Did the industrial revolution increase or decrease poverty?

Question

Has absolute poverty increased or decreased since the industrial revolution, in terms of a percentage of population and in terms of the total number of people in absolute poverty?

Has relative poverty increased or decreased since the industrial revolution?

What can we do about the prevalence of poverty worldwide?

Answer 1

The industrial revolution increased standard of living and expanded the middle class. Because production of goods was streamlined. It allowed a 'middle class' other than merchants to appear. We then got a surplus of goods as well, alowing prices of many things to decrease. The industrial revolutions influcence on poverty as a problem was realitivly uneffective, because poverity is more of a social issue having to do with how people spend and save money. Especialy in modern westernized countries.

Poverty in non industrialized countries will have to be delt with on a case by case basis, because making a blanket statement is unfair to any one type of people. Alot of it is caused by poplulation problems, and resource distribution problems.

Answer 2

Just before the Industrial Revolution, 9 in 10 people were below the poverty line, or, living off the land, with no income but market trading. Most Peasants moved towards,or into towns, swelling them to over-population. This in effect kept the poverty level the same because people were still without jobs thanks to over crowding. Diseases, ill health and being uneducated, forced the Government to act, as the Towns became cess-pits of human misery never seen on such a massive scale. Laws were passed to help alleviate the problem, although unscrupulous Mill owners kept wages to a minimum and exploited the work force.
Towns grew into cities, which enabled the Rich to take further advantage of the vulnerable under classes.
But that isn't quite answering the question. The top 5% of the country earn more than the rest put together. If this percentage grew to 20%, then more people could distribute the wealth around more equally. However, if that wealth was spread out, it would do more harm than good for the economy.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

In the US, the total number of people in absolute poverty is close to none (by UN standards of absolute poverty).

It makes no sense to talk in terms of total number of people when comparing over time, as there are a lot more people in the world now that before the industrial revolution: more rich, more poor, more comfy.

The industrial revolution did massively increase the relative proportion of the those in the middle class, reducing poverty.

That trend is now being reversed, however, and the middle class beginning to go bye-bye (thank you Reaganomics).

In the whole world, comparing before the industrial revolution to now, I'd bet the proportion of poor is lower and the proportion of middle class is much, much higher.

I bet the UN would have some accurate stats on all this, though.

BTW, there's a plan floating around not being acted on that would cut "absolute poverty" -- which is to say people who habitually wake up not knowing whether they're going to eat today -- in HALF in a mere 10 years.

What you do is, you connect villages via roads, and provide each village with a truck, and high yield seed, and fertilizer.

People can then grow surplus food, some of which they donate to schools, so all kids can get an education (and not have to spend the day acquiring food), and they use the truck to take the rest of the surplus food to market.

The truck is also used to bring things like medical supplies to the village.

By working first with those governments who aren't corrupt (yes, there are, so, governments, for example, in Africa, where the governments WOULD help their people if they had the resources), you'd lift those people up.

Then their neighbors in corrupt countries would put pressure to have the same help.

Cut absolute poverty in half in 10 years.

I say, let's do it.

Answer 5

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RE:
Did the industrial revolution increase or decrease poverty?
Has absolute poverty increased or decreased since the industrial revolution, in terms of a percentage of population and in terms of the total number of people in absolute poverty?

Has relative poverty increased or decreased since the industrial revolution?

What can we do about the prevalence...

Answer 6

What a bunch of knuckleheaded answers (except the two before me). Of course the industrial revolution decreased poverty. It just goes to show how pathetic we have become. Our recent ancestors had to struggle to eat, we struggle to get the latest cell phone. Of course the devide between rich and poor has grown, but the poor have become weathier than the rich used to be. The rich have become super wealthy. The only reason the poor should complain is that they are jeaolous of the rich even though their own wealth has dramatically increased as well. Just a point. If everybody's wealth increases 10 per cent, the gap between the rich and poor increases. Say you have 100 and your rich neighbor has 1000. There is a 900 dollar difference. You increase both by 10 per cent, the difference between $110 and $1100 is $990 so it is meaningless to say the gap widens. The truth is that everyones wealth has increased big time.

Answer 7

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Not nearly enough. I googled "end world poverty" and didn't find much. I think one problem might be that no one with any real wealth or power has any desire to end world poverty or even decrease it. Since Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, neoliberal, trickle down, free market, invisible hand, Reaganomics, b.s. took a firm hold of the national and global economies in 1980 we've all been on the fast track to a two class world made up of the very poor and the very rich. One stat you didn't mention is that the richest 10% of the worlds' population own 85% of the worlds' wealth and resources while the bottom 50% own 1%. The wealth continues to flow up the economic ladder, but not down. Mustn't make the poor and starving weak and dependent by helping them, you know. The richest of the rich have to toughen us all up by killing us and ripping us off. You'd think the rich would be smart enough to know that our national and global economies, environments and societies have all been unsustainable since the industrial revolution and are now all collapsing. And that all their wealth and power will soon mean nothing. The only thing I can figure is that living under a code of pure greed that allows no compassion or empathy for the rest of our species has made them mad (as in nuts, wacky, crazy, koo koo)

Answer 8

The simple fact is that initially it decreased. By "initially" I mean the first 100 years. Nowadays the situation has become so complex you cannot say that holds true anymore since there are so many factors that can push poverty one way or the other. One classical example that comes to my mind is Brazil. The country itself is quite wealthy with lots of natural resources and a well developed industry. The problem lies in the fact that wealth there is highly concentrated in very few hands. And it' got nothing to do with the industry since services now dominate. And the fact that wealth is highly concentrated is perhaps the single factor which determines that many brazilian citizens live below the poverty line.

Answer 9

Poverty hasnt decreased, childrens morality ratings have increased from 1950-1990's. Also where you are born also defines your life chances, there is more poverty in the North and urban areas in recent years. Many families still live on the breadline even with the Welfare System. Of course the welfare system has got better since the beveridge report was done there is still a 'class' divide even though they dont call it that anymore.

Answer 10

This depends on your measures of poverty absolute and relative.

In that the industrial revolution increased the wealth of nations it propably decresed the level of absolute poverty and contributed to improvement of life by several indicators (length of lifespan, cash wealth etc)
HOWEVER
The IR did lead to severe societal disruption with high rural to urban migration, transnational migrations and technological and sociological change. Famine which is probably the key measure of absolute poverty reduced over time and was extinguished from the industrial world as agriculture moved from subsistance to producing vast surpluses relative to the farming comunity.
Relative poverty may have increased as a comsumer society developed which attached strong value to manufactured good s that were constantly being outmoded by new designs and fashions.