How far and in which ways do Government/Industry relations evolve as economies develop and mature during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?

Essay by cockburnCollege, Undergraduate March 2004

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How far and in which ways do Government/Industry relations evolve as economies develop and mature during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?

The world changed beyond all recognition during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The capitalist era of the three industrial revolutions have completely altered the course of human history. Prior to the first steam driven industrial revolution in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century economical development was extremely slow and primitive. Economic history had previously been characterised by a dominant agricultural sector within a subsistent society where productivity was static due to a limited awareness of factual science.

The onset of the original industrial revolution swept in a new dawn in human history. Due to man's aspirations for progression and knowledge and the diversity of opportunities and resources offered by an untamed world the traditional attitudes of governments toward industry were forced to undergo rapid and wholesale changes. This essay is concerned with the changes and developments of government and industrial relations throughout the present industrialising age.

It intends to look at Britain as the first Industrialiser and explain how different governments contributed to the industrial development of the UK and try and distinguish any pattern of specific relationships that developed during this period.

The industrial revolutions which occurred during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were mostly driven by private and industrial firms through the development of new and innovative technologies and the application of revolutionary production and management techniques. These processes were carried out by in large with very little government subsidisation or control but that doesn't mean to say that governments were not a major influence on the industrialising process and in the stimulation of sustained economic development and growth. Governments have always been and shall always be major influences on both domestic and global markets. The...