The article in the thread does not discuss the mechanism by which populations migrated to factories!
Or are you reading a different article? Where are you getting these ideas that peasants were forced to move into the factory towns against their will, or that they considered themselves worse off for doing so?
I will give you some actual facts here (because you appear to be genuinely interested, I can only speak about England which industrialized first).
Urbanisation happened over a long period of time and was very far advanced in the UK (and in places like Belgium). Europe always used a far higher stock of capital (inc. animals) than in Asia but it was only when land began to be enclosed that you saw productivity really improve (it wasn't until the 1700s that European agricultural productivity really equalled places like China), and urbanization accelerate. It is also important to remember that the Industrial Revolution did not happen overnight, there was a period of proto-industrialization when work was "put out" by merchants, this was often in textiles and sometimes with capital/machines that workers owned in their own homes.
It was really in the late 18th/early 19th century that you saw levels of protest begin to rise, as factories started to grow, as workers began to get displaced into factories, and then as workers got displaced by children working in factories. This was a huge "thing" in politics throughout this period, although during the Napoleonic Wars laws were passed which clamped down on protest significantly (Chartism, the Luddites...this was probably the first example of cohesive "working class" political movement anywhere). Importantly though, the only cohesive example (that I know) of protest against agricultural improvement was the Swing Riots in the 1830s, which were localised.
To be clear, this is not because there were no protests but because the protests had happened two centuries earlier with enclosure. That was the main process that really led to agricultural productivity improving (combined with the mortality from the Civil War and migration to the Colonies decreasing the pressure on population). Mechanisation in agriculture wasn't really a factor until much, much later (there was very little need, labour was basically free and ample...the poor laws of the early 19th century were a huge wage subsidy for land owners).
The other stuff the guy you replied to said is way, way off...as I have said elsewhere, this is just feudal romanticism by people who don't understand the past but have their views about the present so just see what they want to see. The standard of living then was significantly below the level existing in every developing nation today. It is fair to say that the industrial revolution treated them no better (the riots I mention above bear that out, it wasn't automation but mechanisation and the introduction of child labour which mechanisation facilitated), but that ignores the massive political changes that occurred soon after (if you look at the UK, the stuff occurring in factories was a huge scandal...a lot of the "political economists" of the day who are famous today unf did not help, but it did get solved and living standards improved).
I am really interested in economic history, so I was aware of the enclosure period, but don't know much about it -- can you recommend some reading material to this and also the Swing Riots? (I know I can google, but books are better)
I can't provide any recommendations on enclosure. I studied it at university, and can't recall what books were recommended.
But if you search for stuff about agricultural productivity, you will find lots. I believe Gregory Clark and Robert Allen have written quite a bit about this.
No idea about the Swing Riots either. I have just read about it in other books. I think Luddism is more interesting. Afaik, there was no real persistent movement like it in agriculture.
