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Land enclosures by the English and Scottish Aristocracy during the late 17th and entire 18th century decimated traditional agrarian modes of production.
By fencing off common areas for grazing, hunting, etc. your typical low class farmer could no longer supplement the income/diet gained from farming with goods gathered from public land. The result was thousands of impoverished farmers being forced into the major cities for factory work.
But what if this wasn't the case? What if, by Royal decree or Parliamentary stipulation, the land enclosures were halted?