Abstract
‘The condition of England’ considers why the upswing in technological progress caused such widespread suffering for so many people for so long. It begins with a broad question: how did the technological revolution change the structure of society? It looks at social tables, dividing the population into six social classes—the landed classes, bourgeoisie, lower middle class, farmers, workers, and cottagers and paupers—and how they changed from 1688 to 1867. It is no surprise that the share of national income going to farmers and land owners declined during the Industrial Revolution, but why did workers fall behind capitalists and why did some workers do so much better than others?
