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Inventions and the Free Market

As the factory system of manufacturing became widespread, work was gradually reorganized. Where family members might be employed by an entrepreneur to sew or craft merchandise in their home, they were now replaced by machines that performed those same tasks more quickly and cheaply. For example, instead of the entrepreneur's receiving only 10 or 20 items from his home workers in the course of a day or a week, it was now possible to produce hundreds of items in the same amount of time in a factory.

As the nature of work changed, so did the social conditions. People who once worked on farms moved to the manufacturing centers in order to work in factories. Small communities grew into moderate-sized towns and towns expanded into cities.

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