Greed And Power: The Industrial Revolution

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Pages: 6

On many occasions, history has proven that human beings are never fully satisfied for what they already have. It is human nature to always want to strive for more. I think that it is a matter of being superior and knowing that you are in charge; a concept that boosts the egos of human beings. In this case, this is how greed and power comes into place. Throughout history it has been evident that many nations, as well as select individuals, have been eager to and seek to expand their empire in order to be more powerful. That type of act is considered to be greed because although the respective country may already have plenty of land, there is a growing greed to be selfish and acquire more. This paper will focus on the numerous accounts dealing …show more content…
This revolution started off in Great Britain during the 18th and 19th century. One of the great benefits of the industrialization that took place was that it drastically changed the economy and allowed them to become more advanced in technology. Before Britain’s Industrial Revolution, life in that society was based on farming where people worked manually in small villages and towns and depended on the community to help provide for them. However, all of that changed when the textile industry emerged, which is also the start of the Industrial Revolution. As the population grew in England, more people were more willing to buy more textile items. Because of this, the textile production was transformed into a factory system where, “machines coordinated to make goods, output increased 50 fold, industry grew 4 times faster, and energy from non- animal sources [was used] ” (Harris Wk 7 #2). The raw material cotton was the most global popular good in demand. Due to the cold climates in England, they were not able to grow cotton plants but instead traded with cotton producers such as the Southern States in America and in India. Slave labor processed cotton and sold it to England. The cotton industry soared through the roof, allowing England to gain power of over this material. British used cotton to their full advantage as a cash crop, which helped their nation financially. They wanted more cotton because of the outcome, which allowed them to be even greedier. They started inventing various products such as the spinning jenny, spinning mule, and water frame to help increase the speed of spinning and weaving cotton goods so that they can sell it with in the foreign trade markets. In addition, other materials such as energy resources coal and steel were already abundant in Britain, which helped gain them more power as well. With these resources, Britain was able to invent