The Industrial Revolution brought profound disruptions to the social, economic, and cultural life of western Europe. Those most affected by industrialization were the artisan classes, whose traditional means of livelihood were disrupted by new methods of manufacturing and who found themselves either out of work or thrust into the growing and increasingly impersonal industrial labor force. For many intellectuals, including public policy makers, industrialization provided an occasion to wrestle with the larger questions of economic dislocation, social alienation, and human value in a world transformed by the machine and mass production.