Mechanization and industrialization, motivated and enabled by capitalism, created tremendous wealth for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century business owners and middle-class professionals, but their profits often came at a high cost to workers. The production of goods shifted from the handiwork of highly skilled middle-class artisans to mechanized production done by low-paid unskilled laborers. Workers did enjoy access to new consumer goods made cheaper by industrialization, but to afford those goods they had to work long hours, in difficult and often dangerous conditions. Perhaps most importantly, workers lost control over their working conditions.

Karl Marx and his followers responded to the worst excesses of capitalism by proposing a new theory that became known as Marxism. Marx argued that the bourgeoisie, members of a social class that owned the means of production, were primarily motivated by the desire to exploit labor and keep the excess value wage earners produced in order to buy political influence. Eventually the capitalist system would collapse and workers reclaim control of society. Marx argued that the struggle between classes was the root of all historical conflicts. He predicted that society would eventually replace current economic systems with socialism, a system in which the public, not private companies or individuals, owns the means of production.

All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/world-history-volume-2/pages/6-3-capitalism-and-the-first-industrial-revolution

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