Everything about Industrialization totally explained
Industrialisation (
Industrialization in the U.S.) is a process of social and economic change whereby a human group is transformed from a
pre-industrial society into an
industrial one. It is a part of a wider
modernisation process, where
social change and
economic development are closely related with technological
innovation, particularly with the development of large-scale
energy and
metallurgy production. Industrialisation also introduces a form of
philosophical change, where people obtain a different attitude towards their perception of
nature.
There is a considerable literature on the factors facilitating industrial modernisation and enterprise development. Key positive factors identified by researchers have ranged from favourable political-legal environments for industry and commerce, through abundant
natural resources of various kinds, to plentiful supplies of relatively low-cost, skilled and adaptable
labour.
One survey of countries in
Africa,
Asia, the
Middle East, and
Latin America and the
Caribbean in the late 20th century found that high levels of structural differentiation, functional specialisation, and autonomy of economic systems from government were likely to contribute greatly to industrial-commercial growth and prosperity. Amongst other things, relatively open trading systems with zero or low duties on goods
imports tended to stimulate industrial cost-efficiency and
innovation across the board. Free and flexible labour and other
markets also helped raise general business-economic performance levels, as did rapid popular learning capabilities. Positive work ethics in populations at large combined with skills in quickly utilising new technologies and scientific discoveries were likely to boost production and income levels – and as the latter rose, markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds tended to expand and provide a further stimulus to industrial
investment and
economic growth. By the end of the century,
East Asia was one of the most economically successful regions of the world – with
free market countries such as
Hong Kong being widely seen as models for other, less developed countries around the world to emulate.
Description
According to the original
sector classification of
Jean Fourastié, an economy consists of a "
Primary sector" of commodity production (farming, livestock breeding, exploitation of mineral resources), a "
secondary sector" of manufacturing and processing, and a "
Tertiary Sector" of service industries. The industrialisation process is historically based on the expansion of the secondary sector in an economy dominated by primary activities.
The first ever transformation to an industrial economy from an
agrarian one was called the
Industrial Revolution and this took place in the late
18th and early
19th centuries in a few countries of
Western Europe and North America, beginning in
Great Britain. This was the first industrialisation in the world's history.
The
Second Industrial Revolution describes a later, somewhat less dramatic change which came about in the late 19th century with the widespread availability of
electric power,
internal-combustion engines, and
assembly lines to the already industrialised nations.
The lack of an
industrial sector in a country is widely seen as a major handicap in improving a country's economy, and power, pushing many governments to encourage or enforce industrialisation.
History
Most pre-industrial economies had standards of living not much above
subsistence, meaning that the majority of the population were focused on producing their means of survival. For example, in medieval Europe, 80% of the labour force was employed in subsistence agriculture.
Some pre-industrial economies, such as
Ancient Athens, have had trade and commerce as significant factors, enjoying wealth far beyond a sustenance standard of living.
Famines were frequent in most pre-industrial societies, although some, such as the
Netherlands and
England of the 17th and 18th centuries, the
Italian city states of the 15th century and the ancient
Greek and
Roman civilisations were able to escape the famine cycle through increasing trade and
commercialisation of the
agricultural sector. It is estimated that during the 17th century Netherlands
imported nearly 70% of its grain supply and in the 5th century BC Athens imported 75% of its total food supply.
Industrialisation through
innovation in manufacturing processes first started with the Industrial Revolution in the northwest and in the Midlands of
England, around the 18th century. It spread first to Europe and North America during the
18th and
19th centuries, and it later spread to the rest of the world.
Industrial Revolution in Western Europe
In the
18th and
19th centuries,
Great Britain experienced a massive increase in agricultural productivity known as the
British Agricultural Revolution, which enabled an unprecedented
population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce from farming, and helping to drive the
Industrial Revolution.
The new manpower couldn't dedicate to agriculture due to the lack of land; besides, this wasn't needed either because the higher productivity
mechanised farming granted allowed a single
peasant to feed a bigger number of otherwise employed
workers. On the other hand, new agriculture techniques increased the demand for
machines and other
hardware, traditionally provided by the
urban artisans. Artisans, collectively called
bourgeoisie, employed
rural exodus' workers to increase their output and meet the country's needs. The growth of their
business coupled with the lack of experience of the new workers pushed to a
rationalisation and
standardisation of the duties the in
workshops, thus leading to a
division of work, that is, a primitive form of
Fordism. The process of creating a
good was divided into simple tasks, each one of them being gradually mechanised in order to boost the
productivity, therefore the
income. The accumulation of
capital allowed
investments in the
conception and application of new technologies, enabling the industrialisation process to self-sustain.
The industrialisation process formed a class of industrial workers who had more money in their pockets to spend than their agricultural cousins. They spent this on items such as tobacco and sugar and created new mass markets which stimulated more investment as merchants sought to exploit these.
The mechanisation of production spread to the countries surrounding England in
western and
northern Europe and to British
settling colonies, making those areas the wealthiest since, and shaping what is now know as the
Western world.
Incidentally, the possession of
exploitation colonies eased the accumulation of capital to the countries that possessed them, speeding up their
development. The consequence was that the
subject country integrated a bigger
economic system in a subaltern position, emulating the countryside who demands manufactured goods and offers raw materials, while the
metropole stressed its urban posture, providing goods and importing food. A classical example of this mechanism is the
triangular trade, who involved England, southern United States and western Africa. This polarity still affects the world, and deeply retarded the industrialisation of what is now known as the
Third World.
Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many overseas colonies or that profits from the British
slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment. It has been pointed out, however, that slave trade and the
West Indian plantations provided less than 5% of the British national income during the years of the Industrial Revolution.
Early industrialisation in other countries
After the
Convention of Kanagawa, which was issued by Commodore
Matthew C. Perry, had forced Japan to open the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade, the Japanese government realised that drastic reforms were necessary in order to stave off Western influence. The
Tokugawa shogunate abolished the
feudal system. The government instituted military reforms to modernize the Japanese army and also constructed the base for industrialisation. The government vigorously promoted technological and industrial development which eventually brought Japan to become a
powerful modern country.
In a similar way, Russia suffered during the
Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The
Soviet Union's
centrally controlled economy decided to invest a big part of its resources to enhance its industrial production and
infrastructures in order to assure its own survival, thus becoming a world
superpower.
The other
European communist countries followed the same developing scheme, albeit with a less emphasis on
heavy industry.
Southern European countries saw a moderate industrialisation during the 1850s-1870s, caused by a healthy integration of the
European economy, though their level of development, as well as those of eastern countries, doesn't match the western standards.
Industrialisation in Asia
Except for
Japan where a moderate industrialisation took place in the 1870s, a different pattern of industrialisation followed in
East Asia. One of the fastest rates of industrialisation occurred in the late 20th century across four countries known as the
Asian tigers thanks to the existence of stable governments and well structured societies, strategic locations, heavy foreign
investments, a low cost skilled and motivated
workforce, a competitive
exchange rate, and low custom duties. In the case of
South Korea, the largest of the four Asian tigers, a very fast paced industrialization took place as it quickly moved away from the manufacturing of value added goods in the 1950s and 60s into the more advanced steel, shipbuilding and automobile industry in the 1970s and 80s, focusing on the high-tech and service industry in the 1990s and 2000s. As a result, South Korea became a major global
economic power today and is one of the wealthiest countries in Asia.
This starting model was afterwards successfully copied in other larger Eastern and Southern Asian countries, including
communist ones. The success of this phenomenon led to a huge wave of
offshoring – for example, Western factories or
tertiary corporations choosing to move their activities to countries where the workforce was less expensive and less collectively organised.
China and
India, while roughly following this development pattern, made adaptations in line with their own histories and cultures, their major size and importance in the world, and the
geopolitical ambitions of their governments (etc.).
Currently, China's government is actively investing in expanding its own infrastructures and securing the required energy and raw materials supply channels, is supporting its exports by financing the
United States balance payment deficit through the purchase of US
treasury bonds, and is strengthening its military in order to endorse a major geopolitical role.
Meanwhile, India's government is investing in specific vanguard economic sectors such as
bioengineering,
nuclear technology,
pharmaceutics,
informatics, and technologically-oriented
higher education, openly overpassing its needs, with the goal of creating several specialisation poles able to conquer foreign markets.
Both Chinese and Indian corporations have also started to make huge investments in Third World countries, making them significant players in today's world economy.
The Third World
A similar state-led developing programme was pursued in virtually all the Third World countries during the
Cold War, including the
socialist ones, but especially in
Sub-Saharan Africa after the
decolonisation period. The primary scope of those projects was to achieve
self-sufficiency through the local production of previously
imported goods, the mechanisation of agriculture and the spread of
education and
health care. However, all those experiences failed bitterly due to lack of realism: most countries didn't have a pre-industrial bourgeoisie able to carry on a
capitalistic development or even a stable and peaceful
state. Those aborted experiences left
huge debts toward western countries and fueled
public corruption.
Petrol producing countries
Oil-rich countries saw similar failures in their economic choices. Because oil is both important and expensive, regions that had big reserves of oil had huge
liquidity incomes. However, this was rarely followed by economic development. Experience shows that local
elites were unable to re-invest the
petrodollars obtained through oil export, and currency is wasted in
luxury goods. This is particularly evident in the
Persian Gulf states, where the
per capita income is comparable to those of western nations, but where no industrialisation has started. Apart from two little countries (
Bahrain and the
United Arab Emirates),
Arab states have not
diversified their economies, and no replacement for the
upcoming end of oil reserves is envisaged.
Newly industrialised countries
In recent years, countries like
Mexico,
Brazil, and
Turkey have experienced moderate industrial growth, fuelled by exportations going to countries that have bigger economies: the United States, China, and the
European Union, respectively. They are sometimes called
newly-industrialised countries. Most
African and
Latin American nations seem to follow a similar scheme. Despite this
trend being artificially influenced by the
oil price increases since 2003, the phenomenon isn't entirely new nor totally speculative (for instance see:
Maquiladora). Most analysts conclude in the next few
decades the whole world will experience industrialisation, and
international inequality will be replaced with
social inequality.
Consequences
Urbanisation
The concentration of labour into factories has brought about the rise of
large towns to serve and house the working population.
Change to family structure
The family structure changes with industrialisation. The sociologist
Talcott Parsons noted that in pre-industrial societies there's an
extended family structure spanning many generations who have probably remained in the same location for generations. In industrialised societies the
nuclear family, consisting of only of parents and their growing children, predominates. Families and children reaching adulthood are more mobile and tend to relocate to where jobs exist. Extended family bonds become more tenuous.
Environment
The concentration of industry in cities, with its increased scale degrades the environment around industrial areas.
Industrialisation has spawned its own health problems. Modern
stressors include noise, air, water
pollution,
poor nutrition,
dangerous machinery,
impersonal work,
isolation,
poverty,
homelessness, and
substance abuse.
Health problems in
industrial nations are as much caused by economic, social,
political, and
cultural factors as by
pathogens. Industrialisation has become a major medical issue world wide.
Current situation
In 2005, the USA was the largest producer of industrial output followed by Japan and China, according to
International Monetary Fund.
Currently the "international development community" (
World Bank,
OECD, many
United Nations departments, and some other organisations) endorses development policies based on merely poverty reduction, and giving poor populations access to basic services like
water purification or
primary education. The community doesn't recognise traditional industrialisation policies as being adecuated to the Third World or beneficial in the longer term, with the perception that it could only create
inefficient local industries unable to compete in a
free-trade dominated world.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Industrialization'.
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