The beginning of the creation of industrial civilization, contrasted to traditional civilizations, started a new era. Many historians and philosophers associated the use of such characteristics as civilization and civilized society with the bourgeois epoch. A new civilization started formation on fundamentally different principles and foundations. In the contemporary literature, a long and complex process of transition from an old traditional civilization to a new industrial one is usually denoted by a term modernization. In the economic sphere, industrialization became the main vector of the development of modernizing countries. Basically, it was a process of creation of a large-scale machine production. On this basis, there was transition from the agrarian society to the industrial one. The purpose of the current paper is to study the process of industrialization in such countries as England, France, and Germany, as well as its advantages including decrease in production costs and disadvantages of the environmental problems.
Industrialization in various countries proceeded differently regarding timing, speed, price of industrialization, and its social consequences. Despite this, industrialization affected all European states. Ossewaarde wrote that industrialization brought radical changes to the ancient European agrarian (first-sector) economy with its peasants and aristocratic landlords into a modern Europe of factories owned by entrepreneurs and kept running by workers and machines . By the middle of the 18th century, England became a leading capitalist country . In terms of economic development, it exceeded all other European states. At that time, technical and socio-economic conditions improved in England. These conditions were necessary for the transition from manual labor to mechanical. The industrial revolution began in the United Kingdom earlier than in other countries . Different factors contributed to its expansion in the United Kingdom. There was a significant initial capital accumulation and concentration of big capital in a small group of people . In addition, there was a final liquidation of the peasantry and a transition of agriculture to the capitalist path of its development . The bourgeois revolution created the conditions for the rapid industrialization of the economy, and formed bourgeois social and political system, as well as the political union of the land and the financial aristocracy. In addition, bourgeois ownership of the land appeared. There was also a powerful impetus to the agrarian revolution and the rapid growth of the productive forces. The industrial revolution in England began with the textile industry. The stimulus for the technological revolution was the invention in of a mechanical distaff that allowed the employee to work simultaneously on 80 spindles . The invention of the steam engine also became revolutionary and got application in transport and production. The invention of a universal steam engine led to the territorial spread of machine production. Practical application of the steam engine formed the ground for the development of basic industries. Completely new forms of transport, such as rail and steamship, developed . The invention of the steam engine changed the energy base of production in connection with the possibility of its use in virtually any environment in contrast to the engine water. The widespread use of machine technology automatically led to an increase in demand for metal and development of the steel industry. The logical conclusion of the industrial revolution in England was the formation of a fundamentally new industry mechanical engineering . England that was the first to make the industrial revolution became the most powerful state in the middle of the 19th century with a developed private industry and agriculture.
France had certain advantages in comparison with England and claimed to be a leader in Europe. It had a large area and a successfully developed industry and trade. However, from the second half of the 18th century, economic development of France began to lag behind . The main factors restraining the economic growth were preservation of remnants of the feudal economy and the conservative policy of the government. France remained a predominantly agrarian country. At the end of the 17th century, French industry reached a stage of the manufacturing production . Nevertheless, its scope was limited. Feudal landholding, regulation of the industry, and the lack of unified customs regulations hindered the development of the scale of manufacturing. France launched industrial revolution later than England. The main features of the industrial revolution included uneven transition from manufactory to factory, a significant impact of the agricultural sector on the progress of industrial production, and slower growth of the basic industries. The revolution of 1789-1794 played an important role in the industrial development of the country. It held a number of important social and economic reforms . There was the abolition of the feudal system and tax privileges of the nobility and clergy. There were also steps to ensure freedom of enterprise. However, the complete elimination of feudal relations actually did not happen. Only in the 20-40s of the 19th century, the intensity of the industrial revolution increased . The technological progress actively penetrated into the steel industry. On the basis of the application of technical achievements of the British industry, there was a modernization of old enterprises. Gradually, the countrys credit system began to form. In 1800, the Bank of France and the smaller central banks occurred . The growth of the industry and the increase in demand for borrowed cash led to the emergence of private banking houses. A special feature of the French economic development in this period was higher rates of growth of monetary capital compared to the industry.
In the 18th century, Germany was one of the most backward countries in Europe in the economic and political sense. 80% of the population was employed in agriculture, which had feudal relations . There were mainly small and medium-sized cities with poor infrastructure. The massive use of cars and the development of the industrial industry in Germany happened only in the second half of the 19th century . Internal conditions of the industrial revolution influenced the predominance of the agricultural sector, the dominance of feudal relations, long-term preservation of the guild system, and political fragmentation of the country. Domestic custom duties and borders hindered the promotion of trade and industry. Feudal fragmentation prevented the establishment of economic relations between the regions of the country and the formation of a single market. The customs union played an extremely significant role in the evolution of industrialization . The union eliminated internal taxes, excise duties, and customs outpost. The customs union was the first step to the unification of the country. The industrial revolution in Germany on the basis of mechanization began in the production of cotton, silk, wool, and linen fabrics. Significant qualitative changes in the economic development of Germany occurred in 1850-1860 . The structure of the economy and industrial growth changed. The development of capitalist relations in agriculture in Germany was called the Prussian path of development. It was a protracted and slow reform of feudal relations that insensibly adapted to new economic conditions in the state. All these changes in political and economic spheres made Germany an industrialized country.
Prior to the beginning of the past century, mechanization of production was implemented in all countries, which are now among the worlds economic leaders. Changing the mode of production entailed mass breaking of the established patterns of life radically changing the basic principles of human existence. As in any case of global reorganization, this phenomenon gave rise to certain advantages and problems. The main and most obvious advantage of mechanized production consisted in sharp increase in volume and decrease in production costs. Statistical data on the volume of production in leading industries of the countries, where there was an active industrial revolution, showed great increase in the release of goods for 20-30 years . Thus, there was saturation of the market with goods while reducing their prices. Due to mechanization, a large number of people could use industrial production. Industrialization facilitated communication between people living at a considerable distance from each other. Mechanization came in transport and communications. As a result of the railroad, the majority of people started using telegraph and telephone. However, there was a paradox. At the dawn of industrialization, there was the mass working-class movement of the Luddites who demanded destruction of machines and return to heavy manual labor . However, it did not last long. Strayer stated that after 1813, the organized Luddite movement faded away . Nowadays, environmental pollution is a great drawback of industrialization. At that time, nobody thinks to limit the extraction of raw materials and clean emissions. Today, people feel this negative effect of industrialization.
The essence of the industrial revolution consisted in the transition to mechanized labor. During this process, a significant part of production operations was transferred from a person to a machine. This process initially began in the United Kingdom but later moved to other European countries. With the help of industrialization, mechanization came in transport and communications. Mechanization of production facilitated the labor of the workers as machines took the most labor-intensive production processes. Despite this fact, there were still certain disadvantages of industrialization that people feel today.
