Kent Horii
4/22/15
Block 4
ITSMW
Potter

Most revolutionary progresses are social based

When you think of national progress, what would you think of? Economical, Political, or Societal? Actually, although people believe that most reforms or progress is for the benevolence of all three of these elements equally, revolutions such as the Industrial Revolution are more driven towards the success of the economics. The industrial revolution itself caused a massive uprising of ideas based on engineering for the sole purpose of convenience, and made a huge gap between the rich, the middle, and the poor, and classified the middle and the poor as the working classes and most of the topics went to the working class. However, this is more unlikely to be a political progress since the convenience and affordable factor all went to boost England’s economy and have the society afford them for cheaper. The progress of the Industrial Revolution was based on socioeconomic reasons because, due to the Industrial revolution, England’s economy increased, rate of employment for unemployed workers increased because of the ability to mass produce products using the newly invented machines to create a better economy for corporations, and a lot of products could be produced in cheap prices because mass production was possible and this increased the standard of living to modernization. Another example of socioeconomic progress is the French Revolution. The French revolutionists and poor social class strived to change the social class division by killing aristocrats and women’s march of Versailles also indicated a strive for a change on social class and economy with the women fighting the king for a better economy to solve the poverty crisis and demanded a change for the poor social class. Although there have been political progress for revolutions such as the American Revolution, social progress is still the biggest influence for revolutionary progress because most of the ideas to raise the economy is for the purpose to improve the lives of the society and to remedy the flaws of the social class system such as poverty. Another reason why the progress is social is because of the birth of numerous economic theories solely serving a purpose for improving the society such as Robert Owen’s “Utopian Socialism”. Most of the flaws of the economy is due to flaws in the government and social progress tends to fix the economy to remedy the social class flaws itself because that is the sole purpose for a democratic government which is to have the society be responsible for fixing the nation’s flaws.

A reason why the social success was the biggest factor of the progress of the industrial revolution was because the society was trying to fix the major gaps in the social classes and also the flaws of the social class system and tried to solve them by fixing the economy. One of the biggest and successful progresses is the new development of efficient machines that have the ability to mass produce products quite easily. This also helped boost England’s economy because products were able to be made at a faster rate, and also, due to the railroad system, shipping and trade became faster and more efficient while still having cost effectiveness and being cheap. This also helped everyone afford everyday products faster and things such as cars became a social norm unlike pre revolution where cars were a symbol of wealth. All of this helped England remedy most of the flaws with the social class such as poverty and people were able to afford things with ease and also be employed as well because of the corporations developing and needing more workers to regulate the factories. This also helped England’s products to be spread worldwide. One example of this is when the cotton industry expanded to India thanks to the mass production and the railroad system. An advanced trading system, such as the railroad system, combined with an advanced mass production technology creates a boosting economy for England due to how fast the products can be made for very little effort and time. The effect of this is evident when Henry Ford expands his industry further and was in need for more workers due to the fact that the corporation was growing at a faster rate than Ford can gather more workers. This was all for the sole purpose of breaking the gap between the poor and the rich. Another evidence is the French revolution. The women’s march of Versailles was a social movement which the women went to Versailles to complain to the King about the failure of France’s economy due to his mismanagement of money and the fact that there had to be a social protest opposition to complain against the King about the economic issues and poverty is another reason why most revolutionary progress are social driven. Another reason why progress for most revolutions was due to social reasons was because of the development of ideas and theories for the betterment and increase of society’s standards for living. After the creations of new and efficient machines such as the steam wheel and the railroads, the standard of living has been set in a new bar. Most people who were once unemployed were becoming employed. However it doesn’t stop there. The society even went far to develop economic and social theories, revolutionary ideas such as “Communist Manifesto” and “Capitalism” were introduced for the betterment of England’s economy. Especially “scientific management”, this idea became the base idea for most of the corporation systems for today. Due to the nature of creating unskilled workers to do mass production, this definitely created a progress for England’s expansion and is one of the reasons why the Industrial Revolution was influenced by economic expansion interests. Robert Owen’s “Utopian Socialism” and Adam Smith’s “Capitalism” are also examples of this. They all tried to manipulate the economy in order to fix the societal issues. The communist manifesto listed a number of flaws with capitalism and theorized that a communist government would be the best for society because according to the theory, people will be more equal in terms of things such as wages and supported worker’s revolutions. Another evidence of the birth of new ideas is Robert Owen’s theory of Utopian Socialism. He tried to focus on equality to fix the society and ran an experiment to test his theory. Although most of these theories failed, it doesn’t change the fact that people such as Karl Marx and Robert Owen tried to improve the societal living by developing these ideas in the first place. Regardless of their position, they all had a contribution into progress of developing a better society to live in. Another example of a revolution that was started for the purpose of remedying the flaws of the social class system is the Russian revolution. Russians were starting a worker revolution to get rid of the Tsarist autocracy. They replaced the Provisional Government with a Communist government because they thought it was the most efficient way to provide equality for the social class because the Russians were trying so hard to fight for equality and get rid of dictatorship for the sake of the benevolence of their own society. This is yet another evidence of why most revolutions are based on Social progress and also the Russian’s used the ideology of Karl Marx to fight against the dictatorship.

Overall, the Industrial Revolution’s progress was mostly due to social influence. This is due to the fact that during the start of the industrial revolution, England being the head of the world economy because of their mass production capabilities, increased standards for living which leads to a huge change in the standards for the social class system. People were able to afford necessary goods for living and also afford luxurious. This combined with economic expansion made England rise as the head of the world economy and since the goal for the revolution was to innovate ideas for convenience to boost England’s economy and change the standards of living which is definitely a social progress and improvement. Also, another reason is because of the new ideologies such as Karl Marx’s communism being brought up in order to improve the society. Despite the theories not working and capitalism prevailing, it is still no doubt an attempt to increase the standards of living and that itself should count as a social progress because people like Karl Marx and Adam Smith are coming up with different ideologies solely for the improvement of the society. Even the sole purpose of Communism states that it is trying to solve the poverty issue of the social class system which further proves the point of why the progress is based on society. Although one can argue that this brings a negative effect on employed workers because it creates a huge amount of unskilled workers and lessens payment, and also American revolution was for political reform, one cannot argue that the American revolution is just an exception and there are many other revolutions out there with different purposes and also the social and economical reform did boost the England’s economy and did increase living standards.

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