The Industrial Revolution intensified class tensions by creating stark divides between a wealthy capitalist class and an exploited working class, leading to widespread labor unrest, strikes, and the rise of socialist ideologies.

Key Causes

Rapid urbanization drew rural workers into factories, where they faced low wages, long hours, dangerous conditions, and job insecurity from machinery displacing skilled labor. Capitalists amassed profits while workers endured poverty, fostering resentment and perceptions of enslavement despite increased production.

Social Impacts

New classes emerged: the entrepreneurial bourgeoisie controlling factories and the urban proletariat selling their labor without protections. This fueled visible poverty amid growing wealth, sparking philosophical responses like Marxism, which highlighted proletarian-capitalist conflict.

Outcomes

Tensions manifested in strikes, revolutions, and demands for reforms, eventually yielding labor laws, minimum wages, reduced child labor, and welfare measures to mitigate unrest. These changes pressured capitalists to share revenues, though exploitation persisted initially.