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50-464: The late 19th century in American history marked a period of expanding industrialization and national security concerns. In the north , manufacturing was growing at an unprecedented rate while the south took over the textile industry. The United States was feeling a virtually never ending demand for cheap labor. The process of industrialization and urbanization was a main attraction for immigrants to

100-422: A diminishing margin of utility in that the best lands for farming are usually already under cultivation, forcing people to move into less and less arable lands. Agrarianism most often refers to a social philosophy which values agrarian society as superior to industrial society and stresses the superiority of a simpler rural life as opposed to the complexity and chaos of urbanized, industrialized life. In this view

150-519: A fine of 1,000 dollars for employers who knowingly bring a contract laborer into the country. Fifth section provides an outline of exemptions from the act. They are: (1) foreigners temporarily in the United States and engaging other foreigners as secretaries, servants, or domestics, (2) skilled laborers, provided that such laborers cannot be obtained in the U.S. (3) professional actors, artists, lecturers, or singers, or persons employed strictly as

200-778: A further stimulus to industrial investment and economic growth . Moreover, family structures tend to shift as extended families tend to no longer live together in one household, location or place. The first transformation from an agricultural to an industrial economy is known as the Industrial Revolution and took place from the mid-18th to early 19th century. It began in Great Britain, spreading to Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and France and eventually to other areas in Europe and North America. Characteristics of this early industrialisation were technological progress,

250-665: A greater extent than was possible under horticulture for two reasons. First, settlement sizes grew with agrarian technology because more productive farmers freed more people for urban specialty occupations. Second, land and maritime transportation improvements made it possible to supply great cities of 1,000,000, plus inhabitants such as Rome , Baghdad , and the Chinese capital cities. Rome, for example, could obtain grain and other bulk raw materials from Sicily , North Africa , Egypt, and Southern France to sustain large populations, even by modern standards. This required maritime transport on

300-415: A large step toward controlling their environments, are less dependent on them, and hence show fewer correlations between environment and technology-related traits. A rather different view is that as societies become larger and the movement of goods and people cheaper, they incorporate an increasing range of environmental variation within their borders and trade system. But environmental factors may still play

350-467: A nutritionally insignificant component to the diet, did not occur until the Bronze Age . Agriculture allows a much greater density of population than can be supported by hunting and gathering and allows for the accumulation of excess product to keep for winter use or to sell for profit. The ability of farmers to feed large numbers of people whose activities have nothing to do with material production

400-487: A personal or domestic servants. Finally, exempt was (4) assistance by a resident of a member of his family or a personal friend to come for the purpose of settlement. On February 7, 1887, the O'Neill bill was passed which amended the Contract Labor Law of 1885. It added three major sections to the original act. The problem was largely that although the law was sweeping in its prohibition of labor contracts, it

450-521: A rallying point for anti-immigration sentiment. The first version of the Alien Contract Labor Law of February 26, 1885, was written in comprehensive terms and stated in its first section, It shall be unlawful for any person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the importation or migration of any alien or aliens, any foreigner or foreigners, into

500-488: A shift from rural work to industrial labour, and financial investments in new industrial structures. Later commentators have called this the First Industrial Revolution. The " Second Industrial Revolution " labels the later changes that came about in the mid-19th century after the refinement of the steam engine , the invention of the internal combustion engine , the harnessing of electricity and

550-660: A strong role as variables that affect the internal structure and history of a society in complex ways. For example, the average size of agrarian states will depend on the ease of transportation, major cities will tend to be located at trade nodes, and the demographic history of a society may depend on disease episodes. Until recent decades, the transition to farming was seen as an inherently progressive one: people learnt that planting seeds caused crops to grow, and this new improved food source led to larger populations, sedentary farm and town life, more leisure time and so to specialization, writing, technological advances and civilization . It

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600-593: Is characterized by three coinciding contrasts: governing class versus the masses , urban minority versus peasant majority, and literate minority versus illiterate majority. This results in two distinct subcultures; the urban elite versus the peasant masses. Moreover, this means that cultural differences within agrarian societies are greater than the differences between them. The landowning strata typically combine government, religious, and military institutions to justify and enforce their ownership, and support elaborate patterns of consumption, slavery , serfdom , or peonage

650-467: Is commonly the lot of the primary producer. Rulers of agrarian societies do not manage their empire for the common good or in the name of the public interest , but as a piece of property they own and can do with as they please. Caste systems , as found in India, are much more typical of agrarian societies where lifelong agricultural routines depend upon a rigid sense of duty and discipline. The emphasis in

700-775: Is directly engaged in agricultural production. Such societies started appearing because of the Commercial and Industrial Revolution which can be seen beginning in the Mediterranean city-states from 1000 to 1500 CE. As European societies developed during the Middle Ages , classical knowledge was reacquired from scattered sources, and a new series of maritime commercial societies developed again in Europe. The initial developments were centered in Northern Italy, in

750-414: Is less able than the tertiary sector to accommodate both increased productivity and employment opportunities; more than 40% of the world's employees are " working poor ", whose incomes fail to keep themselves and their families above the $ 2-a-day poverty line . There is also a phenomenon of deindustrialisation , as in the former USSR countries' transition to market economies, and the agriculture sector

800-447: Is now clear that agriculture was adopted despite certain disadvantages of that lifestyle. Archeological studies show that health deteriorated in populations that adopted cereal agriculture, returning to pre-agricultural levels only in modern times. This is in part attributable to the spread of infection in crowded cities, but is largely due to a decline in dietary quality that accompanied intensive cereal farming. People in many parts of

850-400: Is often the key sector in absorbing the resultant unemployment. Agrarian society An agrarian society , or agricultural society , is any community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland . Another way to define an agrarian society is by seeing how much of a nation's total production is in agriculture . In agrarian society, cultivating the land is

900-437: Is restricted due to the low energy density of solar radiation and the low efficiency of technology. To increase production, an agrarian society must either increase the intensity of production or obtain more land for expansion. Expansion may take place either by claiming territories occupied by other communities, but expansion also may take place by claiming new ecological niches from other living species. Societies are limited by

950-405: Is thus the model society. Agrarianism is similar but not identical with back-to-the-land movements. Agrarianism concentrates on the fundamental goods of the earth, communities of more limited economic and political scale than in modern society, and on simple living—even when this shift involves questioning the "progressive" character of some recent social and economic developments. Thus agrarianism

1000-469: The Chinese , became the target of restrictive immigration policy, including the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act . With the dramatically increasing numbers of all immigrants but most specifically a reaction to Chinese " coolie " labor in the U.S., a new concern came before Congress , the influence that immigrant labor had on the labor market and the native worker. As wages were driven down, contract labor became

1050-635: The Neolithic Revolution , has taken place independently multiple times. Horticulture and agriculture as types of subsistence developed among humans somewhere between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent region of the Middle East . The reasons for the development of agriculture are debated but may have included climate change , and the accumulation of food surplus for competitive gift-giving . Most certainly there

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1100-1058: The economic communities do not consider contemporary industrialisation policies as being adequate to the global south (Third World countries) or beneficial in the longer term, with the perception that they may only create inefficient local industries unable to compete in the free-trade dominated political order which industrialisation has fostered. Environmentalism and Green politics may represent more visceral reactions to industrial growth. Nevertheless, repeated examples in history of apparently successful industrialisation (Britain, Soviet Union, South Korea, China, etc.) may make conventional industrialisation seem like an attractive or even natural path forward, especially as populations grow, consumerist expectations rise and agricultural opportunities diminish. The relationships among economic growth, employment, and poverty reduction are complex, and higher productivity can sometimes lead to static or even lower employment (see jobless recovery ). There are differences across sectors , whereby manufacturing

1150-416: The nuclear family , consisting of only parents and their growing children, predominates. Families and children reaching adulthood are more mobile and tend to relocate to where jobs exist. Extended family bonds become more tenuous. One of the most important criticisms of industrialisation is that it caused children to stay away from home for many hours and to use them as cheap workers in factories. Between

1200-474: The Industrial Revolution is far from completely replacing agrarianism with industrialism. Only a minority of the world's population today live in industrialized societies although most predominantly agrarian societies have a significant industrial sector. The use of crop breeding , better management of soil nutrients , and improved weed control have greatly increased yields per unit area. At

1250-469: The Mediterranean. It is productivity per unit of labor and transport efficiency improvements of agrarian technology that had the widest impact on the more peripheral culture core features of agrarian societies. The populations of agrarian societies have historically fluctuated substantially around the slowly rising trend line, due to famines , disease epidemics and political disruption. At least at

1300-926: The Takarkori rockshelter, which is representative of the broader Sahara; this continued until the beginning of the Pastoral Neolithic in the Sahara. In addition to the emergence of farming in the Fertile Crescent, agriculture appeared: by at least 6,800 BCE in East Asia ( rice ) and, later, in Central and South America ( maize and squash ). Small-scale agriculture also likely arose independently in early Neolithic contexts in India (rice) and Southeast Asia ( taro ). However, full dependency on domestic crops and animals, when wild resources contributed

1350-509: The U.S. The Contract Labor Law of 1864 established a policy of encouraging immigration by supporting companies who would provide passage to their workers in exchange for labor. The law was soon repealed but demonstrates the national support of what was called at the time a "flood" of immigrants. In the 1880s, immigration from Southern , Central , and Eastern Europe rose dramatically and immigrant populations from this region became more influential in American public policy. A once welcomed group,

1400-540: The United States, its Territories, or the District of Columbia, under contract or agreement, parol or special, express or implied, made previous to the importation or migration of such alien or aliens, foreigner or foreigners, to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States, its Territories, or the District of Columbia. The second section of the law voided all contracts or agreements if made prior to immigration. The next two sections provided penalties including

1450-446: The city-states of Venice , Florence , Milan , and Genoa . By about 1500 a few of these city-states probably met the requirements of having half of their populations engaged in non-agricultural pursuits and became commercial societies. These small states were highly urbanized, imported much food, and were centers of trade and manufacture to a degree quite unlike typical agrarian societies. The culminating development, still in progress,

1500-477: The construction of canals, railways, and electric-power lines. The invention of the assembly line gave this phase a boost. Coal mines, steelworks, and textile factories replaced homes as the place of work. By the end of the 20th century, East Asia had become one of the most recently industrialised regions of the world. There is considerable literature on the factors facilitating industrial modernisation and enterprise development. The Industrial Revolution

1550-548: The early 1960s and 1990s, the Four Asian Tigers underwent rapid industrialisation and maintained exceptionally high growth rates. As of 2018 the international development community ( World Bank , Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) , many United Nations departments, FAO WHO ILO and UNESCO , endorses development policies like water purification or primary education and co-operation amongst third world communities . Some members of

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1600-480: The exemptions did not restrict the movement of workers who had a skilled trade or one that did not fall into the union movement that was happening at the time, but they excluded "Professional actors, artists, lecturers, or singers, nor to persons employed as strictly personal or domestic servants." A later act amended the 1885 act by adding ministers of any religious denomination, persons belonging to any recognized profession, and professors for colleges and seminaries to

1650-426: The farmer is idealized as self-sufficient and thus independent as opposed to the paid laborer who is vulnerable and alienated in modern society. Moreover, Agrarianism usually links working the land with morality and spiritualty and links urban life, capitalism, and technology with a loss of independence and dignity while fostering vice and weakness. The agricultural community, with its fellowship of labor and cooperation,

1700-479: The form of the tractor , reduced the necessity of humans performing the demanding tasks of sowing , harvesting , and threshing . With mechanization, these tasks could be performed with a speed and on a scale barely imaginable before. These advances have resulted in a substantial increase in the yield of agricultural techniques that have also translated into a decline in the percentage of populations in developed countries that are required to work in agriculture to feed

1750-519: The high points, population densities often seem to have exceeded the level at which everyone could be productively employed at current levels of technology. Malthusian deterioration, under-employment and a decline in rural and lower-class urban standards of living, ensued. Agrarian societies are especially noted for their extremes of social classes and rigid social mobility. As land is the major source of wealth, social hierarchy develops based on landownership and not labor. The system of stratification

1800-443: The increasing focus on sustainable development and green industrial policy practices, industrialisation increasingly includes technological leapfrogging , with direct investment in more advanced, cleaner technologies. The reorganisation of the economy has many unintended consequences both economically and socially. As industrial workers' incomes rise, markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds tend to expand and provide

1850-597: The limited possibilities of converting one energy form into another. Energy radiating from the sun is primarily caught and chemically fixed by plant photosynthesis . Then it is secondarily converted by animals and, finally, processed for human use. Unlike hunter-gatherers, agrarianism's basic strategy is to control these flows. For this purpose, agrarian systems mainly use living organisms which serve as food, tools, building material. Mechanical devices making use of wind or running water also can be used to convert natural energy flows. The amount of energy an agrarian society can use

1900-442: The modern West on personal liberties and freedoms was in large part a reaction to the steep and rigid stratification of agrarian societies. Within agrarian societies, the primary source of energy is plant biomass . This means that like hunter-gatherer societies, agrarian societies are dependent on natural solar energy flows. Thus agrarian societies are characterized by their dependence on outside energy flows, low energy density, and

1950-492: The occupational classes exempt from the contract labor law. Industrialisation Industrialisation ( UK ) or industrialization ( US ) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society . This involves an extensive reorganisation of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing . Industrialisation is associated with increase of polluting industries heavily dependent on fossil fuels . With

2000-435: The population of towns. The concentration of labour in factories has increased urbanisation and the size of settlements, to serve and house the factory workers. Family structure changes with industrialisation. Sociologist Talcott Parsons noted that in pre-industrial societies there is an extended family structure spanning many generations who probably remained in the same location for generations. In industrialised societies

2050-557: The primary source of wealth . Such a society may acknowledge other means of livelihood and work habits but stresses the importance of agriculture and farming. Agrarian societies have existed in various parts of the world as far back as 10,000 years ago and continue to exist today. They have been the most common form of socio-economic organization for most of recorded human history Agrarian society were preceded by hunters and gatherers and horticultural societies and transition into industrial society . The transition to agriculture, called

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2100-559: The rest of the population. The main demographic consequences of agrarian technology were simply a continuation of the trend toward higher population densities and larger settlements. The latter is probably a more secure consequence of agrarian technology than the former. In principle livestock compete with humans for food and in some environments, advanced horticultural techniques can probably support more people per square kilometer than agrarian techniques. Aside from average density, agrarian technology permitted urbanization of population to

2150-429: The same time, the use of mechanization has decreased labor input. The developing world generally produces lower yields, having less of the latest science, capital, and technology base. More people in the world are involved in agriculture as their primary economic activity than in any other activity, yet it only accounts for four percent of the world's GDP. The rapid rise of mechanization in the 20th century, especially in

2200-512: The transmission of diseases. The place of women in society has shifted from primary caregivers to breadwinners, thus reducing the number of children per household. Furthermore, industrialisation contributed to increased cases of child labour and thereafter education systems. As the Industrial Revolution was a shift from the agrarian society, people migrated from villages in search of jobs to places where factories were established. This shifting of rural people led to urbanisation and an increase in

2250-483: The world remained hunter-gatherers until quite recently; though they were quite aware of the existence and methods of agriculture, they declined to undertake it. Many explanations have been offered, usually centered around a particular factor that forced the adoption of agriculture, such as environmental or population pressure . Main source of income was cultivation and farming. Agrarian societies transition into industrial societies when less than half of their population

2300-576: Was a gradual transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural economies after a lengthy period when some crops were deliberately planted and other foods were gathered from the wild. An example of this transition can be found in the cultivation of wild cereals by hunter-gatherers in the Central Sahara. Between 7500 BCE and 3500 BCE, undomesticated central Saharan flora were farmed , stored, and cooked , and domesticated animals (e.g., Barbary sheep ) were milked and managed, by hunter-gatherers near

2350-501: Was accompanied by significant changes in the social structure, the main change being a transition from farm work to factory-related activities. This has resulted in the concept of Social class , i.e., hierarchical social status defined by an individual's economic power. It has changed the family system as most people moved into cities, with extended family living apart becoming more common. The movement into more dense urban areas from less dense agricultural areas has consequently increased

2400-411: Was the crucial factor in the rise of surplus, specialization, advanced technology, hierarchical social structures, inequality, and standing armies. Agrarian societies thus support the emergence of a more complex social structure . In agrarian societies, some of the simple correlations between social complexity and environment begin to disappear. One view is that humans with this technology have moved

2450-478: Was the development of industrial technology , the application of mechanical sources of energy to an ever-increasing number of production problems. By about 1800, the agricultural population of Britain had sunk to about one third of the total. By mid-19th century, all the countries of Western Europe , plus the United States of America had more than half their populations in non-farm occupations. Even today,

2500-440: Was virtually impossible to enforce. The new sections charged the secretary of the treasury with enforcement of the act, gave him power to establish needful rules and regulations, and provided that prohibited persons were to be sent back on arrival. Not only was the Contract Labor Law largely a response to Chinese "coolie" labor but it explicitly had exemptions written into the law that demonstrated occupational preference. That is,

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