This paper suggests that the demise of the capitalists—workers class structure was a socio-economic transformation orchestrated by the capitalists in reaction to the increasing importance of human capital in sustaining their profit rates. Physical capital accumulation in the process of industrialization enhanced the importance of human capital in production and generated incentives for capitalists to support the provision of public education for the masses, triggering the demise of the existing class structure. The implications of the theory are consistent with the voting patterns on England's education reform of 1902.

The last two centuries have been characterized by dramatic changes in the distribution of income and population across the globe. While Western European economies have tripled their domination in terms of income per capita over Asian economies, significant resources in Asian countries have been channeled into to doubling their lead over Western Europe in the population dimension. This research argues that the rapid expansion of international trade in the second phase of the industrial revolution has played a major role in the timing of demographic transitions across countries and has thereby been a significant determinant of the distribution of world population and a prime cause of the ‘Great Divergence ’ in income levels across countries in the last two centuries. The analysis suggests that international trade had an asymmetrical effect on the evolution of industrial and non-industrial economies. While in the industrial nations the gains from trade were directed primarily towards investment in education and growth in output per capita, a significant portion of the gains from trade in non-industrial nations was channeled towards population growth. In the second phase of the Industrial Revolution, international trade enhanced the spe-cialization of industrial economies in the production of industrial, skilled intensive, goods. The associated rise in the demand for skilled labor induced an investment in the quality of the population, expediting a demographic transition, stimulating technological progress and fur-ther enhancing the comparative advantage of these industrial economies in the production of skilled intensive goods. In non-industrial economies, in contrast, international trade generated an incentive to specialize in the production of unskilled intensive, non-industrial, goods. The