Notes

The Enlosure Movement and the Luddite Movement were both movements that occured during the Industrial Revolution in Britain during 18th and 19th centuries. The Industrial Revolution in Britain is often regarded as one of, if not, the revolution with the greatest effect of all time, as it transformed the ways in which crops and goods were produced, transitioning from manual labor based production to machine based production.

During the Industrial Revolution one of the greatest changes came about throught the Enclosure Acts of 1801. Prior to these acts, the majority of crop land in Britain was categorized as 'common land', meaning the land was under the control of a manor, but that the land could be used by anyone. The people as a collective had access to it and used it for a wide variety of uses, such as farming varieties crops and grazing for animals. The common land had existed as such since the English revolution of 1688, and could only be changed through an act of Parliament. In the end of the 18th century, Parliament was primarily controlled by great land-owners, who wished to alter the laws on common fields. They did so through the Enclosure Acts of 1801, which authorized the enclosure (using fences, hedges, etc.) of the old common lands, and made land be based off of private ownership rather than communal usage. In doing such, land came under the ownership of wealthy landlords, who in turn leased it to a small class of farmers.

Accompanied by improved methods of cultivation (such as crop rotation), the Enclosure Acts made it possible to greatly increase the productivity of land and farm labor, while also decreasing the amount of the population needed to accomplish this. As a result, many workers who had previously been working in the common fields became dependent on other jobs. At the same time, there were breakthroughs in the textile industry through inventions such as the water frame and power loom, operated by steam engine invented by Richard Arkwright. The jobless citizens that previously relied on the common land as a source of work ended up working in the textile industry and other booming industries. Thus the industrial society grew as it had more access to labor.

The Luddite movement came as a result of the advancements of the textile industry. The Luddites were a secret organization of protesters, primarily made up of textile workers, who were opposed to the use of machinery and technological improvements occuring in the Industrial Revolution. The conditions for working people in England during the Industrial Revolution were very difficult, as workers were subject to long hours, little pay, and economic insecurity. The Luddites' goal was to unite workers against the advancements in the textile industry which made it so that unskilled workers could take their jobs using the mechanized looms and knitting frames, which they believed undermined their craft. The Luddite Movement can be compared to socialist movements of the time because both were preoccupied with protecting the working class (though the Luddites were interested in protecting a specific part of the working class) and were against private ownership of production to some extent, though the Luddites mainly felt this way about the crop lands. However, while socialist movements were primarily concerned with creating a more equal distribution of income for members of sociey and changing the existing economic system as a whole, the Luddites were primarily concerned with protecting their own interests by destroying textile machinery and factories. Altogether, while the Luddite Movement shared some similar goals as socialist movements, their main aims did not overlap, as the Luddite Movement was focused on protecting the interests of a small faction of workers, rather than the working class as a whole.