The Status Quo

The arduous transition to an industrial economy in Europe and North America brought with it considerable improvement in overall social welfare. Populations increased by orders of magnitude, life expectancy was extended, and a middle class emerged as an alternative to landed gentry, introducing the powerful idea that hard work could improve social status and quality of life. Nevertheless, the harsh underbelly of this remarkable transformation included grave and avoidable suffering. Worker fatalities in hazardous industries such as mining were common, children labored under unspeakably bad conditions, and consumers were prey to hawkers of bad medicine and worse food. Government intervention to control the hazards to health and safety lagged several decades behind the Industrial Revolution, a pattern that persists to this day with respect to the innovations and emerging threats of industrialization in a global economy.