Was Sir Richard Arkwright a man for himself or good for the essays

Was Sir Richard Arkwright a man for himself or good for the essays Sir Richard Arkwright was a man who was ambitious to succeed to say the least. He seemed very content in making his and John Kays joint invention of the spinning frame, much needed amongst workers in the 17th 18th, a huge global success. Infact he went so far with his business, that he went on to make the first ever factory ever to be made in 1771 in the small town of Cromwell. He began to recruit people to work for his factory, enforcing high pay but strict rules. He then went on to build houses, a church, shops and even a school for his workers and their families, in the hope that his workers will put in there maximum effort to his factory in return for giving them decent living conditions. It seemed to have worked as Arkwright became richer and richer as more and more people came to work under Arkwright. But did Arkwright do all of this for himself or for the whole of society in general? On one side, Arkwright was indeed good for the society. Not only was it impressive that he thought up the idea of the first ever factory, it is also impressive how he worked out a good amount of pay to his workers. Workers for Arkwright earned about 17 shilling a week, working 10 hours a day for 6 days in the week. This amount of pay, despite the fact that it was hard work earning it, was considerably better than the money they would have earned in most other jobs at that time (especially farming). Moreover, Arkwright built a mini-town around his factory in Cromford. However, you could also say that Arkwright was a selfish man. Evidence for this comes with the fact that despite Arkwrights status as one of the men that was the started the industrial revolution, the unanswered question of modern history today is was the credit for starting the industrial revolution given to the wrong men? The history books tell us that James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, Richard Arkwright the spinning frame and Samuel ...