La Rivoluzione industriale — Transcript

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1. 0:03The Industrial Revolution toward the
2. 0:04end of the 18th century was a major
3. 0:06change in the world of work and society
4. 0:08, triggered by the appearance of the
5. 0:10first factories for the large-scale
6. 0:12production of goods. Products from
7. 0:16laborers and new machinery supplanted
8. 0:18old artisanal activities and home-based
9. 0:20production. The European population saw
10. 0:25a 60%demographic increase, growing from
11. 0:29120 to 188 million people. Four factors
12. 0:34accounted for this demographic growth:
13. 0:37fewer wars, the mitigation of famines,
14. 0:40improved sanitary conditions, and
15. 0:43progress made in medicine. England was
16. 0:48the great protagonist of the Industrial
17. 0:50Revolution because it was a major
18. 0:52commercial and colonial power; it was
19. 0:55one of the wealthiest countries in the
20. 0:57world, and thanks to its strategic
21. 1:00position in the Atlantic, it controlled
22. 1:02maritime trade toward Europe, the
23. 1:04Indies, and the New World. Numerous
24. 1:09English colonies provided low-cost raw
25. 1:11materials such as timber, cotton, and
26. 1:14metals, which were processed by large
27. 1:16English factories and transformed into
28. 1:19finished goods that were subsequently
29. 1:21resold in major European and American
30. 1:24markets. The population increase led to
31. 1:29a greater demand for agricultural
32. 1:32products, which strongly pushed
33. 1:34landowners to carry out a real
34. 1:36agricultural revolution in order to
35. 1:39increase production. The Enclosure Acts
36. 1:44allowed landowners to delimit and
37. 1:47surround open fields with walls or
38. 1:51hedges—that is, the free and common
39. 1:54lands traditionally used for grazing or
40. 1:58by peasants to gather wood or fruit—
41. 2:02which thus became private property.
42. 2:07Landowners entrusted the management of
43. 2:09the fields to expert farmers and
44. 2:11invested capital to improve cultivation
45. 2:14techniques. Many peasants, lacking the
46. 2:18capital to buy these fields, were
47. 2:20forced to sell their properties because
48. 2:23they could not be competitive,
49. 2:25eventually becoming laborers or seeking
50. 2:28work in cities. Agricultural
51. 2:32improvements and innovations included
52. 2:34the cultivation of new crops such as
53. 2:36peas, beans, fodder—that is, animal
54. 2:38feed—clover, turnips, and corn. The
55. 2:42increase in fodder boosted livestock
56. 2:44farming. Three-field crop rotation, an
57. 2:48activity that involved leaving a field
58. 2:51fallow one year out of three, was
59. 2:54replaced with continuous rotation,
60. 2:57which increased the profitability of
61. 3:00the land. The increase in iron tools
62. 3:04and work implements improved the
63. 3:07efficiency of labor in fields and on
64. 3:09farms. The abundance of wool from
65. 3:13livestock and the large quantities of
66. 3:16cotton imported from the colonies meant
67. 3:18that the textile industry was the first
68. 3:21sector to be affected by the most
69. 3:23innovative inventions. The greatest of
70. 3:27these inventions was undoubtedly the
71. 3:29steam engine patented by James Watt in
72. 3:311769. which, after some refinements,
73. 3:35was used to operate the looms. That was
74. 3:38how, for the first time, a machine was
75. 3:41able to power other machines. The
76. 3:43application of this invention led
77. 3:46Robert Fulton to build the first
78. 3:48steamship in 1803, and George
79. 3:51Stephenson to invent the first steam
80. 3:54locomotive in 1814. In 1776, Adam Smith
81. 4:00described the changes in labor and the
82. 4:02economy brought about by the Industrial
83. 4:04Revolution, which first affected Great
84. 4:07Britain, then the United States and
85. 4:09Europe. The transformation of
86. 4:12production methods in factories changed
87. 4:14the organization of labor. In fact, the
88. 4:17tasks performed by the worker were
89. 4:19determined by the machines and the pace
90. 4:21they imposed. Work was divided into
91. 4:24multiple intermediate stages, and each
92. 4:26machine performed only a specific,
93. 4:28specialized operation. Therefore,
94. 4:31workers were forced to adapt to this
95. 4:33division, becoming specialists in a
96. 4:35single phase of the entire production
97. 4:37process. Working conditions were
98. 4:41extremely harsh, as the machines never
99. 4:44stopped; consequently, shifts lasted 14
100. 4:47–16 hours a day, with no safety
101. 4:50guarantees or legal protections against
102. 4:53exploitation. Workers who protested or
103. 4:56fell ill were immediately fired and
104. 4:58replaced by the mass of unemployed
105. 5:00people ready to take their place.
106. 5:05Furthermore, women and children also
107. 5:07worked in the factories under the same
108. 5:09conditions as men, but were paid much
109. 5:11lower wages. The inequality between the
110. 5:16wealthy bourgeois class and the poor
111. 5:18working class sparked a social conflict
112. 5:22called Luddism, named after Ned Ludd—
113. 5:25the first worker to protest by
114. 5:27destroying a loom in his factory
115. 5:30because machines were blamed for taking
116. 5:33jobs, creating unemployment, and
117. 5:35lowering wages. Subsequently, protests
118. 5:39were directed against factory owners,
119. 5:42triggering the so-called "social
120. 5:44question" that would mark European
121. 5:46history throughout the 19th and 20th
122. 5:48centuries. M.