G.R. Porter defends the factory system and the process of industrialization through the use of evidence of population growth after 1780, and of a lower death rate. Optimist scholar R.M. Hartwell agrees with Porter, and asserts that the decrease in death rate was a direct consequence of environmental and nutritional improvements (Hartwell 178). Hartwell goes further in showing that there was an increase in savings during the industrial revolution. He shows that “deposits increased to 14.3 million pounds by 1829, and to almost 30 million pounds by 1850” (Doty 100). This increase in savings is due primarily to the introduction of the factory system because another scholar, H.O. Horne, researched that “the 30 million pounds of deposits in 1847 were predominantly the savings of wage-earners” (Horne 116). Furthermore, saving societies were established to cater to the needs of the working class to save. These saving societies, such as Building and Land Societies and Co-operative Societies, only provide additional evidence of workers’ increasing ability to save (Doty 100). Hartwell essentially argues that an increase in savings implies an increase in wages. With an increase in wages comes the ability to consume and purchase more. This is evidence of better quality of life and an improvement of standard of living.
Another enthusiast for the factory system and the Industrial Revolution, Andrew Ure, claims that if the process of industrialization did not improve the standard of living of the working class, it certainly did not deteriorate their conditions. Through Ure’s experiences when visiting many factories in Manchester and in surrounding districts, he observed that all the hard work was performed by the steam engine, one of the most useful and important inventions during the Industrial Revolution. With the help of the steam engine, workers were left with such easy tasks as “joining the threads that break” and “taking the cops off the spindles” (Taylor 12). On the contrary to machine-powered labor described above, it was seen by Ure that hand labor was done entirely by muscular effort (Taylor 13). Clearly we can see an improvement in the degree of labor in factories exploiting the use of machines. Ure goes an additional step to describe the working conditions and related health issues relevant to the factories. An official report, given by an Inspecting Surgeon of the mills of Preston and its vicinity, informs that “the average annual sickness of each child is not more than four days,” and that “disorders of every kind…induced by causes wholly unconnected with factory labour.” Moreover, the notion that factories are unsafe due to the dangers inherent with machines is challenged when the Inspecting Surgeon testifies that he has “met with very few children who have suffered from injuries occasioned by machinery.” He goes on by saying that “the protection, especially in new factories, is so complete, that accidents will…speedily become rare” (Taylor 15). Lastly, Ure points out the luxuries the working class was capable of during the industrial revolution. Following Hartwell’s argument that purchasing power was increased through the wage system, Ure informs that the workers were able to afford commodious housing. The houses contained an “improved kitchen-grate, with boiler and oven” (Taylor 15). Some houses were more richly furnished than others, but the common point of concern is that the working class was living more comfortably, with better housing, and suffered less work-related injuries and sicknesses. Thus one cannot deny the fact that the quality of life was improved. Moreover, one also must not concede that the industrial revolution deteriorated the standard of living of the working class, either.
According to pessimist scholars, increasing consumption cannot be a direct measurement of the well-being of workers. To pessimists, living standards are incapable of being measured because they include “home and family life, education, play and leisure, the conditions of work, the psychological adaptation from handwork to the time clock and machine discipline of the factory system, and…child and woman labor.” Pessimists provide evidence for their arguments through testimony of the Blue Books, and the books, pamphlets, and articles used by contemporary observers and witnesses (Doty 5). These are qualitative evidence and analyses and are used to embrace the traditional family values and those of human values as well. They insist that through the process of industrialization, the quality of life of the working class did indeed deteriorate. Let us begin with Frederick Engels, who defends the role of family life in society, and disputes how the industrial revolution would lead to the dissolution of the family.
Engels is a socialist who disapproves of the factory system, capitalism, and many of the ideals of Adam Smith. He befriended with Karl Marx to collaborate to establish a radical philosophy called Socialism. In his book The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, he strongly opposes the factory system by claiming that the employment of children and women will lead to the dissolution of the family. The dissolution of the family, argues Engels, “brings the most demoralizing consequences…” He goes on to explain that the employment of a woman will leave the woman no time to cater to the needs of her child. Eventually, the mother will become a stranger to her own child. Such conditions will bring unknown psychological effects to the children who will be ruined for later family life. The same effects happen when children are employed to work in the factories. They will become accustomed to the isolation of family love, and will begin to “emancipate” themselves from their parents (Engels 144). Such dissolution of the family can only be attributed to the rise of the factory system because Engels insists that this problem was new to the Industrial Revolution. Since family is part of the criteria of defining living standards, the disruption of the family means the degradation of standard of living. Many other pessimists use different means at disapproving the factory system.
J.L. and Barbara Hammond support the pessimistic view that the factory system and the process of industrialization as a whole led to the deterioration of workers’ standards of living. They relate the Industrial Revolution to the slave trade, claiming that the factory system binds men to do services for man’s needs, resulting in an atmosphere reminiscent of the slave trade (Doty 67). They argue that with new machines being invented comes the need for child labor. This need of a child labor force is synonymous to the need of slave labor force exhibited in the United States and many European countries, such as Portugal, who participated in the slave trade of the 18th and early 19th centuries. According to the Hammonds, the consequence of child labor indicates the depreciation of the quality of life. Better quality of life would not allow child labor to exist. Humanitarianism is central to their arguments, and the degradation of human values to allow child labor to subsist is the paramount indication that the quality of life of the working class was worsened.
The assertions pessimists put forth are however convincing and passionate, I agree with T.S. Ashton when he criticizes qualitative evidence as “one-sided.” According to Ashton, reports from the Blue Books “signalized a quickening of social conscience” and “a sensitiveness to distress” (Doty 78). It is indeed reasonable to believe that reports from the Blue Books and qualitative evidence used by pessimists are biased. Ashton asserts that pessimist scholars pick out certain “sensational evidence of distress,” characteristic in remote villages and the countryside to dramatize stories of exploitation of the working class. Ashton does not believe that these types of distress occur in towns of growing manufactures and in cities experiencing major industrialization, which exploit the use of steam power. In their argument the Hammonds attribute child labor to the invention of machines. With this connection, the Hammonds condemn the industrial revolution as amoral and cruel. However, child labor was not as harsh as the Hammonds make it sound like. In cities with the utility of steam power, optimist scholar Andrew Ure shows that workers were at ease with their jobs because all hard work was done by the machines. Additionally, child labor has had existed more than a century before the period of the Industrial Revolution, and hence cannot be solely attributed as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution. Thus the arguments put forth by the Hammonds may have been personal and biased, creating a picture harsher than one in reality. Only concrete statistical evidence can distinguish between the truth and personal values and prejudice. Hence, the quantitative approach to analyze the social effects of the Industrial Revolution is preferred and is of paramount concern.
Engels defends the family as the basis of society in the 19th centure. He asserts that the abolition of the family will bring “the most demoralizing consequences…” (Engels 144). However, in The Communist Manifesto Marx calls for the abolition of the family. Marx believes that the bourgeois family is based on capital and on private gain. With the dissolution of the family, Marx contends that capital will vanish as well (Marx and Engels ). Engels believes in Communism, but Communism believes in the abolition of the family. Engels is having contracting points of view, and thus Engels’ attack of the factory system as the cause of the dissolution of the family does not hold any further relevancy. Compared to the arguments put forth by enthusiasts for the factory system, Engels’ arguments against the factory system are weaker, and cannot be used to assert that the factory system deteriorated workers’ quality of life.
In conclusion, the debate over whether industrialization increased or deteriorated the standard of living of the working class is compromised. Proponents to the factory system and the process of industrialization overwhelm their opponents with statistical data, proving that living standards improved throughout the duration of the Industrial Revolution. Data such as population growth, low death rate, better working conditions with less work-related injuries and sicknesses, and an increase in saving deposits signify and is indicative that the working class was under healthy environments, and that their living standards were improved due to the introduction of the factory system. Finally, it is important to notice the significance of this paper. Its significance lies in defending logic, science, and methodology against personal values and prejudice. Its significance lies in comparing and contrasting the quantitative method and the qualitative method. It shows that the qualitative approach to analyze effects of a historical event holds no importance because this qualitative evidence is usually one-sided, argued from personal values and beliefs. On the contrary, quantitative analyses of evidence provide a more accurate tale of what happened without the bias and personal values. Concrete numbers do not lie, and from these numbers we can infer about what exactly happened. Thus statistical evidence shows us that the Industrial Revolution did improve the standard of living of the social working class.
