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Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forums of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. ''Pre-industrial'' refers to a time before there were machines and tools to help perform tasks ''en masse''. Pre-industrial civilization dates back to centuries ago, but the main era known as the pre-industrial society occurred right before the
industrial society In sociology, industrial society is a society driven by the use of technology and machinery to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the Western world in ...
. Pre-Industrial societies vary from region to region depending on the culture of a given area or history of social and political life. Europe was known for its
feudal system Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structu ...
and the
Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
. The term "pre-industrial" is also used as a benchmark for environmental conditions before the development of industrial society: for example, the
Paris Agreement The Paris Agreement (french: Accord de Paris), often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on climate change. Adopted in 2015, the agreement covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and ...
on
Climate Change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
, adopted in Paris on 12 December 2015 and in force from 4 November 2016, "aims to limit
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees
celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The d ...
, compared to ''pre-industrial'' levels." The date for the end of the "pre-industrial era" is not defined.


Common attributes

* Limited production * Extreme agricultural economy * Limited
division of labor The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, and ...
. In pre-industrial societies, production was relatively simple and the number of specialized crafts was limited. * Limited variation of
social class A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, inc ...
es *
Parochialism Parochialism is the state of mind, whereby one focuses on small sections of an issue rather than considering its wider context. More generally, it consists of being narrow in scope. In that respect, it is a synonym of "provincialism". It may, pa ...
Communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...
s were limited between communities in pre-industrial societies. Few had the opportunity to see or hear beyond their own village. Industrial societies grew with the help of faster means of communication, having more
information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...
at hand about the world, allowing
knowledge transfer Knowledge transfer is the sharing or disseminating of knowledge and the providing of inputs to problem solving. In organizational theory, knowledge transfer is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to ...
and cultural diffusion between them. * Populations grew at substantial rates Cipolla, Carlo M. Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700. New York: Norton, 1976 * Social classes: peasants and lordsPersson, Karl Gunnar. Pre-industrial Economic Growth: Social Organization, and Technological Progress in Europe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988. *
Subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...
level of living * Population dependent on peasants for food * People were located in villages rather than in cities


Economic systems

*
Hunter gather society A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, f ...
*
Commodity market A commodity market is a market that trades in the primary economic sector rather than manufactured products, such as cocoa, fruit and sugar. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investin ...
*
Mercantilism Mercantilism is an economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal. The policy aims to reduce ...
*
Subsistence agriculture Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow food crops to meet the needs of themselves and their families on smallholdings. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements, with little or no ...
*
Subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...
* Primitive communism


Labor conditions


Social structure and working conditions

Harsh working conditions were prevalent long before the Industrial Revolution took place. Pre-industrial society was very static and often cruel –
child labour Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...
, dirty living conditions, and long working hours were not equally as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution.R.M. Hartwell, ''The Industrial Revolution and Economic Growth'', Methuen and Co., 1971, pp. 339–41


See also

*
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 ...
*
Industrialisation Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) 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 re-organisation of an econo ...
*
Modernization theory Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
* Traditional society *
Dependency Theory Dependency theory is the notion that resources flow from a " periphery" of poor and underdeveloped states to a " core" of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former. A central contention of dependency theory is that poor ...
*
Imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic powe ...
*
Hunter gatherers A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...
*
Transhumance Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower val ...
*
Nomads A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...
*
Pastoral nomads Nomadic pastoralism is a form of pastoralism in which livestock are herded in order to seek for fresh pastures on which to graze. True nomads follow an irregular pattern of movement, in contrast with transhumance, where seasonal pastures are fix ...
*
Nomadic A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...
* Post-industrial society * Proto-industrialization


References


Bibliography

* Grinin, L. 2007. Periodization of History: A theoretic-mathematical analysis. In
''History & Mathematics''
Ed. by Leonid Grinin, Victor de Munck, and
Andrey Korotayev Andrey Vitalievich Korotayev (russian: link=yes, Андре́й Вита́льевич Корота́ев; born 17 February 1961) is a Russian anthropologist, economic historian, comparative political scientist, demographer and sociologist, ...
. Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. P.10-38. . {{Authority control Sociological terminology Industrial Revolution