Industry
For other uses of this term, see Industry (disambiguation)An
industry is generally any grouping of
businesses that share a common method of generating
profits, such as the "music industry", the "automobile industry", or the "cattle industry". It is also used specifically to refer to an area of
economic production focused on
manufacturing which involves large amounts of
capital investment before any
profit can be realized, also called "
heavy industry.". As-of 2004,
Financial services is the largest industry (or category of industries) in the world in terms of
earnings.
Industry in the second sense became a key sector of production in
European and
North American countries during the
Industrial Revolution, which upset previous
mercantile and
feudal economies through many successive rapid advances in technology, such as the development of
steam engines,
power looms, and advances in large scale
steel and
coal production. Industrial countries then assumed a
capitalist economic policy.
Railroads and
steam-powered ships began speedily integrating previously impossibly-distant world markets, enabling private
companies to develop to then-unheard of size and
wealth. Following the
Industrial Revolution, perhaps a third of the world's economic output is derived from manufacturing industries—more than
agriculture's share, but now less than that of the
service sector.
In
economics and
urban planning,
industrial is an intensive type of land use and economic activity involved with
manufacturing and production.
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Clark's Sector Model (1950) |
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Primary sector of industry*
Secondary sector of industry*
Tertiary sector of industry*
Quaternary sector of industry*
Industrial policy*
Adam Smith*
Colin Clark's Sector Model
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capitalism*
communism*
economics*
Industrial archaeology*
Marxism*
political economy*
Industrial process
