How did the Industrial Revolution influence other Revolutions during its time?
Eric Williams classic work “Capitalism and Slavery,” addressees this very question. The authors thesis is that the industrial revolution in England brought about the eventual demise of slavery in the West Indies. So while he doesn’t necessarily suggest that the industrial revolution precipitated a similar revolution in the circum-Caribbean or British West indies, he does argue that the industrial revolution in the metropole and its attendant development of wage labor led to the demise of slave labor. Although he also argues that the industrial revolution, the capital on which it was derived, resulted from the profits procured from slave labor and their input in commercial agricultural production (merchant capitalism).
