Concluding Remarks: Beyond Capitalism?

Abstract

The basic focus of this book has been upon industrialisation and the emergence of industrial society. It will be apparent by now that industrialisation is an ongoing process, indeed that the ‘industrial revolution’ continues to unfold as we move into the twenty-first century. The technological and social upheavals of the eighteenth century eventually produced a society that was radically different from anything that had previously existed in human history. Without repeating the core differences outlined at the end of Chapter 3, it is worth highlighting two of the most fundamental at this point. First, industrial society is the first in human history in which an overwhelming majority of the population came to be concentrated in towns and cities. This concentration in urban areas as well as in large units of production created major problems of integration for the new society. How was this huge and potentially volatile mass of people to be contained? The problem was exacerbated during the early stages of industrialisation by the highly unfavourable conditions in which large numbers of people were constrained to live. However, the gradual improvement of living standards as the twentieth century unrolled progressively eased the problem of integration as successive waves of the working class were incorporated into the new society. Eventually the attainment of the stage of high mass consumption in Europe after the Second World War, together with the consolidation of welfare capitalism, seemed to many to have finally solved the problem of material scarcity as well as the social instability it invariably produced.