The slow and uneven spread of industrialization in Europe after 1815 (see Chapter 23) meant that the benefits of higher productivity were not felt by many. In Great Britain, the earliest adopter of industrial methods, living standards did not rise until the 1840s, and this trend took longer to spread to the continent. Most of the continent remained agricultural, and the traditional social hierarchy, dominated by a landowning aristocracy, persisted. In the early nineteenth century the pressures of a rapidly growing population, the adoption of new forms of agriculture, and the spread of exploitative rural industry destabilized these existing patterns.

Many of the social conflicts that ensued resembled those of the eighteenth century. Peasants resented the demands of their noble landlords and state tax collectors. Many lost access to collective land due to enclosure and the adoption of more efficient farming techniques. The growing number of cottage workers resisted exploitation by merchant capitalists, and journeymen battled masters in urban industries. Serfdom still existed in the Hungarian provinces of the Austrian Empire, Prussian Silesia, and Russia.1

What transformed these conflicts was the political ideologies born from the struggles and unfulfilled hopes of the French Revolution — liberalism, nationalism, and socialism — as well as the newly invigorated conservatism that stood against them. These ideologies helped turn economic and social conflicts into the revolutions of 1848.