History

Re: Was England during the Industrial Revolution a true laissez faire economy?

Wheylous — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 02:53:27 GMT

All I have read about Britain in the Industrial Revolution is about Child Labor:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/ideas-and-consequences/child-labor-and-the-british-industrial-revolution-2/

Re: Was England during the Industrial Revolution a true laissez faire economy?

Jargon — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 01:57:28 GMT

I'm having a hard time finding stuff on the Dickensian-English Political Economy, so *bump*. Maybe some of you know more about it.

Re: Was England during the Industrial Revolution a true laissez faire economy?

Simon Lote — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:14:55 GMT

The land that was enclosed was by custom land owned by tennant farmers. Although in theory tennants were the just owners of all the land having mixed their labour with it - not the aristocracy.

It meant that the independent yeoman class, who owned their own means of production were turned via the state into propertyless labourers who were forced to take work in the Dark Satanic Mills of 19th century England. The capital for these mills being obtained by primitive accumulation i.e. Land Theft, Slavery and Mercantilism.

Re: Was England during the Industrial Revolution a true laissez faire economy?

hkarnoldson — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:13:52 GMT

The Inclosure Acts where a huge intervention. The government basically expropriated 21% of all land in England ... at a time when agriculture was pretty important.

The inclosures forced urbanisation at a much faster rate then what was happening naturally. Leading to miserable standards of living in the cities, one can expect miserable living conditions since people where poor but with the Inclosure Acts not everyone that moved into the cities where actually better of then if they had been allowed to stay. This also explains the horrible standards on housing that are present in the UK to this date.

Alot of economic historians are saying they where the consequence of capitalism and the fact that other countries didn't build such horrible housing was because they had learned from the UK. I think a more reasonable explanation is that people would have waited a bit and not moved into such poor housing if they hadn't been forced to by the Inclosure Acts.

Re: Was England during the Industrial Revolution a true laissez faire economy?

fakename — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:43:04 GMT

Let's not forget the government workhouses where a young dickens grew up and experienced the horrors of industry first hand.

Re: Was England during the Industrial Revolution a true laissez faire economy?

mahsah — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:15:13 GMT

Two examples of intervention I can think of off-hand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_Acts

Re: Was England during the Industrial Revolution a true laissez faire economy?

Vitor — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:43:01 GMT

There was some clearly goverment intervention at the time, remember it was also the time of the british empire and there was also some patent abuse on the steam machine for example.

Was England during the Industrial Revolution a true laissez faire economy?

Felipe — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:18:43 GMT

What is the final word of the austrians?

Was there government intervention somewhere or was it a truly free economy?