Eighteenth-Century Society

Diversity

Four major groups: nobility, clergy,middling sort, peasants

Nobility:

2-3% of population

Power derived from land

Living off peasants

Advisors and military commanders

Rich or poor, but with rights and privileges

Clergy:

Reduced influence

Tensions between higher and lower clergy

Questions of election, piety

Middling Sort/Bourgeoisie:

Merchants/manufacturers

Largely urban, expanding class

Tensions with nobility resenting bourgeois

Peasants:

75-90% of population

Financial and other burdens

Free and serfs

Tensions with upper classes

Start of Industrial Revolution:

From 17th c. Improving agriculturalproductivity in England: fertilisers, croprotation, enclosure

Some improvements in Europe

Start of Industrial Revolution:

More food, leading to…

Population growth, leading to…

More demand for food, leading to…

Better farming, leading to…

Start of Industrial Revolution:

Growth of workforce leading to growth ofcottage industries (domestic system/putting-out system)

Circumventing guilds in England, expandingworkforce

Start of Industrial Revolution:

New technologies, with limited impact

James Watt (1736-1819): steam engine (1769)

James Hargreaves (c. 1720-79): spinningjenny (c. 1764)

Birth of factory system

Britain as economic power:

Booming trade, with support of Bank ofEngland

Investment in transportation

Careful involvement of government

Impediments on expansion of economiesof other European states

Adam Smith (1723-90)

Scottish philosopher and political economist

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causesof the Wealth of Nations (1776)