It is a known fact that industrialization has transformed the western form of production to a

large and efficient scale, but what if the form of consumption has also changed, and if so, what

could have caused this? and where did the demand necessary to feed this mass supply come

from? Colin Campbell claims that this demand came from the insatiability of consumers. His

theory is that around the 17th century there was a shift in people's pattern of gratification from

traditional to modern hedonism.

The main difference between the two is that in modern hedonism, the individual's imagination is

under his absolute control. Consumers would not be looking for the selection, use or purchase of

the product, but the search for the imaginative pleasure to which the image of the product lends

itself. 1

At the same time, the bourgeoisie rises in prosperity and influence as a class, but instead of

limiting the emergence and rise of the bourgeoisie as a social class only, let us now begin to see

the emergence of a new collective ideal. A spirit loaded with a wild individualism, resulting

from a violent ideal of autonomy, of the search for personality perfection, punctuated

Burckhardt 2. Thus, freeing themselves from the ascetic morality of the Middle Ages, which saw

in commerce something reprehensible, passive to cupidity, and replacing it with Renaissance

anthropocentrism and bourgeois morality, thus breaking with any moral link of business, since

the prevalence of individual rights over the common good is characteristic of substitute

products.

The Renaissance, whose nobility will be enchanted by the new products of the East and go

bankrupt, and as a natural consequence, marry the ascending and productive bourgeoisie, breaks

with this and establishes the insatiable appetite for wealth as an energetic principle for the

wealth of nations3. In Western civilization, then, an inversion of poles takes place: from

1
Barbosa, L, Sociedade do consumo, 1nd edn., Rio de Janeiro, ZAHAR, 2004, p. 52.
2
G. Corção, Dois amores, Duas cidades, 2nd edn., Campinas, Vide Editorial, 2019, p. 419.

3
H Hughes, E. J., and Costa, C. A., Ascensão e Decadência da Burguesia. 1nd edn., Rio de
Janeiro, Agir, 1945, p. 72.
repulsion to commerce and the dignification of manual work, to seeing work as an adverse

element, thus dehumanizing the peasant worker. The main historic factors were set up. William

of Orange wins the Glorious Revolution, and in 1694 creates the National Bank of England in

fulfilment of loan agreements to defeat James II, resulting in the English financial system that

would serve to defray the expensive general equipment necessary for the entire economy to

progress smoothly.

Another economic factor to be mentioned is cotton, whose English foreign market, safer than

ever with the deindustrialization of India and the independence of the Latin American colonies,

provided astronomical possibilities enough to tempt private entrepreneurs to embark on the

adventure of the industrial revolution. and also, expansion fast enough to make it a requirement.

And in addition to new inventions and trade routes, English agricultural activities were already

predominantly market driven, poised to welcome an era of industrialization, that is, to increase

production and productivity in order to feed a rapidly growing non-agricultural population;

provide cheap labour for cities and industries; and provide a mechanism for capital

accumulation to be used in the most modern sectors of the economy.

England managed the feat of bringing all these conditions together, and thus created a much

more favourable environment for Industrialization than anywhere else in Europe, thus creating

the first major milestone of what Eric Hobsbawm will call the 'Age of Revolutions'. 4

4
Hobsbawm, E., A Era das Revoluções, 25nd edn, São Paulo, Paz e Terra, 2011, p. 67-72.
Reference List

Barbosa, L. (2004). Sociedade do consumo. Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro: ZAHAR.

Corção, G. (2019). Dois Amores, Duas Cidades. Campinas, São Paulo: VIDE EDITORIAL.

Hobsbawm, E. (2011). A Era das Revoluções. São Paulo, São Paulo: Paz e Terra.

Hughes, E. J., & Costa, C. A. (1945). Ascensão e Decadência da Burguesia. Rio de Janeiro, Rio
de Janeiro: Agir.