England, after the reign of Henry VIII, was the only country in Europe to have a land owning middle class. They replaced the traditional nobility, which had almost disappeared after the Wars of the Roses. When this landed middle class, or " gentry ", purchased the land they did so with the firm intention of using it to make a profit. Hundreds of thousands of peasants were forced off the land so that it could be enclosed (fenced off) in order to raise sheep. Sheep provided wool for the manufacture of textiles, which were England’s traditional export to the rest of Europe. It worked. The landed gentry made enormous profits. This social class did not exist in other European countries, where land was still owned by the traditional nobility who rented most of it to the peasants.
It is not only necessary to have people with money. They must also be prepared to risk losing that money in order to make a profit (the risk would have to be small, of course) by investing it in new commercial enterprises. In Britain this " middle class risk mentality " existed; in the rest of Europe it did not. This was because the British middle class not only had money, they also had political power (which made them unique in Europe). This meant that they had the power to abolish the old laws which, up to then, had discouraged trade, commerce and profit, and introduce new laws which were more to their advantage. Another vital point was that Britain was the only country in Europe to have a national bank, the Bank of England, and a national Stock Exchange, or bourse, which encouraged people to invest money in companies in order to earn a profit.

Rapid Union Growth Provokes a Hostile Reaction
These periods of rapid union growth end because social upheaval provokes a hostile reaction. Union growth leads employers to organize, to discover their own collective interests. Emulating their workers, they join together to discharge union activists, to support each other in strikes, and to demand government action against unions. This rising opposition ends periods of rapid union growth, beginning a new phase of decline followed by longer periods of stagnant membership. The weakest unions formed during the union surge succumb to the post-boom reaction; but if enough unions survive they leave a movement larger and broader than before.