Industrial Revolution COPY Flashcards
What positive changes have happened in our world as a result of the Industrial Revolution?
No more child labor Shorter work hours and the entire idea of the weekend Better pay Safer conditions Minimum wage, workers’ compensation, and overtime
Describe how unions gained rights and better conditions for their workers.
Unions have gained many reforms through collective bargaining – negotiations between employers and the business If that fails, workers can go on strike, which means refusing to work until an agreement has been reached
Describe the working conditions of low wage workers
12 hour work days, 6 days a week Paid 1 to 5 dollars per day Incredibly dangerous No minimum wage, worker’s compensation, or overtime Business allowed to regulate businesses Government in the US at the time believed in extreme hands-off principles Allowed businesses to gain huge profits and make owners incredibly wealthy while workers remained incredibly poor
How did Robert Owen try to fix the problems during the Industrial Revolution?
Tried to create a utopian town, that was meant to be perfect place to live and work and everyone would be considered equal.
What did Thomas Malthus believe in?
Believed population grows faster than food supply Thought we should expect more war, famine and disease to lower population Overpopulation would lead to everyone being miserable
Who owns the factors of production in capitalism and makes decisions?
The people/ consumers/ business
What does hands off mean in the economy?
No government involvement in the economy
What was a common feature between all the Capitalist reforms?
They did not actually want to change the system, used excuse to justify why it was broken. They blamed the poor people for the problems.
What did Karl Marx see as the biggest cause of the problems of industrialization?
Created two groups of people, the haves who are the wealthy business owners who did not pay their workers anything, and the have-nots who are the workers. They have nothing because of the haves.
Explain what the enclosure movement was.
Rich farmers bought up the common land, and fenced it off so smaller farmers were not able to use it
Explain how the invisible hand works and an example of it.
Invisible Hand - the collective decisions of all consumers informs businesses of what to make without the need for governments involvement Picnic pants vs the charger
What problems are there with the theories of communism?
No incentives for hard work or inventions
What is the goal of communism?
The government work to ensure equality for all people
Did Malthus ideas come true? Why or why not.
No, because we created technology that allowed for humans to make large amounts of food. (high yield grains)
Explain what effect the previous two inventions had on the causes of industrial revolution.
Enclosure movement - Forced a lot the farmer to move to the cities, where they were the workforce for factories Crop rotation - Even with fewer farmers, this allowed the remaining ones to produced enough food for everyone.