5.8 Flashcards
Reactions to Industrial Economy
Industrial worker resistance
- lack of safety regulations
- dangerous work conditions
- disease spread easily and rapidly
- people lost extremities
- extremely low wages because factory jobs required easily replaceable, unskilled labor
- horrible living conditions; tenements
So, they created Labor Unions: an organized group of workers that uses their collective voice to bargain for reforms. Originally aimed towards work reforms, but once they realized they had some power they began to fight for other aspects of life too, such as franchise and child labor. Labor Unions were banned previous to policy reforms, meaning that capitalists held immense power.
Some Labor Unions turned into official political parties that sought to fight for workers’ best interests in higher levels of government.
- Ex: German Social Democratic Party, developed from the General German Workers Association fought for Marxist reform (socialism)
Tenements
Built hastily w/o plumbing for rapidly growing urban cities, occupied by factory workers. Lack of plumbing and close living quarters meant that disease ran rampant, especially cholera.
Things that the Labor Unions bargained for
- 5 day workweek
- minimum wages
- limited working hours
- Franchise: lowered property requirements for franchise in Britain, and by 1918 franchise was made available to all men, and in 1928 made available to all women
- 1843: U.S. law banned the employment of children under ten in coal mines
Why did factories employ children?
They had smaller limbs that could reach smaller crevices when working with and around machines, making them uniquely useful. Moreover, they were often pain 1/10 the wages of an adult male.
Children worked 12-14 hour days and became physically deformed and often fell extremely ill.
Result of increased child labor restriction laws
Busy parents in factories, while their children are unemployed and unattended at home and in the streets causing trouble. Led to mandatory education laws.
What idea was arguably, in the simplest terms, the main cause of the Industrial Revolution?
Laissez-faire/free market/capitalism economics (as espoused in The Wealth Of Nations by Adam Smith)
Results of the implementation of free market economics
- emerging multi-national corporations
Opposition/resistance to free market economics
John Stuart Mill: criticized capitalism because it’s a selfish system; the factory workers exploited and benefited off of the suffering working class
- suggested utilitarianism
Karl Marx: saw the world as divided between the bourgeoisie (owned means of production, like factories) and the proletariat (the working class that kept the means of production functioning). Believed that capitalism allowed the bourgeoisie to become prosperous and happy at the expense of the proletariat. Believed that a successful capitalistic economy required the exploitation and detriment of the working class.
- suggested scientific socialism as a step towards communism and wrote the Communist Manifesto (1848)
- believed that working-class rebellion against upper-classes was inevitable and would lead to a violent upheaval of societal structure, leaving no social classes in the end
Utilitarianism
The doctrine that actions should be taken not to benefit/happiness oneself or an individual, but rather to benefit the whole of society
Socialism
The most important means of production owned by everyone, therefore eliminating competition in said fields, and the workers own the means of production and share the wealth equally
Communism
No private property ownership, social classes abolished in pursuit of equality
Ottoman’s reaction to industrialization
Ottoman Empire’s territory continually being reduced by surrounding European powers, and couldn’t collect enough tax revenue.
1808: Sultan Mahmud II took reign, oversaw major reforms and overhaul of Ottoman society regarding industrialization
- his sons continued industrializing in reform efforts within the Tanzimat program
- Tanzimat: legal code updated to include legal equality for all, and efforts made to clean up governmental corruption
- childhood secular schools (SUPER important, because previously, education was run by the ulama and based on Quranic studies)
- abolition of feudalism
- established postal service
- built massive road network
New sultan in 1876: Abdul Hamid, originally favored Tanzimat reforms, and then feared the radical reformers (Young Turks and Young Ottomans) so he exiled them. The Armenians also were reformers, so Hamid massacred and systematically persecuted them.
Ulama
Islamic scholars
Who were the Young Turks/Young Ottomans?
They were radical reformers in the Ottoman Empire feared by the sultan who took power in 1876, Abdul Hamid, because they called for the replacement of the monarchy with a constitutional government and European-style parliament. Abdul Hamid originally accepted their ideas, but due to impending conflict with Russia he reverted back to his previous leadership style and avoided any removal of his power. The Young Turks/Ottomans were exiled from the Ottoman Empire because of it.
What happened to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire?
Abdul Hamid feared them because they were outspoken reformers and he massacred and systematically persecuted them.