How has the Economy Changed? The Growth of Industry

Changes in the economy clearly had an impact on the way the law operated − the problems with which it dealt and the issues which required to be regulated.

The growth of industry changed the type of problem that the law handled. Before industrialisation, towns had small businesses which produced smells and fumes − for example the tannery (producing leather) or the blacksmith’s shop or the potter. With the industrial revolution, the scale of issues changed dramatically − whole towns could be affected by an industry, not just an area of a town. New technologies also made it possible to reduce nuisances, but at a cost. The real question was how much ought to be spent in order to reduce a risk of harm. There could be many example of this. The Technological Change Case Study highlighted how new technologies came with risks as well as rewards, and determining who should bear which, and in what proportion, could take decades. In more recent times, the Products Liability Case Study for instance, deals with this issue: the European Directive of 1985 specifically decides that risks of harm should be borne by the producers of goods, as they are the best to spread that loss.

Different countries took different attitudes to the threats of harm posed by new industries. The researchers working on the impact of the Economy argue that, for instance, that the British railways were saddled with far greater costs than other railways. This happened through the legislation which initially authorized the construction of rail lines, rather than through tort law. In Italy and Spain, the courts were not willing to make industry liable very easily for the dangers of products or the harm caused by pollution, because they were afraid this would make emerging industries uneconomic.