Geography and Resources in the Development of Industrial Capitalism

Many factors that were internal and important to the rise of industrial capitalism in western Europe. When asked why capitalism as we know it started in England and not somewhere else, on can hand-wave about the English Genius, but there were historical and geographical reasons that capitalism started in England.

One of the geographical reasons was that there are several rivers that are short and spread to the sea. This is important because the moving force for a lot of factories was a waterwheel that was driven by consistent water flows, and there was a huge belt that ran around this central axel that drove the machinery that was needed to make the division of labor work. The other geographic reason is that there was a lot of coal, and it was easy to get to. This was important because even though there were a lot of rivers, the development of the steam engine made coal resources necessary, but if you wanted to build a factory you were not limited to riverfront property.

Photo by Artem Bali from Pexels

One historical reason that Capitalism as we know it started in England was that there was a class of people who were available to work these machines. The enclosure acts helped push people off the land. So that there was a reciprocal relationship between industrialization and enclosure. Machines made people less necessary, and with…