What is the storyline?

Andrew Ure starts off the article “The Philosophy of Manufacturers” by stating that Britain is the home of industrialization and that many foreign nations have viewed the rapid industrialization with skepticism.  Ure says that with proper reasoning, their views are baseless.  To start off his defense of industrialization and the mechanization of England, he brings up the counter-argument that manufacturing has led to capitalists becoming richer and the poor poorer.  Although industrialization may seem as an evil to the common people, he says that improvement in manufacturing can be seen as good as their goal is to make the burden of the worker less than it was before.  

Not only has industrialization made workers less fatigued, Ure claims, the machines are capable of manufacturing at a steady pace constantly which a typical worker cannot do.  Mankind has been able to fruitfully flourish off of machines as it is possible now to create items which before could not have been produced, a larger quantity of goods can be made, and machines now require labor which is more skillful than before.  As machines continue to progress, Ure thinks that instead of having anyone working, people will only supervise the machines which will do most of the work.  A factory shows that the division of labor works through the different working parts of a machine and with machinery enables a better life for workers as they do not have the same repetitive task which they had to complete everyday.  Ure claims that the purpose of manufacturing and industrialization is to either surpass human labor or at least reduce the cost of labor.  Ure then goes on to provide an example to justify his claims by using the steam engine.  The invention of the steam engine caused an increase in the need for fuel and although the engine and its many working parts are able to function and do most of the work, “miners, engineers, shipbuilders, and sailors, cause the construction of canals and railways.”  Industrialization has not replaced the jobs of workers but instead created new jobs that deal with these revolutionizing pieces of machinery.  Due to the steam engine and its replacement of horses, more fields are available for people to use for growing crops instead of using those fields for horse fodder.  Steam engines are cheap and effective at production and in addition to doing the job quickly are able to provide workers with more of the comforts of life.  In the article, Ure says that people can claim that the industrialization of England has brought about an even greater divide between the rich capitalists and the common worker but in actuality it has brought an even greater prosperity to England and her people.  Managers of businesses are now able to save on the cost of wages by employing a machine and although this requires less workers, the invention of other mechanistic tools require the employ of workers and so there are more job openings than ever.  Ure strongly believes that the claims that industrialization is baseless and uses “The Philosophy of Manufacturers” to help portray the good that industrialization has and will bring.