Why Did the Industrial Revolution Begin in England in the Middle of the 18th Century?

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and geographical basis to Max Weber’s linkage of Protestant ethic to capitalist predisposition. It also provides genetic explanations for the previously mentioned precursors for industrial productivity like better physical-cognitive abilities of workers and ‘good’ responses to capitalist incentives such as work intensification .

From the demand side, the British labor force was drawn from a population with a comparatively high disposable income and consumption levels well above agricultural subsistence exhibited by most Asian or Southern European countries. The increased consumer aspiration behind individuated choice also meant a growing appetite for durable goods resulted in increased engagement in the workforce and a shift of the narrative from production to consumption. Close economic stratification of British society also meant a certain collective agency in determining the markets for goods and products, as primary decision-making focus shifted from the firm to an economically empowered individual or household. In addition to less pervasive income inequality and better access to fashion-sensitive or higher quality goods, the English also displayed a conspicuous abundance of women and children on the factory floor, demonstrating a broadened and empowered consumer base and the pioneering character of the new market-responsive British workforce.

To the last part of our question, it might be difficult to ascribe the Industrial Revolution’s 18th century timing solely to the long-evolving exceptionalism of British labor, especially when the Revolution is misleadingly portrayed with a precipitous technological and imperialist impetus. A more ‘gradualist’ counterpoint posits that the Revolution was nothing more than a slow growth of industrial output against the backdrop of steady structural labor realignment from agrarian to non-agrarian occupations . In the absence of the big macroeconomic indicators of a tumultuous economic revolution, this hypothesis supports our attentiveness to structural changes in the English labor force when exposed to market forces.