11.6: Summary

Industrial production changed the relationship of people to their environments. Folk (pre-industrial) cultures used local resources and knowledge to hand-produce goods. Now the productions of goods and the provisioning of services can be split into innumerable spatially discrete pieces. Competition drives the costs of goods and services downward providing relentless pressure to cut costs. This process has pushed industrialization into most corners of the world as companies have looked further and further afield to find cheaper labor and materials and to find more customers. Industrialization has fueled a change in lifestyle, as goods have become cheaper, they have become more accessible to more people. Our lives have changed. We now live according to a schedule dictated by international production.

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