Pre-industrial England existed with a class system.   At its apex were hereditary royalty, the nobility, and the politically connected and privileged, who together all owned nearly all of the wealth.

Socialists and their statist defenders argue that about only two percent of the population of England at the time owned and controlled about 80 percent of the wealth.

There is reason to discount this claim to a degree, but it cannot be entirely shrugged off.

It is estimated for example that the upper classes were something more on the order of five percent of the population, but certainly this group of persons did dominate the country and did control the greatest amount of the wealth that existed.

Below this group was another group of persons, expanding gradually in number and proportion through the years, that came to be known as the "middle class".  These were people who, while not politically connected or privileged, still managed to acquire and to own some property and to live fairly well by the standards of the day.

These were the merchants (who usually purchased monopolies from the king), the trades people, the master craftsmen, the builders, the artisans, and the freeman - or "socmen" - who had somehow managed to obtain and to own a few acres of land, and who supported themselves on the strength of the properties they owned and used for production or trade.

Below this middle class existed the rest of the population - perhaps as many as 87 percent of the people in England at the time.

Although it could be stated as an estimate (for no reliable figures are available), that the "middle class"- comprising about eight percent of the population - owned about ten percent of the available wealth.

The remaining ten percent of the wealth then was "owned", or at least "used" by the balance of the population.

Here is the substantive, critical point:  When the Industrial Revolution occurred in Britain, it was the lower classes - 95% to 98% of the population of England - who benefited the most.

Nearly everyone benefited to some degree, but industrialization lifted the standard of living of the lower classes as if by magic.

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