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British Industrialization Essay

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British industrialization was concentrated in those areas which had experienced prior proto-industrialisation. Therefore proto-industry was necessary for factory industry---discuss.

British industrialization was concentrated in those areas which had experienced prior proto-industrialisation. Therefore proto-industry was necessary for factory industry---discuss.

One model, proposed by Mendels, was that proto-industry was responsible for the rapid expansion in population, in what he called demo-economic systems. This was mainly on the basis that rural peasants required a labour force to produce output, and by increasing fertility, they were able to breed one. Despite this, Medick suggested that the reason for increased …show more content…

Proto-industrialisation was taken as rural peasants turning to industrial production, such as textiles, straw-plaiting; glass making and creating domestic and international markets where this produce was sold. This is clearly an early capitalist development, with the emergence of industrial production and the commercialisation of trade.

Medick theorized an outline of the stages for proto-industrialization to develop into industrialisation, with the first stage, Kaufsystem, referring to the rural-peasantsÂ’ maintenance of control over the production and selling of their output. Entrepreneurs recognised the attractiveness of rural workers, and rural production, as it was uninhibited by; urban guilds and company restrictions which was the way many towns were, whilst many workerÂ’s wages could be lower as some still partly had a subsistence base in agriculture. This led to
Verlagsystem, a heightened merchant capital investment, which lead to the peasantsÂ’ loss of control and autonomy over production. Merchant capitalists would supply factor inputs, and workers would process them in return for wage, with the merchant capitalists extracting the profits. A third and final stage was the movement of production to centralized and mechanized factories. Medick therefore saw a logical progression, whereby proto-industrialisation would lead to industrialisation, with rural peasants developing a trade

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