Differences btween pre-industrial & industrial socirties; How did the world change after the industrial revolution?

Pre-Industrial society & Industrial society.

In ‘Sociology of Work’, Grint (2005) mentioned the typical work of Pre-Industrial society where he mainly focused on Britain. He claimed that “we generally know very little about the working lives of the population in any epoch” when to a certain extent, compared with contemporary work (Grint, 2005). Thus, one could only accumulate information “and fragments of evidence rather than draw a series of definitive conclusions” (Grint, 2005).

During the pre-industrial period, work was very much related with agriculture, village or cottage industry where it usually involved manual work. In fact, Grint (2005), stated that “before the Industrial Revolution there were, of course, several forms of industry but most of them were intimately related to agricultural produce: milling, baking, distilling, textiles, wood-based produce etc”. However, “Britain was renowned as a leading producer of agricultural commodities [cattle, hides and corn], as well as hunting dogs, timber, slaves and precious metals” (Salway, 1981). Grint added that “England luxury textiles were still surpassed by those of Italy and Low Countries; in mining and metals it was outproduced by the Germans and Swedes, and in many other things by all of these countries as well as France and Spain” (Grint, 2005). One could notice that pre-industrial work usually did not involve any formal procedures; for instance, they did not work in a specific time or under specific policies.

The family size during the pre-industrial epoch was usually rather large. Women used to help their husbands at work; together with their children. Therefore, it was important for the families of pre-industrial societies to have a lot of children; so that they could help them in the labour. As a result, the whole family used to work. Grint (2005) argued that during the thirteenth century in England “difficulty of making a living as an independent farmer or weaver ensured the growth of the first proletariat of industrial (i.e. textile) workers by the end of the eighteenth century”. He also pointed out that “one of the most successful of the early trade unions developed in cotton where the very powerful, and male-dominated, skilled male spinners organized both themselves, and ultimately the caber cotton workers, to resist the might of the cotton masters” (Grint, 2005).

Moreover, Grint also emphasized that pre-industrial societies had somehow feared from technology; for instance “in 1813, seventeen Luddites were hanged for their part in the rebellion against the new shearing technology which the state now presumed to be inevitable and necessary” (R. Reid, 1986). In fact, “the attempt to replace the ‘moral economy’ with the ‘market economy’ was a transition littered with similar, if less brutal, conflicts” (Thompson, 1986). Hence, technology during this phase was rather limited.

However, the typical work found in the pre-industrial period had somehow changed by the industrial revolution. Thus, the usual work was largely replaced by that of factories, technology in some way had increased, trade unions also increased which eventually brought a decline in family size and a different way of life.

The pre-industrial societies were followed by a new modern societal structure known as the period of industrial societies. Such societies are characterised by the fact that the main aim of these type of societies is to be mass productive and make use of material resources that aid this type of production. From this period, the importance of machines and new technologies started to emerge and the human labour started to decrease and being replaced by machines.

In Britain after the industrial revolution, there was an increase of large factories that took over and threatened the smaller industries already functioning; ‘By then, for example, master clothiers, keen to rid themselves of legal regulations on their expanding businesses and smaller entrepreneurs and journeymen under direct threat from the new factories.’ (Grint, 2005).
During this period, trade unions started to form and as said in Grint 2005, the first started in the cotton industry and was dominated by men. The workers started to sound their voice and were not afraid to confront their superiors, as they were before the industrial revolution. ‘Thompson (1971) and A.Randall (1988), have argued, the work, life and protest of much of the eighteenth century is soaked with an over-arching concern, not with markets and issues of supply and demand, but with moral economy’ (Grint, 2005). During this period, as stated in the above quote, the workers commenced to stand up for there rights and started to unite between themselves.

From the pre-industrial societies to the industrial one, there was a huge change in the way businesses started to be set. Factories have been very important in employing people, but as time went by, the use of machines started to be more influent. These machines made it easier for the production but threatened the employers, as machines are more efficient. Women and other groups started to gain importance in the world of work and started to be valued as possible employers. The industrial revolution aided to produce the industrialised society present today and was of great value to the world of work.

How did work change the Society after the Industrial Revolution?


As the Industrial Revolution changed the nature of work, it also led to a social change. Society after the industrial revolution became more dependent on cash and perceived time as money. The patterns of work were based on time rather than on tasks.

Durkheim states that the rapid expansion of the industrial society produced a situation of anomie or a state of normlessness. In the post industrial society there was a breakdown of normative behaviour and there was an increase in the rates of suicide, marital breakdown and industrial conflict. People became more restless and dissatisfied as the norms and traditions governing their behaviour were being lost. The division of labour present in the industrial societies encourages individualism and self interest rather than social solidarity and it is based on individual differences rather than similarities. The social solidarity present in pre industrial societies started to erode as people didn’t have a sense of duty and responsibility towards each other; there only duty was to work for the capitalists to survive.

The technology which came long during the industrial revolution was the major cause of the alienation the workers experienced. In contrast to the pre industrial worker, the alienated worker has a sense of powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation and self estrangement (Robert Blauner 1964). Instead of realizing their abilities and potential, workers are considered as means to an end for capitalists who have all the power over the workers.

‘...the new powers of steam engines and mechanical production required factory production, facilitated the division of labour and thus demanded greater degrees of co-ordinative and controlling power on the part of the capitalist factory owner.’ (Grint 2005)

After the industrial revolution, society was also changed as the family ceased to be a unit of production. The early industrial family members were employed separately as wage earners and as the wages were low and unemployment was high, there was the emergence of working class poverty. The pre industrial extended family became a nuclear family since work required mobility and the conjugal bonds became weak. As women were becoming part of the work force, they also started to make part of trade unions and feminist movements.

Therefore the change in work which happened during the industrial revolution changed completely most aspects of society such as gender roles, education, family structure, physical and mental health and romance. As the working hours became very long and tiring, leisure time became very limited and human freedom threatened.