DeCosta 1

Jacob DeCosta

Mr. Smith

Junior ELA

9 November 2023

The Industrial Revolution and The Human Condition

The Industrial Revolution was if not the most important thing that humans developed and

created in the 19th to 20th century. Promoting a better living standard, the advancement in

technology, but also a large societal change. While arguments in favor of the Industrial

Revolution persist, its enduring 21st-century consequences have given rise to a sociopolitical

order marked by servitude, restricting personal freedom, and entailing a controlling educational

system.

The Industrial Revolution's introduction of mass production of goods would find that

many of those who were self-employed would not be able to keep up with the rate at which

goods could be produced. Creating the loss of independence of being self-employed causing

many to have to be employed under corporations. Towards the early 1900s when the Industrial

Revolution boom was at its end, 50% of the US population was self-employed. However, in

1977 that number had dropped to just 7%. (Peters) In itself, there isn't harm in being employed

but with less and less land available within the United States one's independence has become

limited as there are now certain government mandates on being connected to central

infrastructure such as the power grid. Self-reliance, a central idea of the 19th century, is the idea

of being able to live solely dependent on yourself rather than relying on another entity for things

such as basic resources. In line with self-reliance is self-employment as it furthers that lack of

dependency on others. However, both of these are getting frequently more scarce and
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unattainable for many. The absence of self-reliance and self-employment would have a larger

psychological effect on the now employed populus causing the rise of the power process. “The

Power Process Consists of 3 main parts: “ goal, effort, and attainment of goal.” (Kaczynski) These goals

aren't limited to one specific thing, it could be work-related, one's economic status, one's house or

residence yet they all hold the same commonality. They are all artificially made goals, known as surrogate

activities which are defined as “an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that the individual

pursues for the sake of the “fulfillment” that he gets from pursuing the goal, not because he needs to attain

the goal itself.” (Kaczynski) However, to disclaim, with the Power Process The goal that is being attained

is one of surrogate origins rather than a task at hand, as the Power Processes definition is quite broad in its

meaning. The artificial goal or Surrogate Activity can be particularly harmful to one's freedoms as the

pursuit of such activities can for many people never be enough. Many surrogate activities are not limited

to just personal accomplishment. Many surrogate activities are created and led by marketing and selling

of certain products. Causing people to want to desire things that years before no one had sought out or

cared for such as the latest piece of tech.. The Power Process Can financially disable people due to this

fact. If you look back 150 years in America when people worked for themselves, they had a sense of

community with one's town there had been no such desire or need for fulfillment that was artificial. One

could say that the Surrogate Activity holds no real harmful effects as hobbies for instance could be

considered a Surrogate Activity. While that may be true the Surrogate Activity like most things if in

moderation is not directly harmful but it's the constant pursuit of the activity, if overwhelming other

things such as providing for family or oneself that can be considered harmful. One could get the

fulfillment many have sought from the beginning of time in providing for a family, a neighbor, and

continuing one's bloodline. So the introduction of the artificially produced Power Process by the lack of

self-reliance and self-employment within the main populous today greatly limits the freedom of one's life

as the desire to fulfill the Surrogate Activity can overtake one's desire for something that could be

considered natural, such as the nuclear family. The Power Process Is frequently used to obtain some sort
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of power over others or heighten one's social status. For example the titles within a company, it's

commonly found that the higher up within a company the higher the ego, now even all this isn't the case

for every company it still is a common occurrence. The leading reason behind this is due to some sort of

past trauma so the inflated ego compensates for it (Hein) These egos that are commonly found are one’s

Power Processes they are trying to fulfill power and a goal so the use of an ego drives the want for more.

Again one could argue that coping isn't necessarily the power process, but coping is the pursuit of a goal

for the sake of gaining fulfillment rather than the goal itself. It's a prime example of the Power Process

And its effects. The Power Process And the Surrogate Activity are demonstrations of the harmful

physiological effects of the Industrial Revolution, and following these limits, the personal freedoms of

one's person as the pursuit of fulfillment for many can be never, especially when it is led by another

person's accomplishments or marketing of an object.

The effect of the Industrial Revolution is the constant expansion of STEM, leading to

pressures in the education system to enforce these fields onto children. Causing unnatural stress

and anxiety in children. Modern-day infrastructure is reliant on mechanical and architectural

engineers, mathematicians, and chemists for modern medicine, and so forth. This undoubtedly

creates a competitive school environment for adolescents which was not as prominent pre

Industrial Revolution as many of these jobs had not existed yet or been largely sought out for. As

the average child would have grown to support a family, take on a family profession, or go into

some sort of laboring job. While there were still engineers and other professions as the growth of

the industrial revolution wouldn't have happened as rapidly as it did with them, it would have

been more common to take on more basic professions. As the implication of standardized

education wasn't at the level it is today. So the introduction of a standardized one-fits-all

education that was largely produced for the benefit of the Industrial support system would lead to

a drastic social and physiological change in the school systems. Within this system, children are
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groomed to be compliant with the competition of an artificially made competitive environment. This

causes those who feel they have poor academic performance to have feelings of inferiority, anxiety, and

fear in their studies, be more likely to be inflicted by peer pressure (Jiang) In my experience of being

taught through modern education from a young age (public schooling). Around 6 years old STEM was

highly enforced among me and other classmates. Being forced to take computer classes that were never

about using or learning about the computer itself but learning the practical use of a computer in STEM

and enforcing this systematic education. Many agree STEM by itself isn't harmful which is true to some

extent, however the enforcement of it among adolescents can be. The education system itself is

problematic as the effects of the Industrial Revolution on education isn't strictly limited to STEM as

STEM provided a stepping stone for the improvements of systematic education. The education system

creates an internalized rat race, forcing students to strive for excellence in an artificial environment.

However this isn't just affecting students, it affects the teachers who notice the cracks in the education

system. With teachers saying “What good is my job as a teacher if all students ever want to ask me is “Is

this for a grade” or “How many points is this worth?”. Some days I feel as though I should be grading

how well they are playing the “rat race” game, instead of whether they are truly learning.” (Hopper) This

leads to the question: what part of the education system is education? If education is the “the transmission

of knowledge, skills, and character traits” (Education) what part of the education system accurately

demonstrates this without some sort of string attached. The Industrial Revolution's effect on the education

system has been drastic and destructive for the student and the teacher, which shows how the Industrial

Revolution was non beneficial for society.

While people argue that the Industrial Revolution was largely beneficial for humans and society

with the technology that was brought by it. Ultimately the consequences brought by the Industrial

Revolution outweigh the gain produced by it. People claim that the Industrial Revolution had “ increased

production and efficiency, lower prices, more goods, improved wages, and migration from rural areas to

urban areas.” (Chen) This figure is the most common perception of the output of the Revolution, but is

largely incorrect. Sure the argument that there was increased production and efficiency is correct but a
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large reason there was a demand for the resources domestically being produced was for the increase in

urban living surrounding the factories, the supply was creating its own demand. Improved wages would

be a minority, unless you had held a higher status within a company, a large amount of the workforce

consisted of child labor “By 1900, more than 1.75 million American children younger than 15 were

employed” (EXPLORING-19TH) Where most of these children made around 5-7 cents per hour (Child

Labor) While other trades made around 37 cents per hour (About the USA) So the idea that there was

improved wages is a claim that while technically could be considered true, was an overstatement. These

misconceptions about the Industrial Revolution contribute to how many people are ignorant in being able

to identify negative lasting effects of the Industrial Revolution. These misconceptions attempt to add

positives to this societally and physiologically destroying system. As for example, as earlier stated the

pursuit in surrogate activities led by marketing or the damaging effects of the education system.

While people believe that the effects of the Industrial Revolution are only that of the

destruction of nature it truly is on a deeper level with the effects societally and psychologically.

The Industrial Revolution created the sociopolitical order that many people follow today that

limits one's freedoms and the creation of a systematically controlled education that mentally

affects adolescents. That is why the misconceptions surrounding the effects of the Industrial

Revolution are harmful to one's persons.

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Works Cited

“A Return to Self-Reliance.” Tom Peters,

tompeters.com/columns/a-return-to-self-reliance/#:~:text=In%201900%2C%2050%20per

cent%20of%20American%20workers%20were%20self%2Demployed. Accessed 5 Nov.

2023.

“About the USA.” Usembassy.de, 2020, usa.usembassy.de/etexts/his/e_prices1.htm.

Chen, James. “Industrial Revolution Definition: History, Pros, and Cons.” Investopedia, 25 May

2023, www.investopedia.com/terms/i/industrial-revolution.asp#:~:text=The%20

Industrial%20Revolution%20 shifted%20 societies.

“Child Labor in the Early Twentieth Century | Encyclopedia.com.” Www.encyclopedia.com,

www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/child-labo

r-early-twentieth-century#:~:text=These%20young%20boys%20came%20to. Accessed 9

Nov. 2023.

EXPLORING 19TH-CENTURY CHILD LABOR in the UNITED STATES TEACHER VERSION.

www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/sis/activities/history/hh-14_teacher.pdf.

Hein, Sandy. “Dealing with an Over-Inflated Ego.” Www.blackswanltd.com, 23 May 2023,

www.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/dealing-with-an-over-inflated-ego#:~:text=In%20most

%20cases%2C%20ego%20is. Accessed 9 Nov. 2023.

Hopper, Steven. “Help End the ‘Rat Race’ of School.” Age of Awareness, 6 May 2019,

medium.com/age-of-awareness/help-end-the-rat-race-of-school-b4978caeb0b6.
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Jiang, Mao, et al. “The Influence of Academic Pressure on Adolescents’ Problem Behavior:

Chain Mediating Effects of Self-Control, Parent–Child Conflict, and Subjective

Well-Being.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, no. 954330, Sept. 2022, p. 954330,

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.954330.

Kaczynski, Theodore. Industrial Society and Its Future. 1995,

web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/Industrial%20Society%20and%20Its

%20Future.pdf.

Wikipedia Contributors. “Education.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Feb. 2019,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education.