Jeffrey Secrist
AP MEH Research Project
2/2/18
The factories associated with the Industrial Revolution were able to strengthen the British economy more than the traditional cottage economy. The economy benefited from these factories for a variety of reasons. First, the factories increased the efficiency of production and eliminated problems that the cottage industry encountered. They also were instrumental in creating a new social class structure which influenced the economy. Lastly, the factories helped to spark new ideas which carried over to British economic strength and positioned Britain atop the European powers. However, as with everything, there were some small cons to the Industrial Revolution, but they were greatly outweighed by the pros.
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The main problem with this economy was the inefficiency that stemmed from it. As a result of the frequency of exchanging goods between entrepreneur, weaver, and consumer, there were many transport costs and time wasted. There was also problems with stealing. Rare materials would be distributed, but often times the workers would not use all the materials and keep some for themselves. Another problem with the cottages was the lack of standardization. Nothing was being made uniformly and as a result, each individual object was slightly different. This posed problems when it came to pricing objects at markets as these objects were often worth different amounts. As a combination of all these problems stemming from the cottage industry, the British economy suffered. It was for this reason that people began to look for alternative producing methods and as a result the factory was founding, fixing the previous problems of the