The Second Industrial Revolution

Between 1880 and 1914, most Western countries experienced their most rapid economic growth. (See Tables 8.2 and 8.4.) Agriculture was transformed, and migration from agriculture to the towns and overseas reached its highest levels. The “Second Industrial Revolution” brought big capital, high science, and complex technology especially into three industries – iron and steel, metal manufacturing, and chemicals. Agrarian and industrial commodities were distributed nationally by rail and internationally by steamships. Banks and stock markets channeled savings into global investment and then back as profits to enhance consumption. Thus the second revolution advanced the integration of economies, though their totality remained ambiguous because dual – national and transnational.

This second revolution in economic power changed societies. Collective powers were transformed qualitatively. Mass living standards throughout the West began to rise and remain securely above mere subsistence. Thus life expectancy began its dramatic, rapid rise, from about forty years in 1870 – which might have represented only the high point of yet another Malthusianlike historical cycle – to about seventy years by 1950. The life expectancy of women exceeded that of men. Societies became urbanized and industrialized. All this may have represented the most profound social change the world had ever seen. It resulted primarily from a revolution in economic power relations, from the industrializing phase of capitalism. Throughout this period, there has to be a residual economic determinism in our theories.