The Aristocracy: The Three Levels Of The Middle Class, The Labor Class

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Revolutions of Industrialization
Socio-economic classes of Britain's "First Industrial Society”
The aristocrats were the land owning people who mainly inherited wealth and were the dominant class during the industrial revolution (746). Nonetheless, there were changes in the economy as landed landowners played a less prominent role in the economy as wealth was increasingly concentrated in urban areas that even high tariffs were imposed in the 1840s to protect the farmers against more competitive agricultural imports. The nobility were still prominent because of their social prestige and wealth even at the end of the nineteenth century, but businessmen played an important role in the economy more than ever before. The aristocrats were the ones who mostly moved as settlers and colonial administrators at a time when the class was declining and they did not need to work as they had wealth (747).
The middle class benefited the most from the revolutions of industry since the wealth expanded within a short period of time. Merchants, bankers and the wealthy factory owners were the upper middle class (747). The rise of merchants with more money meant that there were those who were able to get into aristocracy where there was more social prestige. Additionally, they bought more property, obtained parliamentary seats and took their sons to the prestigious Cambridge and Oxford universities (747). They were considered enterprising compared to the poor lower class people (747). The growth in the transportation system especially the sea and railway made it possible to transport goods and there was more active division of labor (Baines 1). The middle class benefitted the most from the industrial revolution as the class of merchants, factory owners and even shippers experience growth in wealth. while the upper classes also this was mostly because they had inherited, but the enterprising middle class saw more growth in personal wealth and prosperity. According to Smith (2), increasing the productivity of labor would improve production and the wealth of nations, and this influenced the capitalist system during the industrial revolution.
In the nineteenth century, the majority population in Britain was in the laboring class. The people in this social class had low wealth accumulation and few worked in the service sector. They were neither the aristocrats nor the middle class, as they were mainly manual workers. The changes during the industrial revolution affected the labor class negatively as there was more emphasis on the profit motive, and they were paid low wages and their working conditions poor. Nonetheless, there were efforts to improve their living conditions where social protests and resistance became more common. In the mid nineteenth century many people had migrated from rural areas to towns and as...