Big Business

   Before the industrial revolution, most manufacturing was done in small scale by small groups without much aid from machinery. After the industrial revolution, most production took place in large factories that employed many people and used machines to produce a large volume of goods. Several factors made this change possible, particularly changes in the social and economic order during this time.

    The biggest change was in the availability of new, advanced machinery. The amount of profits a company makes on its product depends on how much of the product is made. Making more will mean more is sold, but the market will also flood, causing the price for each individual unit sold to drop.

    The introduction of labor saving machines made manufacturing cheaper, but startup costs higher. This meant that to overcome the startup cost, you had to sell more product, which was made possible by the cheaper production costs. Thus, the invention of machinery made some increase in the scale of production not only possible, but necessary to turn a profit.

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