ABSTRACT
We know what we mean when we talk about moving from an agricultural society to an industrial society. In this country we have been through that historical process and can analyse it. We can go back to the Enclosures Acts, which expropriated the free grazing lands and drove the landless subsistence farmers into the towns to become the wage-slaves of the Industrial Revolution. We can quantify it in relative terms today by recognising that less than 5 per cent of Britain’s work-force is now employed on the land. Farming itself became industrialised. The industrial processes replaced the traditional crafts. But the machines did not reduce arduous labour; they increased it. The machinery cost money and had to be kept moving to justify the outlay and maximise the profits. That meant long working hours and shift work. Labour — indeed life — was cheap and leisure in short supply. But industrialisation multiplied material goods for domestic consumption and for export. The be-all and the end-all of industrialisation was production. The quality of life was ignored. ‘Where there’s muck there’s brass’ was a boast, not a reproach.
