Industrialization
IL Ruffino
08-02-2006, 18:00
Quick question, if industrialization never happened, would there be more working people and less poverty?
Europa alpha
08-02-2006, 18:02
...(Slap) if industrialization never happened we'd still be using swords and America would still be Native.
...
EVERYONE would be poor except the Lords and the Kings
Mariehamn
08-02-2006, 18:04
Quick question, if industrialization never happened, would there be more working people and less poverty?
If by working you mean scratching a living out of the dirt, then yes.
If by less poverty you mean the divide between the rich and the poor would be compartively small to the present day, then yes.
Strathdonia
08-02-2006, 18:04
generally speaking more people would have jobs, but more people would be considered "poor".
Outside of an extremely small merchatile middle class the vast majority of all money would be concentrated in the hands of the "Upper Classes" with most people being subsistance farmers.
Gift-of-god
08-02-2006, 18:28
Um, industrialisation does not equal the end of feudalism.
If industrialisation had not occurred, the world would be so different as to make questions about poverty meaningless.
Free Mercantile States
08-02-2006, 18:58
Quick question, if industrialization never happened, would there be more working people and less poverty?
Yeah, sure - you'd still have lots and lots of poor miserable peasants scratching their lives out of mud and dying at 30. If you mean "less poverty" in a relative way, sure - everyone would be poor and pathetic. If you mean it in an objective way - hell no. The Industrial Revolution was what allowed people to be something besides serfs, proles, and nobility who didn't have the standard of living a middle-class American family does.
Anti-Social Darwinism
09-02-2006, 06:17
Quick question, if industrialization never happened, would there be more working people and less poverty?
There would be fewer people, shorter lifespans, a greater gap between rich and poor, a miniscule middle-class and a huge lower class. And everyone, including the rich, would have to work far harder than we could ever imagine.
Lacadaemon
09-02-2006, 06:22
Quick question, if industrialization never happened
I assume you mean no industrial revolution.
would there be more working people
There would be far, far fewer people. Probably less than a billion. So no, less working people.
and less poverty?
There would be less poverty, because there would be less people. QED.
Pre-industrial doesn't necessarily mean feudal. There's no reason that society can't develop and become egalitarian even if technology does not.