Yeah, but the greatest difference was the dismantling of agrarian communities and support networks with people moving towards the cities to work in the factories.
The workers in the factories did't have the same support networks that farmers and peasants used to have before. When they could count on the help of their extended family and village to obtain stuff like food, clothes or tools.
Or for other stuff like people babysitting their kids or looking after their house when they are away to work.
This destruction of the ancient Clan/Tribal Family made poverty much much worse of how it was in previous ages. Because before, communities would organize to survive togheter.
Now instead, each nuclear family was alone. And if you tried to organize, the factory owners would crack down on you. Because their wealth depended on exploiting the workers and keeping them weak and divided so they could't make demands.
Just think of the Pinkerton in the USA, they are the perfect exemples of the thugs and mercenaries sent by wealthy industrialists against the communities to stop them from organizing during the Industrial Revolution.
So basicaly, the Industrial Revolution sucked for poor people because you had the same problems as before (rich lords/industrialists owning all lands/factories and exploiting you) and lost the few things (tribal family/village community/clan) that once allowed you to survive more easly.
Nobody is arguing that the industrial revolution didn't suck for a quite a lot of people. But consider this? Why
did people go into the cities if those sucked so bad? Because life in the country side could suck pretty bad too. It doesn't matter if you have people willing to give you some help if they've got something to spare, if nobody has anything to spare. For example, because some lord need more cash and instituted a new tax. The economic history of peasants in england before around 1346 could be described as more and more of them getting pushed into inheritable debt-slavery/serfdom. The next ten years would massively improve the economic position of the lower classes, but it did that by way mass death, so people actually had to pay a good wage.
Incidentally, that shift in power away from the landed classes is one of the factors that enabled, if not the industrial revolution itself, then its predecessor the industrious revolution.
Oh, cool! Curious that the technological base exists, the logistics exist, but it's not fully developed. Is this more due to this being a transitional period while machinery becomes more precise, or due to another factor like a lack of demand for a larger volume of products in any given area?
The honest answer is, we don't know. There's only ever been one, and so we can't really compare different cases to see what really mattered (unlike with agriculture, cities or writing, which were independently invented in a bunch of places so we can at least make some comparisons). We can point at a bunch of factors, but it's super hard to weigh them, especially because they all interact, and a set together might be critical but useless if even one part is missing.
But I'll point at a few things for your consideration. Number one is that the people there don't know that a concept like the industrial revolution exists, much less what it means. They might be near a tipping point where things get exciting really fast, if they just put in a little more money on incremental improvements and stuff. But if they don't know that, in most cases a small improvement wouldn't be worth
that much.
I would bet you that chief grug exerted his influence(muscles) on hunter ug or something even before that. Its not like chimpanzee packs or gorilla families don't have hierarchies, and neither is particularily close to even stumbling on agriculture (i think at least).
There's a difference between hierarchy and a power structure. A power structure is solidified. Grug is boss because he's strong and charismatic, and remains that way only so long as nobody is more so (with some advantage for the incumbent). It's pretty meritocratic that way. And if he's
just strong, people can easily just go to the next group. You're probably related to them too.
Agriculture lets you accumulate power over years, hand it to your heirs, and use that power to get more power. You don't need to be strong or charismatic anymore to get a bunch of people to fight for you (though of course it helps). You just need to give them food. And then those people you pay can take the food of other people, so you're making a profit and everyone does what you say. And unlike previously, the people you take the food from can't just leave, because then they'd starve. They have to stay and make more food for you to take (and also eat).
Incidentally, the in-between case of pastoralism has much more fluid power structures, but it still has them because animals do still accumulate, and that can be passed on. But just being able to leave and go somewhere else does put a limit on how tyrannical you can be to them (which applies both internally and for the longest time to external powers too).
Which goes to show why freedom of movement is one of the most important rights to guard against tyranny. Because it can only get so bad if you can just leave (note that not being able to leave can both be because your not allowed or because you can't afford it).
