From an economic point of view, the Revolution was, above all, the transition from a markedly agrarian and artisanal production system to an industrial one dominated by factories and machinery. One of its basic characteristics was the successive technological innovations in this period, among them the appearance of modern, fast, regular and precise machines, which replaced the work of thousands of men and women, previously handmade; use of steam as a source of energy to drive the machines, replacing hydraulic, wind, human and animal energy; new ways of using raw materials of mineral origin, which gave impetus to metallurgy and the chemical industry.
From the political point of view, this new scenario allowed the bourgeoisie to accumulate wealth and apply it to manufacturing production. At the same time, the process of enclosures took place in England, leading to the liberation of rural labor and its concentration in the growing cities. This would give rise to the greater part of the factory working class, fundamental to the formation of so-called industrial capitalism.
Gathering the capital provided by the commercial expansion of previous centuries, the bourgeoisie was able to mobilize the available labor force to launch the large-scale industrial enterprise from the eighteenth century. With this process, in the social sphere, rural workers were doubly pressured to leave the fields. With nowhere to go, these men and their families migrated massively to urban areas. Once in the cities, they were available to capitalist entrepreneurs, subject to low wages and subhuman conditions of life.
