, in the early stages of the movement of populations, the overall sanitation of the water and streets was in peril. Infant mortality and death rates were increasing because of large outbreaks of disease caused by waterways being exposed to pollution and feces. (Dyos, H. J.,1967). The only hope for the people to escape starvation and the streets was to work in the newly created factories.
These workshops offered brutal working conditions with extremely long hours, little breaks, and terrible pay. The owners of the facilities frequently recruited orphan children with no pay or adolescents for little pay and long hours. John Greene from Crash Course explains how accidents frequently occurred because of the inexperience with the new, fast-moving industrial machines and the children were often the ones harmed by these mistakes. He also recalls a primary source that reads, “Little Mary Richards was caught up in a machine and six- and seven-year-old orphans working alongside her witnessed the “bones of her arms, legs, thighs, etc. successively snap… her head appeared dashed to pieces… her blood thrown around about like water from a twirled mop” (The Industrial Revolution: Crash Course).
A child dragging a container full of coal up a slim mine shaft. (Dunn, James. 1905)
Employers and owners of mines, fields, factories, and other shops were actively seeking out inexperienced humans who didn’t know the value of their labor or lives, allowing the wealthy to take advantage of the youth and pay them less than they were worth. Although production and trade increased, it was on the backs of slaves, women, and children working 16-hour days with little to no breaks and with terrible pay. The poor remained living in poor conditions, simply in a new setting and with new tools and the wealthy continued to concentrate wealth.
The First Industrial Revolution eventually spread to the rest of Europe, North America, and ultimately the rest of the world, forming a large swell of innovation that would increase the production of every country it touched.
Some areas controlled by developed economies remained largely agricultural, with their labor needs being filled by the enslaved or the poor to keep their costs low. However, society was beginning to see a shift in the supply and demand of labor, which is a major factor when deciding what gets produced in the world. Money Changers and financers were taking on large successful industrial projects on the backs of innovations from the lower and middle classes, while largely ignoring infrastructure for the citizens that would allow populations to flourish. Instead, Money Changers focused on efforts to increase and preserve their large sums of wealth accumulated up to this point.
The First Industrial Revolution would continue on through the end of the 19th century and roll into the Second Industrial Revolution. However, the new technologies discovered in the 1800s would eventually lead to a matured European economy, that found it difficult to produce additional goods with the tools of the period and left many people stranded, looking for food and homeless. These slowdowns in the economy were a large cause in the revolutions of 1848, which transpired after social and economic treatment became heavily in favor of the wealthy while the poor became more intolerant toward the inadequate treatment. We will discuss this next.
