Industrialization - Negative/Positive
1. Environmental Disadvantages
By far, the biggest negative effect of industrialization is on the environment. Pollution is the most common by-product of industrialization. However, the degradation of ecological systems, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, and the adverse effect on human health have garnered widespread concern. Because many industrialized companies are often not forced to pay damages for the environmental harm they cause, they tend to impose a major negative externality on human society in the form of deforestation, extinction of species, widespread pollution, and excessive waste.
During the Industrial Revolution poor children often worked full-time jobs in order to help support their families. Children as young as four years old worked long hours in factories under dangerous conditions. Some businesses hired children because they were cheap, worked hard, and could do some jobs that adults couldn't do. In some cases, the businesses treated the children no better than slaves. They kept them locked up and forced them to work long hours. In other cases, the businesses felt they were helping the children out by feeding them and keeping them from starving. The practice of child labour continued throughout much of the Industrial Revolution until laws were eventually passed that made child labour illegal.
3. Financial Disadvantages
The separation of capital and labour creates a wide gap in incomes between poor and rich due to a division of labour and capital. Those who own capital tend to accumulate excessive profits derived from their economic activities, resulting in a high disparity of income and wealth.
4. Unsafe Working Conditions
Factory work was dirty and dangerous. Bosses strictly disciplined their employees and treated them harshly. The workers were underpaid and overworked. They didn't get enough money for the labour they were providing. One also had a short life expectancy if they worked in a factory. The hours in a workday were very long too because the factories were indoors and didn't have to use sunlight to decide business hours. The government also provided no regulations for the treatment of businesses employees.
Rapid urbanization brought on by industrialization typically leads to the general deterioration of workers' quality of life and many other problems for society, such as crime, stress, and psychological disorders. Long working hours usually lead to poor nutrition and consumption of quick and low-quality foods, resulting in increased incidences of diseases, such as diabetes, heart attack, and strokes.
1. Goods Became More Affordable and More Accessible
Factories and the machines that they housed began to produce items faster and cheaper than could be made by hand. As the supply of various items rose, their cost to the consumer declined. Shoes, clothing, household goods, tools, and other items that enhance people’s quality of life became more common and less expensive. Foreign markets also were created for these goods, and the balance of trade shifted in favour of the producer—which brought increased wealth to the companies that produced these goods and added tax revenue to government coffers. However, it also contributed to the wealth inequality between goods-producing and goods-consuming countries.
2. The Rapid Evolution of Labor-Saving Inventions
The rapid production of hand tools and other useful items led to the development of new types of tools and vehicles to carry goods and people from one place to another. The growth of road and rail transportation and the invention of the telegraph (and its associated infrastructure of telegraph—and later telephone and fibre optic—lines) meant that word of advances in manufacturing, agricultural harvesting, energy production, and medical techniques could be communicated between interested parties quickly. Labour-saving machines such as the spinning jenny (a multiple-spindle machine for spinning wool or cotton) and other inventions, especially those driven by electricity (such as home appliances and refrigeration) and fossil fuels (such as automobiles and other fuel-powered vehicles), are also well-known products of the Industrial Revolution.
3. The Rapid Evolution of Medicine
The Industrial Revolution was the engine behind various advances in medicine. Industrialization allowed medical instruments (such as scalpels, microscope lenses, test tubes, and other equipment) to be produced more quickly. Using machine manufacturing, refinements to these instruments could more efficiently roll out to the physicians that needed them. As communication between physicians in different areas improved, the details behind new cures and treatments for disease could be dispersed quickly, resulting in better care.
4. Enhanced Wealth and Quality of Life of the Average Person
Mass production lowered the costs of much-needed tools, clothes, and other household items for the common (that is, nonaristocratic) people, which allowed them to save money for other things and build personal wealth. In addition, as new manufacturing machines were invented and new factories were built, new employment opportunities arose. No longer was the average person so closely tied to land-related concerns (such as being dependent upon the wages farm labour could provide or the plant and animal products farms could produce). Industrialization reduced the emphasis on land ownership as the chief source of personal wealth. The rising demand for manufactured goods meant that average people could make their fortunes in cities as factory employees and as employees of businesses that supported the factories, which paid better wages than farm-related positions. Generally speaking, people could save some portion of their wages, and many had the opportunity to invest in profitable businesses, thereby growing their family “nest eggs.” The subsequent growth of the middle class in the United Kingdom and other industrializing societies meant that it was making inroads into the pool of economic power held by the aristocracy. Their greater buying power and importance in society led to changes in laws that were updated to better handle the demands of an industrialized society.
5. The Rise of Specialist Professions
As industrialization progressed, more and more rural folk flocked to the cities in search of better pay in the factories. To increase the factories’ overall efficiency and to take advantage of new opportunities in the market, factory workers were trained to perform specialized tasks. Factory owners divided their workers into different groups, each group focusing on a specific task. Some groups secured and transported to the factories raw materials (namely iron, coal, and steel) used in mass production of goods, while other groups operated different machines. Some groups of workers fixed machines when they broke down, while others were charged with making improvements to them and overall factory operation.
As the factories grew and workers became more specialized, additional teachers and trainers were needed to pass on specialized skills. In addition, the housing, transportation, and recreational needs of factory workers resulted in the rapid expansion of cities and towns. Governmental bureaucracies grew to support these, and new specialized departments were created to handle traffic, sanitation, taxation, and other services. Other businesses within the towns also became more specialized as more builders, physicians, lawyers, and other workers were added to handle the various needs of the new residents.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/072815/what-are-some-drawbacks-industrialization.asp
https://www.ducksters.com/history/us_1800s/child_labor_industrial_revolution.php
https://sites.google.com/site/5effectsofindustrialization/effects-in-the-1800s-1900s
https://www.britannica.com/story/the-rise-of-the-machines-pros-and-cons-of-the-industrial-revolution