How the Industrial Revolution Changed Society in the 19th Century

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The Industrial Revolution changed society entirely during the 19th century. It encouraged the transition from agricultural labor to industrial labor, such as factory work. With this transition came urbanization, great poverty, and class struggle. Industrialization led to a reduction in the living standards of workers, widespread malnutrition, and eventually the deterioration of one’s life expectancy. The factory workers were stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty and the inability to escape it. Karl Marx’s ideas and theories about class struggle would eventually change how workers thought of their role in society. His theories would bring about revolutions and drastic changes to society. Karl Marx was born in the early 19th century and devoted a large chunk of his career to developing the ideas and theories that are now known as Marxism. Marx though that capitalism was the main cause of the class struggle that came along with the Industrial Revolution. Marx called capitalism, “a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie” and claimed that the wealthy classes ran society for their own p...

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