All terms in this list:

unions: Plural form of union.

james watt: a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.

capitalism: a socio-economic system based on private property rights, including the private ownership of resources or capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of an unregulated market.

adam smith: a Scottish moral philosopher, pioneer of political economy, and key Scottish Enlightenment figure.

laissez faire: Practicing or representing governmental noninterference, or minimal interference, especially in economic affairs; pertaining to free-market capitalism.

mass production: The process of manufacturing products on a large scale.

free enterprise system: An economic system where few restrictions are placed on business activities and ownership. In this system, governments generally have minimal ownership of enterprises in the market place. This system aims for limited restrictions on trade and minimal gove

producers: Plural form of producer.

social reform: reform movement are often gradual movement that make subtle changes to particular characteristics of society

consumers: Plural form of consumer.

proletariat: The wage earners collectively, excluding salaried workers.

reform bill of 1832: any of the bills passed by Parliament providing for an increase in the number of voters in elections for the House of Commons, especially the bill of 1832 by which many rotten boroughs were disfranchised.

karl marx: German founder of modern communism, in England from 1849. With Engels, he wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848). He developed his theories of the class struggle and the economics of capitalism in Das Kapital (1867; 1885; 1895).