Explanation of the causes of British moral anomie during the industrial revolution-a comprehensive analysis framework based on religion, thought and education

Abstract In traditional society, economic development and wealth accumulation will generally lead to a significant improvement in the overall moral level of the society, and vice versa. During the period of British industrial revolution, there was a historical phenomenon contrary to it, economic modernization brought about the general moral anomie of British society. The industrial revolution is the period of British social transformation, the causes of moral anomie are complex, and most of the existing studies focus on institutional and economic factors. During the industrial revolution in Britain, there were also secular religious beliefs, utilitarian ideas and laissez faire changes in school education. In the long process of religious secularization, it has caused a vacuum and distortion of morality and ethics. The utilitarianism of ideas breeds extreme egoism and money worship, and aggravates moral anomie. The laissez faire of British school education leads to the backwardness and utilitarianism of British education, which makes education unable to play the role of moral education. The moral dilemma is caused by these reasons, therefore, in order to realize the two-way growth of economic modernization and social moral modernization, we should pay attention to ideological and moral construction while developing economy. Combined with the actual situation of our country, we should actively establish moral norms matching the economic level and realize moral modernization from the aspects of establishing a good social atmosphere, transforming excellent traditional culture and reasonable government intervention in education.

moral modernization from the aspects of establishing a good social atmosphere, transforming excellent traditional culture and reasonable government intervention in education.

Raising questions
The industrial revolution, which originated in Britain, has become a watershed from tradition to modernity and changed the whole human society.Hobsbaum fully affirmed the importance of the industrial revolution in the preface of his works: "without the industrial revolution, we can't understand the prominent historical and personnel changes in the period discussed in this book; without the industrial revolution, we can't understand the complexity of its unbalanced rhythm (Hobbsbaum, 1999)."It is undeniable that the industrial revolution has not only promoted modernization, but also brought many moral problems.The moral problems in Britain under the special historical background of the industrial revolution are a kind of "moral anomie" under the background of "imbalance and complexity", and make Britain fall into the dilemma of coexistence of rapid economic development and general decline of moral level.The continuous spread of this moral dilemma in Britain has had an extremely adverse impact on the further rapid and healthy development of its economy.The problem of moral anomie intensifies class contradictions and widens class gap, resulting in periodic economic crisis.In 1825, cotton textile companies, banks and securities companies went bankrupt one after another, and 71 local banks went bankrupt in just six months (Hobbsbaum, 1832).The problem of moral anomie in the transformation period of British economic modernization had a serious impact on the country, but it was alleviated by taking a series of social reform measures after the industrial revolution.With the advancement of modernization in the world, china is also in the transition period of rapid economic development.There are also moral anomies in china, such as selfishness and indifference, commercial dishonesty, luxury and waste.These are not conducive to china's progress towards a modern society.Therefore, the exploration of British moral anomie has a certain reference significance for the development of our society.
Moral anomie is a compound noun, which is basically defined as a phenomenon of "relative confusion of social behavior" formed by people deviating from the original "moral requirements of social regulations" (Gao, 2007).
The meaning of moral anomie is very broad, in recent years, research on moral anomie by British and American scholars has mostly focused on the theoretical level of sociology (Braithwaite, 2022), as well as exploring interdisciplinary research methods (Steinmetz, 2017).A small amount of research results have also been combined with individual cases of moral anomie in a certain region, but most of the research focuses on modern times (Blanes, 2017).The Industrial Revolution has been taking place for a long time, and moral anomie is relatively abstract.It is not easy to conduct specialized research on moral anomie in the industrial era of Britain.It is necessary to combine history with sociology, and the research results are even fewer, mainly scattered in some historical monographs (Roberts, 2004).
The causes of British moral anomie during the industrial revolution are very complex, and the formation of different moral anomies has different factors.Xu Jieming and others pointed out that the changes in the economic and social status of the British emerging industrial bourgeoisie and their success in investing in industry and commerce are the main reasons for the formation of greedy money worship (Li, 2017).Xu jieming and others paid attention to finding the reasons from the economic and political perspective, and also mentioned the adverse impact of money worship on bourgeois morality, but there was no further discussion on the ideological root of British bourgeois money worship.Tillo, a famous American ethicist, believes that morality is a spiritual force maintained by social public opinion, people's beliefs, habits, traditions and education (Tillo, 1989).Morality is an inseparable part of thought, which naturally has a direct and important impact on it.
At the same time, Tillo point out that education also plays an important role in morality.Because education "implies the great secret of personality perfection, it brings all the goodness of mankind through education."(Wanqiu & Jiawei, 2020).Obviously, education has the function of moral education.By analyzing the situation of the British working class, Jiang defu concluded that the reasons for the moral anomie of workers are the greed of capitalists, the low education of workers, poverty, bad living environment, population concentration, forced labor and so on (Defu, 2017).He also looked for the reasons mainly from the economic and institutional levels, and added the impact of educational factors on workers' morality, which made up for the shortcomings of existing research to a certain extent and played a guiding role.However, it is limited to the analysis of the education situation of the British working class and ignores the impact of the overall education situation on moral anomie during the British industrial revolution.British education and thought are closely connected with religion.Education should be strictly controlled by religion (Hongjun, 2018), even "British core values are based on christian values as a whole."(Xuan, 2017) Because Britain is a country with strong traditional religious beliefs (Weiliang, 2007a), "British religion has formed a complete system of ethical norms in its historical development, and some reasonable moral factors in line with the needs of contemporary social development are preserved in its doctrines and rules" (Shaoqing, 2011).Religious belief not only affects British thought and education, but also affects all aspects of British social life.Wei changling also believes that "the forces and factors affecting people's moral belief are multifaceted and multi-level", but "the influence of religious belief on moral belief can not be ignored, even decisive (Changling, 2015).Since the industrial revolution, the secular influence of religion on Britain has gradually decreased.The mainstream thought and education in Britain began to get rid of the control of religion and develop independently, which together had an important impact on the moral field of Britain.Based on the important influence of religion, thought and education on morality, and the research on the expression of moral anomie in Britain at this time is scattered in various monographs (Qiang, 2017), This paper mainly uses the historical data analysis method of history to sort out the main forms of moral anomie in British society under the background of the industrial revolution, and then combines the relevant theories of sociology to analyze the deep reasons of moral anomie in the British economic transition period from the three dimensions of religion, thought and education in the Britain, trying to provide some useful reference for the moral anomie in the process of China 's modernization.

The emergence of the dilemma of moral anomie in British society
Moral judgment, like many other behaviors studied in social psychology, is automatic, is performed without conscious control, and (at least sometimes) cannot be examined introspectively.Therefore, the evaluation of whether morality is anomie must be related to the general psychological facts of the British people at that time and social events (Rini, 2017).Hume believes that "the root of moral problems is the difference between good and evil, virtue and malice" (Hume, 2001).Therefore, the "direct basis" for measuring moral behavior is the external expression of human nature, such as egoism and altruism, self love and benevolence" (Qiugao, 2020).Religious belief has always played an important role in modern British social life.Since the religious reform, the "core of moral society of the British people is the christian belief dominated by British anglicans" (Mingyuan, 2017)."Thrift, diligence and self-discipline" advocated by the ideological core of "altruism" and "benevolence" contained in the British church (Yuan, 2015), this became the universal moral standard of all strata of British society before the industrial revolution.Morality has both "universality" and "relativity" (Xiuli & Shengzhen, 2007).With the rise of the industrial revolution, the mobility among British social strata has been continuously strengthened, and the traditional two-tier vertical social structure of Britain has gradually transitioned to a new horizontal accumulation of upper, middle and lower social structures (Chengdan, 2016), the "space, time and richness of activities" of different classes determine the "relativity of morality" (Peng, 2018).Although the three British strata are in the same historical period of the industrial revolution, the social wealth and social status of the three strata are very different.Their main activities are different in different areas.The spatial differences make the three British strata show different tendencies of moral anomie.
There are not only the "alcoholism and crime" of the lower class (Engels, 1962), but also the extreme "greed" of the middle-class industrial and commercial people (Payne, 1974), and the phenomenon of moral anomie such as "sexual moral confusion" of the upper class aristocrats (Lawrence stone, 2011).

Alcoholism and crime at the bottom
During the industrial revolution, the demand for labor increased, and a large number of peasants poured into city into workers.Workers replaced farmers and became the representatives of the lower level people at this time.In the early stage of the industrial revolution, most British farmers were "simple minded and ignorant (Hamilton, 1965).They worked hard all day and lived a simple and happy pastoral life.After the industrial revolution, in terms of the original religious moral standards, Wesleyan advocated "diligence, integrity, moderation and conscious hard work" has gradually become the moral code generally followed by the bottom people (Wenying, 2000a).Factory system and high-intensity forced labor make it difficult for workers to have moral anomie in factories, but the bottom people have moral anomie contrary to it in life.Alcoholism is becoming a fast-growing habit, look at the poor families, and you will find that the father is an alcoholic, the mother is also an alcoholic, the son steals and the daughter is a prostitute (The Times, 1785).It can be seen that the general moral deficiency of the lower class is mainly reflected in men's alcoholism, women's prostitution and children's crime, among which men's alcoholism is the most core and fundamental moral problem.Workers' alcoholism can easily "lead their wives and children" to be forced into the criminal road of "stealing to satisfy their hunger", which greatly increases the crime rate in Britain (The Times, 1818).According to the statistics of the British ministry of the interior, in England and Scotland, the number of crimes increased nearly seven times from 1805 to 1842 (Engels, 2005).At that time, the vast majority of urban crimes were robbery and theft, and juvenile robbery and theft were the most prominent.In Manchester, "between 1794 and 1811, the number of property crimes under the age of 19 accounted for 26% of the total number of crimes, between 1820 and 1822, the number of property crimes under the age of 19 accounted for 48% of the total number of crimes, and the juvenile crime rate increased from the original 1/4 to nearly half" (Peter, 2006).
The number of these people is unbelievable.These behaviors violate religious moral standards such as "moderation, diligence and integrity".

Commercial dishonesty of medium-sized businessmen and squeezing workers
The composition of the middle class is also particularly complex, it mainly includes professionals such as doctors and lawyers, as well as squires and emerging industrial bourgeoisie and entrepreneurs (Christie & Oxon, 1928).In the early stage of the industrial revolution, a large number of new industrial enterprises and companies were established, and the emerging industrial and commercial class rose rapidly and became the representative of this class.At this time, industrial enterprises and businessmen, and modern enterprises in Britain are still in their infancy.Most industrial and commercial capitalists are busy doing business and setting up factories, and pay less attention to their families.For industrial and commercial capital in the Victorian era, work is all production, all idleness is a sin (Shaowei, 1981).Therefore, the scope of activities of this group is mainly in their workplace.Diligence, thrift, honesty and reasonable profit-making advocated by protestant ethics have become the moral norms of British capitalism during the industrial revolution (Weber, 1986).However, after the 18th century, with the great development of commodity economy, businessmen ignored the code of professional ethics of integrity in order to obtain more profits.Fake and shoddy goods and false advertisements began to emerge in the British market.Among them, there are very fake products, such as severely shrunk flannel socks and thin glazed porcelain (Engels, 1956a).The phenomenon of making and selling fake goods is also very common.According to the statistics of the Manchester guardian, in the business field, as many as 96 people have been punished for making and selling fake products in a short period of 9 days (Engels, 1956b), these behaviors belong to the moral misconduct of commercial dishonesty.In order to save costs and pursue wealth, factory owners also sharply cut workers' wages and employ a large number of less paid child workers, women workers and the disabled.Textile workers after the industrial revolution: "work 14 hours a day, and they don't earn enough money to eat two meals" (Chengdan, 1992) "In 1839, among 41,956 workers in great britain 192,887 were under the age of 18" (Marx, 1973), child labour accounted for 46 percent of all workers at that time.This extreme exploitation of workers by factory owners seriously goes beyond the scope of "reasonable profitmaking", and even loses the basic moral code as a human being.British history even angrily criticized that "the British people have never suffered such a fatal blow to their vitality because of plague, famine or war.It is because they have established a factory system without proper protective measures" (Briggs et al., 1991).

Waste and corruption of the upper nobility
The upper class refers to the noble class and high-level people from political, religious, military and legal circles.Most high-level people from political, religious, military and legal circles come from noble families.Therefore, the upper class people are mainly represented by nobles.Before the industrial revolution, the nobility had an absolute advantage in British politics and economy.Therefore, most of the nobles lived a comfortable life and had no worries about food and clothing."Politeness, humility and kindness, free and easy attitude, calm and confident, stable behavior and generous" (Li, 2014), and other noble spirits are the basic norms of behavior generally accepted by the upper class of British society.Therefore, before the industrial revolution, they paid great attention to their image status in the public.They behaved appropriately and had noble morality, which was an example for the British people.After the industrial revolution, the life of the upper nobility began to move to another extreme.They squandered a lot of money in their luxurious life."In the 18th and 19th centuries, velvet and silk became common materials for upper class clothing, and whale bone skirt, waist girdle and bra became the standard clothing of upper class society for a long time" (Li, 2015).It is the most fashionable thing to keep a gentle mistress outside the legal spouse or replace the legal spouse with a mistress" (Sambat et al., 2000).In order to maintain their extravagant life, some nobles who regarded the noble spirit as the foundation began to run all kinds of business and finance (Yuanxu, 2016).In officialdom, government officials spend their time playing cards, gambling and drinking (Sui, 1998).It is recorded that "with the visa approval of royal officials, various casinos are all over the streets, there are 296 gambling tables in only one card game in the two districts near westminster" (Roberts & Roberts, 1980).Gambling was originally a bad habit, but now it has become a way for aristocrats to socialize and entertain, and even spend a lot of money to lose their wealth."The spirit of nobility is not the spirit of nouveau riche.It has never been opposed to the spirit of civilians, nor does it mean a leisurely and luxurious way of life.It is a pioneer spirit centered on a series of values such as honor, responsibility, courage and self-discipline" (Peng, 2014).The waste and corruption of British aristocratic life have abandoned the core of the original aristocratic spirit.

Causes of moral anomie dilemma
The development of economy and the increase of social wealth are conducive to the improvement of social moral level to a certain extent.However, the rapid economic development during the British industrial revolution caused the problem of moral anomie.What is the reason?Engels believed that the social transformation caused by the industrial revolution was an important reason for the moral anomie in Britain at this time (Engels, 1956c)."Social transformation is a long-term process of structural transformation in many aspects of human society" (Qun, 2012a).The British industrial revolution not only promoted the transformation from traditional society to modern society, but also impacted the single traditional cultural field dominated by religion.This makes the secularization of religious belief, the utilitarianism of ideas and the laissez faire and pluralistic characteristics of educational development constantly appear, which has some adverse effects on social morality.

The secularization of religious belief leads to the emergence of moral vacuum
"Secularization is a process in which religious consciousness, activities and institutions lose their importance to society" (Eliard, 1987).Larry Shiner, an American religious sociologist, believes that religious secularization is manifested as follows: the decline of religion, religion has become compatible with modern market economy from content to form, religion has become a purely private affair, various doctrines play the role of religious agents, the sanctity of religion decrease and religion change to a secular society (Kangsheng & Yao, 2000).In the 18th century, the rise of modern natural science and industrial revolution in Britain greatly promoted the development of religious secularization, the sanctity of religion began to decline, the standard of value evaluation based on religious belief began to waver, and religious belief became a personal affair (Chengdan, 1988).At this time, the secularization of religion in Britain mainly presents two aspects: on the one hand, there is a belief crisis, the number of believers is decreasing, and the church is deserted, on the other hand, religious sects are very active and widely participate in social activities in the world (Weiliang, 2007b).The secularization of the church in Britain is conducive to breaking the ideological constraints of the church on the British people, this will promote the further development of science, technology and economy.However, the secularization of religion in Britain is a long process.The decreasing number of religious believers shows that the lower class religions in British society are too backward in the process of secularization and have not been adjusted in time, resulting in a moral vacuum after the lower class people are in a new environment.The wide participation of religious sects in practical activities will promote the upper and middle-level people to meet the needs of real economic development in the process of British religious secularization, so as to exceed the due limit and distort or even abandon the original religious ethics.In this way, the binding force of British traditional religious moral norms on secular activities gradually weakened, religion lost its original positive role in educating people, and finally led to the emergence of moral anomies at all levels of British society.During the industrial revolution, although the religious enthusiasm of the bottom people was still high, the religious concept had changed, and the traditional national religious commandments could not bind the daily life and behavior of the bottom people (Weiliang, 2007c).Because the industrial revolution intensified the flow of rural population to cities.According to statistics, by 1841, only 20% of adult males in England and wales were farmers, and in Scotland, the proportion of adult males was less than 28% (Xiaochuan, 2005a).
From a psychological perspective, the environment directly affects behavior, this kind of mobility has greatly changed the living environment of the original parish system of the British bottom people.In the traditional agricultural society, the population is basically in a fixed state.Farmers living in the same parish basically participate in the activities of the church every week and receive the education and instruction of the church.Everyone's behavior in the parish will be supervised by the church."Due to the regular implementation of religious ceremonies, personal moral passion can be continuously regenerated" (Xiaochuan, 2005b).This means that everyone's morality in the traditional agricultural society is constrained by the traditional parish structure.When people live in a new environment, "individuals and society have lost their bond, and the whole society is in a state of scattered sand" (Feng, 2021).In the new environment, Britain "lost its supervision and education of rural life, ignored the spiritual needs of the population in the new industrial zone, and the lower class people were forgotten" (Tocqueville, 2013).When the changed environment is incompatible with the ideological habits of adapting to another set of environment, it requires changes in ideological habits (Wenying, 2000c).However, the spread of the new evangelical ethics needs a lot of financial support.Poverty not only makes the new evangelical ethics spread very slowly among the bottom people, but also in order to obtain basic means of living, the bottom people have to abandon the old religious ethics and even go to the road of crime.The rise of industry made the doctrine of the British church more and more unable to meet the practical requirements of industrial and commercial development.In order to save the decay and decline of the church, the British puritans reformed the church and developed some protestant ideas and values, which became the spiritual driving force to promote the development of the British industrial economy (Van, 2017).The Protestant idea advocates that people work hard and live frugally to realize self salvation by increasing the value of wealth (Zhaoyi, 2015).On this basis, the British protestant doctrine also inherited the idea of justification by deeds in puritanism.People linked the amount of wealth with whether they could become god's voters, and developed the protestant spirit of self-help and self-esteem.Protestant doctrine is especially adapted to the practical needs of medium-sized industrial and commercial capitalists starting from the bottom society, and has been widely spread in British industrial areas (Weber et al., 2009).Protestantism essentially changed the negative attitude towards wealth in the traditional doctrine, encouraged industrial and commercial capitalists to actively pursue wealth and promote the development of industrial economy.However, combining the profit seeking behavior of medium-sized businessmen with their own redemption and the realization of god's glory essentially puts a layer of legal and sacred coat on the profit seeking behavior of medium-sized businessmen.
Psychological research shows that:"in the moral dilemma, the higher the level of self involvement, the easier it is to stimulate the conflict between cognition and emotion (Yiping et al., 2017).
The Tang Daixin thought that in many times, consciously avoiding morality became a convenient way to maximize benefits (Wenying, 2000b).With the encouragement of protestant doctrine, medium-sized businessmen can not adjust the inherent contradiction between religious ethics and the pursuit of profit maximization in the process of making profits, which will lead to the moral anomie of seeking profit maximization by all means.The spirit of self-help can stimulate the internal drive of medium-sized industrial and commercial people to start a business through selfreliance, but it is also easy to turn the traditional interpersonal relationship of mutual assistance and friendship into a naked financial interest relationship, which leads to egoism (Xing, 2020).The secularization of religion also impacted some ideas of the upper city aristocrats to a certain extent.The British upper class nobles are mainly Anglicans who believe in the church of england.They have always been active supporters of the traditional rites and teachings of Catholicism.However, the rise of the european enlightenment in the 18th century inevitably had an impact on the British church.The enlightenment movement produced the trend of thought of rationalism.Rationalism has rich connotation, but its main purpose is to oppose the bondage of religion on human thought, promote self-consciousness, oppose the bondage of personality, and carry forward the spirit of humanism (Jieming & Qiang, 2011).When rationalism was combined with British religious belief, conservative Britain did not have a complete anti religious situation, resulting in a limited religious tolerance situation in which rationality and belief coexist (Maoqing & Cen, 2021).In other words, during the industrial revolution, although religious belief still played a restrictive role in aristocratic life, this constraint was deeply branded with personality liberation, which formed a strong contrast with the excessive suppression of human nature by religious morality in the past.Once the thought of the upper aristocracy, which had been suppressed for a long time, began to liberate, it went to the other extreme.At this time, in most noble families, sexual chaos is regarded as a normal thing and an insignificant thing (Hempton, 2002).At this time, in most noble families, sexual chaos is regarded as a normal thing and an insignificant thing.The openness of sexual concept makes many upper class people begin to indulge in their instincts, and proclaim the fanatical worship of these instincts as the highest significance of survival (Murray, 1998).Therefore, the sexual liberation of the British upper class nobles further encouraged them to break the shackles of religion, and pursue the pleasure desire of a real and happy life, the upper class nobles further changed the concept of placing hope on the afterlife and the principle of self-discipline in the present world, by the 18th century, the concept of instant gratification had become popular among the upper nobility.Bernard Mandeville put forward the idea that the pursuit of enjoyment leads to national prosperity, and frugality and simplicity lead to national recession, which provides a reasonable theoretical basis for the extravagance of the upper class (Fuchs, 2000).

The utilitarianism of ideas covers up moral anomie
Utilitarianism is an ideological and value concept developed on the basis of liberalism driven by the industrial revolution (Hundert, 1994), its core proposition is to pursue the greatest happiness of the greatest majority of people (Jinhong, 2008).Before and after the industrial revolution, the rapid development of British economy made utilitarianism a popular idea in British society.Utilitarianism tries to find the objective standard of moral evaluation outside the idea of God and man.At the same time, it embodies the value pursuit of moral people-oriented (Bentham, 2009), it makes a useful supplement and improvement to the early moral theory.However, there is a contradiction between maximizing personal interests and maximizing social interests in utilitarianism theory (Minghua, 1998), therefore, when the interests of the two are contrary, it is very easy to cause the continuous expansion of self-interest (Jinzhong & Lihua, 2006), it leads to the alienation of utilitarianism and the tendency of egoism.Under the social background of British industrial revolution, the core concept advocated by utilitarianism is more difficult to realize.Because the industrial revolution broke the traditional unbreakable permanent barrier between all classes based on blood relationship, a social mobility situation based on wealth emerged.This indicates that wealth has replaced birth as the new standard for measuring everything in britain (Harvie et al., 1970).When wealth replaces blood as an important indicator to measure the status of the state and individuals, it weakens the positive side of utilitarianism, and strengthens the secular profit oriented moral outlook.Utilitarianism is easy to alienate and produce bad ideas such as money worship and egoism.Although the industrial revolution enabled a small number of people at the bottom to improve their social status through their own efforts, the bottom workers under the factory system were deeply exploited.They work hard, the life of the whole family is still difficult to be guaranteed, and poverty erodes their body and spirit all the time.Therefore, for most people, being able to eat and wear warm is the greatest happiness they pursue.However, according to statistics, during the industrial revolution, there was almost one beggar in every 20 people in britain.In society, one-fifth of people were naked, one-third of families were overcrowded, and six people shared a room (McFarlane, 2008b).During the British industrial revolution, the current situation of workers living in poverty was far from the happiness advocated by utilitarianism (Hussey, 1984).Although utilitarianism has a distinct characteristic of attaching great importance to realistic perception, it encourages people to actively adapt to the surrounding environment through internal self transformation as much as possible, so as to improve their actual quality of life (Chuanming & Guo, 2011).However, hard work can't make them live a better life than before.Therefore, there is a serious contradiction between the desire for a happy life and the inability to obtain it through their own efforts.According to merton's theory, for the majority of the poor and ethnic minorities, they have neither much formal education nor necessary economic resources.They are often in the tension between cultural goals and legal means, and urge them to adopt deviant ways to achieve their goals (Fenglin & Lei, 2020).So utilitarianism is alienated into extreme money worship.It is very popular to obtain wealth through speculation of getting something for nothing and getting rich overnight.In the industrial revolution, the wealth and status of medium-sized businessmen were increased, and their business enterprising spirit was stimulated.Business enterprising spirit makes industrial and commercial capitalists become diligent and thrifty.However, under the background of the industrial revolution, utilitarian successors have developed the concept that if they want to realize the happiness of most people, they can simply superimpose personal happiness.The realization of personal happiness is particularly important (Cohen & Wenhong, 1988).Their business enterprising spirit is easy to go to the extreme of only focusing on the pursuit of personal interests.Thus, the business spirit destroys the original social relations, which promotes the continuous expansion of self-interest (Christopher et al., 1970).In commodity economic activities, the essence of making money is to try to get more profits.Expanding the market, improving technology and raising commodity prices can certainly make profits, but these measures should harm the immediate interests of businessmen and businessmen.Reducing production costs has become another best choice to improve profits.There are two main ways to reduce production costs: one is to produce a large number of low-quality goods by reducing the price of production materials.Due to the alienation of utilitarianism, it pays too much attention to safeguarding the personal interests of businessmen.With the development of industry, the public moral economy gradually gives way to the political economy of the market and factories (Mcfarlane, 2008a).Therefore, adulteration is rarely investigated by law unless it is related to tax evasion (Briggs, 2015), counterfeit goods are popular in the market.One way is to make more profits by squeezing workers indefinitely.Although the labor law was promulgated as early as the period of king edward III, it is only beneficial to employers because of the excessive development of individualism in utilitarianism (Engels, 1956d).In the absence of legal constraints, the exploitation of bottom workers by industrial and commercial workers will naturally go beyond the boundaries of morality and nature, age and nature, day and night (Qun, 2012b).It can be seen that the alienation of utilitarianism has greatly stimulated the thought of egoism and money worship of industrial and commercial people, and covered up their moral anomie in business and factory to a certain extent.The utilitarianism of the upper nobility was also alienated under the impact of the industrial revolution.After the industrial revolution, Britain has become a money oriented society.This affected the social status of the British upper class nobles who were born and gained prominent status.The inherent hierarchy and superior position made the upper nobility unable to accept their decline.In order to consolidate their status, the upper class nobles also began to breed the tendency of money worship.On the one hand, some of them began to change their business mode and engage in the industry and commerce they despised before, on the other hand, social status is often strengthened through a conspicuous lifestyle (Marx, 1975).In life, they began to show off their consumption behavior in order to publicize that they still have an absolute advantage in economy.In this way, extreme utilitarianism dispels the influence of diligence and frugality on the upper class nobles in protestant ethics through the de moralization of luxury.The extreme poverty of the people at the bottom is in sharp contrast to it (Doyle, 1978).Utilitarianism is indifferent to poverty and believes that the existence of poverty is reasonable and the necessary price for the pursuit of overall social welfare (Ling, 2015).Under the influence of utilitarian alienation, some upper class nobles believed that they were poor and attached to powerful people.This will lead to the decline of individual morality, which is irresponsible to the individual (Mathias, 1976).Society should educate people to actively make a living rather than relieve poverty (Fraser, 1978).Since then, there has been a popular trend of self-help in British society.Therefore, in the face of the extreme poverty of the poor, some people in the upper class have lost their traditional sense of responsibility to help the weak.They would rather waste their money in their luxurious life and pleasure than relieve the poor.They even attribute the extreme poverty of the poor to their own laziness.Under the self-help view, the traditional utilitarianism can not adjust the requirements of welfare maximization and equality, and the British government's policy towards public welfare has begun to change accordingly (Dazhi, 2021).In 1834, the British government changed the old poverty relief policy and introduced a new poverty relief law: the poverty of the lower class was regarded as a crime to suppress, and the way of hospital relief was adopted.The cruelty of the workhouse lies not only in the lack of material, but also in the psychological torture of people (Anne, 1978).As a result, the poor people worry about their livelihood all day without social relief.They have to break through the moral bottom line and even make a living through various criminal ways.

The laissez faire of school education makes its role of moral education missing
Education is one of the important ways to prevent social moral anomie.During the industrial revolution, British school education gradually replaced family education as the main way of education (Aldrich et al., 1987).In order to meet the needs of the industrial revolution for new talents, British educators tried to make the practicability of the industrial revolution period.Social needs are compatible with the needs of classical educational values with religious belief as the initial goal (Bin, 2018) British school education began to get rid of the control of traditional religion, and established the educational content and goal of combining value needs with industrial reality needs.This laid a certain foundation for the development of education to modernization after the industrial revolution.However, during the industrial revolution, the British government was busy developing its own economy and ignored the development of education, the policy of laissez faire non intervention is basically adopted in education.During the industrial revolution, British education showed a situation of uneven distribution of schools, no guarantee of teaching quality, outdated teaching content and disconnection between education and economic development (Xiaoxiang & Xiaoyun, 2005).British education mainly depends on the power of folk and church, so there are some problems in britain, such as the lag of public education, the utility of middleclass education, the conservatism of aristocratic education and so on (Gangyuan, 1997).At this time, the development of British education in the period of industrial revolution generally lagged behind other capitalist countries in europe, delaying the development path of British moral modernization.This has laid a hidden danger for the emergence of moral anomie at all levels of British society.Due to the neglect of public education by the British government, the school education rights enjoyed by the British bottom people during the industrial revolution have improved, but they are still very limited.Most of them can only complete basic primary education in charitable schools donated by various religious groups and private individuals.The existence of the hierarchical dual track system makes it difficult for them to have the opportunity and conditions to enter secondary education institutions to continue their study.Charity schools mostly adopt the method of part-time work and part-time study.These methods mainly include all kinds of sunday schools funded by churches, businessmen and factory owners (Yifu, 2005).According to statistics, there were 1012 sunday schools in britain in 1795, and the number of sunday schools rose to 6270 in 1819 (Cook & Stevenson, 1980).Since the 19th century, a certain number of adults have attended sunday schools.Sunday school mainly teaches religious thought and the most basic knowledge of reading and writing.The increasing number of charity schools has alleviated the lack of education of the bottom people to a certain extent.However, due to the lack of funds, most of these schools have poor conditions, small scale and limited practical effect.The way of working while learning often overburdens child workers, so that many children continue to escape, live on the streets and engage in criminal activities, this has brought more serious social problems (Black, 1996).The government's neglect of public education also leads to the deviation of the bottom education goal.Whenever there was a textile strike in Manchester, some sunday schools told students it was a crime to rebel against their employers (Laqueur, 1976).Because the main purpose of the bottom education donated by factory owners and businessmen is to cultivate workers with appropriate personality qualities, such as abiding by rules and regulations, obeying orders and so on.In this way, churches and businessmen dominated the education of the British bottom people, while the British government lost its dominance over the bottom people.It makes the educational modernization process of the bottom people extremely slow, and intensifies the moral anomie of the bottom people in britain.As Adam Smith thought: people with education and knowledge often know etiquette better than those who are ignorant and stupid.Among ignorant citizens, fanaticism and superstition often cause the most terrible disturbance (Trevelyan, 1944).The middle-class education under laissez faire shows the development trend of keeping up with the upper aristocratic elite education (Yimin, 2016).During this period, middle-class children could basically receive secondary education similar to aristocratic public schools, and a few could enter higher education.At that time, there were two main types of secondary education in britain: grammar schools, public schools and all kinds of private schools, which had to charge certain fees, so they were mainly to recruit the children of nobles and businessmen.Public schools belong to elite education, with relatively complete teaching contents, including classical courses, practical courses and rich extracurricular activities (Hui & Jiwei, 1993).This has generally improved the educational level of the middle class.However, the education of the British middle class has a very obvious utilitarian color.They imitate the education of the aristocratic elite.The purpose of education is not to improve their moral level, but to enable themselves to join the upper class society.The education of the middle class has become an important tool for the change of the social status of the middle class.The fundamental attribute of education is ethical relationship, and its basic characteristics are non utilitarian and non mandatory (Liu, 2008).Utilitarian education distorts the educational objectives of the British middle class.The middle class's study of aristocratic gentlemanly demeanor is only with strong utilitarian purpose and blind imitation, which is difficult to resist the thought of money worship and egoism due to the temptation of realistic material desires.The aristocratic way of education also has a certain negative impact on the morality of the middle class.The middle-class children baptized by elite education exacerbated their imitation of the aristocratic lifestyle, which made them pay more attention to the pursuit of material and pleasure in life, and their enterprising spirit subsided (Martin, 2004), social extravagance spread to the life of the middle class.The British government's laissez faire education also forced the British traditional aristocratic education to embark on the modernization road of passive self transformation in order to meet the practical needs of modern industrial society.During the industrial revolution, the noble education realized the transformation of mode, and the educational content was richer (Xianming, 2015a).These educational changes improved the social status and public image of the nobility to a certain extent, and formed a new trend of keeping up with the upper class society in the field of British social and cultural life at that time.Because britain has not experienced the complete enlightenment and bourgeois revolution, this spontaneous and passive transformation itself has some inherent limitations, and the noble education still has distinct conservatism and inequality (Xianming, 2015b).Religious forces always occupy a pivotal position in noble education.The teaching contents of noble public schools and higher education are very old and backward.From the beginning, they are shrouded in a religious or moral atmosphere, which dominates their courses and traditional activities (Qinglin, 2006).The original religious morality is divorced from the real industrial society, and can no longer play any practical binding role on the moral anomie of the nobility.Nine public schools, oxford, cambridge and other noble schools have also become political drill grounds and bridges to officials.According to statistics, public school graduates in Britain account for only 0.5% of all Britons, but they occupy the high position of more than 80% of the country (Dewen, 1993).Aristocratic education became a tool for dividing social classes.
Psychological research shows that: under the condition of cognitive load, subjects tend to evaluate their own and others' moral violations in a consistent way, under the condition of no cognitive load, subjects are more tolerant to themselves, and moral hypocrisy appears (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2008).
When the purpose of education has changed, it is no longer a way to guide human progress, but a means to aggravate social differences, the essence of noble education has not changed fundamentally.The noble's moral level can not really improve, but the moral level decreases (Bush, 1984).Although from the appearance, they are well-dressed, elegant, and extraordinary.They seem to be a model of moral education in British society.However, their moral standards are very low (Zhihai, 2015).At this time, the noble status obtained through education has become an excellent shame cloth for them to engage in moral anomie, and the noble's moral anomie is more unscrupulous.

Enlightenment and conclusion
To sum up, the changes in religion, thought and education caused by Britain during the industrial revolution are an important factor in the anomie dilemma of Britain.With the transformation of society to modernization, great changes have taken place in religion, thought and education.In this transitional period, is it absolutely inevitable that the dilemma of moral anomie arises?The answer is no.Because Britain is the first country in the world to realize industrialization and modernization, there is no experience and lesson that predecessors can learn from.And social morality is lagging behind.Morality will not automatically adapt to the requirements of economic modernization and form moral modernization (Jiang, 2013).Therefore, Britain will not take the initiative to prevent and regulate some moral misconduct.Morality also affects the long-term and healthy development of economy to a certain extent.Economic development is important, but in the long run, it is equally important to establish a moral society, which provides an equal, just and harmonious development environment for the economy.At the same time, it is a way to regulate the economy beyond the market and the government.Morality can make up for the blank of economic regulation by the market and the government (Li, 2010).Due to lack of experience, Britain lacks a deep understanding of the harm caused by moral anomie.When the British people have moral anomie, the government is busy with economic development without paying attention, which makes the moral anomie spread everywhere.Therefore, for China, it is necessary to draw lessons from the causes of British moral anomie in order to reduce the re emergence and deepening of some similar moral anomies in the process of economic development.

Promote the transformation of traditional culture to modernization
British religious belief is an important part of British traditional culture.Religious secularization is the process of transforming traditional culture and gradually applying it to reality, which is a long and complex process.There are rich and excellent moral traditions in Chinese traditional culture and thought.What is retained and what is left behind in the process of realizing the traditional culture and modernization is also a question worth pondering over again.Otherwise, it will have a negative effect on social morality like the secularization of religion in England.The Taoist thought of the unity of heaven and man, the mohist thought of universal love and non aggression, and the Confucian thought of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith are all good medicines to improve the current utilitarian and impetuous social atmosphere and resist wrong ideas, which should be inherited and carried forward.However, the thought of inaction in Taoism and the hierarchical thought of Confucianism with the three cardinal principles as the core are feudal dross, which should be completely abandoned.How to transform traditional culture also needs to be handled carefully.If in the process of transformation, like Britain, it exceeds the due limit to excessively meet the needs of real economic development.It will also lose the original positive enlightenment of traditional culture.Therefore, in the modern environment, we should also guard against the excessive transformation of traditional culture by commercial capital and technological forces (Jia, 2021).In the context of economic globalization, China can also realize the exchange and integration of excellent ideas between the east and the west through literature, art, education and other ways.However, the integration with western culture does not mean the loss of Chinese cultural characteristics due to excessive worship of foreign countries.While maintaining its characteristics, it is open and inclusive of cultural forms to realize mutual exchange and mutual learning.We learn the outstanding value of western culture in science, democracy and the rule of law, so that China's traditional fine culture can be better served for modernization.

Shaping a reasonable and enterprising spirit of the times
The spread of extreme utilitarianism is not unique to the British industrial revolution.Under the background of today's economic globalization, it is bound to produce the phenomenon of value diversification, which will make the moral crisis more complex and serious (Xingqiao, 2017).After the social evaluation standards tend to be monetized, the monetized standards constantly squeeze the standards of morality, law and so on.At the same time, the monetization standard is also expelling the original moral standard in people's hearts, and is even becoming the standard to measure the right and wrong of people's practical life, as Agnes Heller said, "we are not talking about the monetization of social relations, because this trend is developing in a straight line, but the expansion of the monetization spirit in all human relations" (Heller, 2005).
With the rapid development of China's economy, wealth plays an increasingly important role in China's modern society, so some negative thoughts of extreme utilitarianism, egoism and money worship hedonism make a comeback and spread rapidly again.Therefore, we must overcome the emergence and development of these bad ideas in the process of economic development.First of all, we should fully realize that economic development is not the faster the better, and the shortterm rapid economic development can not be exchanged at the expense of social morality.China's relevant departments should strengthen the supervision and punishment of the market, severely crack down on fake and shoddy goods in the market, and even adopt a zero tolerance attitude.In case of commercial dishonesty, they should implement a strict industry exit mechanism to stifle commercial dishonesty in the bud.Secondly, we should establish a relatively fair and just social environment to balance individual and collective, immediate and long-term interests.For example, major enterprises can be linked to the reputation of their products by arbitrarily extending their working hours, arbitrarily deducting workers' wages and dismissing workers.Enterprises with good performance can be issued with proprietary certification marks by the government, and then call on the people to buy products with proprietary certification marks.Finally, try to weaken the role of money in society, eliminate various social phenomena that money is omnipotent, and highlight the role of moral norms in reality.The government increased the punishment for moral misconduct.It is a citizen's obligation to abide by the basic moral standards, and it is really combined with the vital rights and interests of citizens.We make full use of the advantages of information society and learn from the experience of some western countries to establish a social integrity archives system.Whether individuals or groups, once unethical behavior is detected, accounting will be included in their integrity files, affecting their personal rights and interests in the society in the future.

government intervention in education
The non intervention policy of British education has led to various disadvantages in the free development of British education, which has an adverse impact on social morality.However, the improvement of education, especially moral education, can not be achieved by the unilateral efforts of schools or society.It is the result of the joint efforts of many parties.The form of family education mainly focuses on moral education, which can make up for the deficiency of the traditional education mode dominated by intellectual education in schools (Pengying & Lin, 2021).The main body of social moral education is society, including social organizations and social groups, which can enrich the ways and contents of education and achieve the effect of empathy (Changrui, 2019).
The government plays a more important role in education, which can guide the correct direction of educational development and provide most of the funds needed for educational development.However, the government's intervention in education should also be moderate, neither absent nor offside.If the government manages education too tightly, it will inevitably lead to the excessive administration of education.In China, there is a phenomenon of excessive government intervention in education, which makes the development of education lack of vitality.Education itself has the dilemma of overstaffing and moral anomie (Chang Chengming, 2019).In the context of economic modernization, economic efficiency can easily replace the development of education.There are also some utilitarian phenomena of education in China (Baoshi et al., 2020).Specifically, schools at all levels are busy making profits and take the pursuit of immediate short-term interests as the main goal.The lack of attention to the essence of education eventually makes the development of education deviate from the normal track, and there are many educational disadvantages.To solve these educational problems, we must first clarify the purpose of education and return to the essence of education.People oriented, pay attention to the cultivation of students' moral education, so that education can really serve the cultivation and development of people, and try to avoid turning education into a tool for social stratification and even seeking benefits.Secondly, the government should continue to increase investment in education, especially in the soft power of education, and vigorously develop public welfare education.We should attach importance to moral education, adhere to the goal of education to achieve people's all-round development, and let the achievements of educational development benefit the general public.The industrial revolution promoted the modernization of British economy and made the great leap forward growth of British social wealth, but it could not provide a feasible path of moral modernization.During the period of industrial revolution, there were secularization of religious belief, utilitarianism of ideas and laissez faire changes in school education in Britain.Because these changes are passive, adapt to the needs of economic modernization, coerced and distorted by a single economic development theory, and finally completely homogenized.After religious belief was distorted by secular economic development, there was a moral vacuum and confusion in Britain.When utilitarianism is alienated by the real money determinism, it weakens its positive side and strengthens the secular profit oriented morality, this conceals and exacerbates britain's moral misconduct.When the British government was busy developing the economy and indulged the freedom of school education, the increasingly backward and utilitarian education lost its function of moral education.The moral anomie dilemma of all levels of British society is caused by these.If we want to develop moral modernization compatible with economic modernization, we should not simply succumb to the needs of economic development, but form exactly the same moral norms as the theory of economic development.Instead, we should turn passivity into initiative, and fully absorb the lessons of paying too much attention to economic development and ignoring moral construction during the British industrial revolution.This is the correct way to realize moral modernization and alleviate the dilemma of moral anomie.