Unit 6 SAQ 1 Chapter 17 Ways of the Word Page 779c - Withrow

The Industrial Revolution's] most serious consequences were social: the transition to the new economy created misery and discontent, the material of social revolution.... Simple minded labourers reacted to the new system by smashing the machines which they thought responsible for their troubles... The exploitation of labor which kept its incomes at subsistence level, thus enabling the rich to accumulate the profits which financed industrialization, antagonized the proletarian. However, another aspect of this diversion of national income from the poor to the rich, from consumption to investment, also antagonized the small entrepreneur. The great financiers, the tight community of home and foreign "fund-holders" who received what all paid in taxes — something like 8 percent of the entire national income — were perhaps even more unpopular among small businessmen than among labourers, for these knew enough about money and credit to feel a personal rage at their disadvantage.