Pros And Cons Of The Industrial Revolution

The Haves and Have-Nots of the Industrial Revolution

Toiling in factories during the Industrial Age was equivalent to torture. It’s difficult to imagine working in these times. Think about waking up early in the morning just to get to work, putting all your efforts into one monotonous job, and receiving little to nothing. Imagine toiling for your family, trying to survive while the possibility of death lingers in the back of your mind. Do you think you would have survived? Well, many industrial workers didn’t. The punishment given to the proletariats was so grueling that it caused struggle, leading to more penalties until it was too much. Even children were sent to work by their parents. They were treated the same, working as machine appendages

“Excessively long hours, low pay, rigorous discipline, and subhuman working conditions were the most common grievances of early industrial workers” (35). Thinkers and Reformers recognized these problems and proposed new ways to fix the system. Reforms were impacted by industrialization according to the perspectives of the reformer.

Power and wealth are the two ideas reformers worked to achieve and maintain. Reformers had many different ideas and perspectives on reforming the unjust system. Some believed reforms should come from above, while others thought the opposite. For example, Robert Owen corrected the system in his factory, which made the job more enjoyable, increasing the quality of the work. Owen was a strategic and logical man, he thought that reforms should have been made from above. “...he voluntarily improved working and living conditions for his workers.

Both thinkers had very different views on how to fix the unfair system compared to other reformers. Marx and Engels agreed that the most effective reform style should come from the workers; they wanted revolution. “In his view, members of the working class (which he called proletarians) had become little more than machines themselves. They were increasingly exploited and forced into submission by their wealthy bosses (the bourgeoisie)” (40). Marx and Engels thought bosses should've exploited their workers making Marx and Engels bad people. However, they had good ideas and intentions that were just executed poorly. Their goal was to get the slow-moving government to notice the problems and reform the system. They thought the only way to do that was by revolution. This isn’t always the most efficient way to correct the inequalities because the exploitation of workers still occurs, causing an excess struggle when it wasn’t necessary. Marx and Engels were motivated by wealth and power like many other people but also wanted recognition and notoriety from society. Overall, Marx and Engels did have good intentions for reforming the system, but their execution of them was not