We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
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.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
