The formation of industrial society in Western Europe at the start of the Modern Age
After the discoveries a great deal of gold and silver came to Europe from America, coins multiplied and prices rose fast — this is called the “price revolution”. Families no longer lived only from subsistence farming but began to sell produce at market. Big merchants did wholesale trade by contract at permanent exchanges instead of occasional fairs; in the 15th century a modern-style bank appeared in Genoa, the Bank of St George. For risky long-distance trade merchants joined shareholding companies: a shareholder received a part of the profit. A manufactory is a large workshop based on hand labour with the work divided up; workers were paid wages. As a result a bourgeoisie (class of entrepreneurs) and a proletariat (wage workers without means of production) appeared; society began to divide into classes by capital rather than into estates.
“Shareholders’ meeting”: split the class into groups; each forms an imaginary trading company, “sells” shares and divides profit by share.