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III. New Social Classes: The Industrial Middle Class
- a. Rise of industrial capitalism produced new middle-class group
- i. Bourgeoisie or middle class= not new; existed since Middle Ages
- 1. Originally the bourgeois was burgher or town dweller, active as a merchant, official, etc. who enjoyed a special set of rights from the charter of the own
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New meaning of bourgeois
- 1. As wealthy townspeople bought land, the original meaning of the word bourgeois became lost and included people involved in commerce, industry, and banking, as well as professionals, like lawyers
- 2. Lower end of economic scale were master craftspeople/ shopkeepers
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New Industrial Entrepreneurs
- i. People who constructed factories, bought machines, and figured out where the markets were
- ii. Resourceful, single-minded, resolution, initiative, vision, ambition, greed
- iii. Called on to superintend enormous array of functions that are handled today by managers
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Entrepreneurs did what
1. They raised capital, determined markets, set company objectives, organized the factory and its labor, and trained supervisors who could act for them
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Risky opportunities
- i. Opportunities for making money were great, but risks tremendous
- 1. Cotton trade so important, but competitive
- a. Only through constant expansion could one feel secure, so early entrepreneurs reinvested most of initial profits
- i. Fear of bankruptcy was constant, especially among small firms
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Small industries
- a. Furthermore, most early industrial enterprises were small
- i. By 1840s: 10A% of British industrial firms employed more than five thousand workers
- ii. 45% had fewer than one hundred
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Bankruptcy
- i. entrepreneurs went bankrupt, new people could enter race for profits
- 1. 1816: only one mill in five in Manchester in hands of one owner
- ii. New industrial entrepreneurs from diverse social origins
- 1. Many successful ones from mercantile background
- a. Three London merchants founded successful ironworks in Wales that owned 8 steam engines and employed 5000 men
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Joshua Fielden and William Radcliffe
- a. Britain: land and domestic industry interdependent
- i. Joshua Fielden acquired sufficient capital to establish factory by running a family sheep farm while working looms in the farmhouse
- 2. Intelligent, clever, and ambitious apprentices (William Radcliffe)
- a. 1801: Radcliffe operating a factory employing 1000 workers
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Members of dissenting religious minories
- 1. Members of dissenting religious minorities often prominent among early industrial leaders of Britain
- a. Darbys and Lloyds, iron manufactures; Quakers
- b. Barclays and Lloyds, bankers; Quakers
- c. Trumans and Perkins, brewers; Quakers
- d. These were all expensive trades and depended on financial support that coreligionists in religious minorities provided for historians
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Why were people members of religious minorities
- a. Members of religious minorities prominent in business because they lacked other chances
- i. Legally excluded from many public offices, they directed their ambitions into new industrial capitalism
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Aristocrats in Britain
- 1. Aristocrats in Britain= entrepreneurs
- Lambtons in Northumberland, the Curwnes in Cumberlamd, and Norfolks in Yorkshire, and the Dudleys in Staffordshire invested in mining enterprises
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Significance of the Industrial Entrepreneurs
- i. 1850: Brian at least: The kind of traditional entrepreneurship that created the Industrial Revolution declined and replaced by new business aristocracy
- 1. New generation of entrepreneurs stemmed from professional and industrial middle classes, especially as sons inherited successful businesses from dads
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After 1850
- i. Even after 1850, a large number of small businesses existed in Britain, and some were still being founded by people from humble backgrounds
- 1. Age of large-scale corporate capitalism didn’t begin until 1890s
- ii. New industrial entrepreneurs (bankers, owners, etc) amassed wealth and played important role alongside traditional landed elite of their societies
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IR began?
- 1. Industrial revolution began when preindustrial agrarian world largely dominated by landed elites
- a. As new bourgeois bought great estates and acquired social respectability, they sought political power, and in 19th century, their wealthiest members would merge with those old elites
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