Industrialization and Global Capitalism

Life before the Industrial Revolution

• After the Revolutions in America, France, and Latin America changed the way government worked, the Industrial Revolution changed the way people did work.

• This begs the question “If this changed the way people worked…How did they work before the Industrial Revolution?”

Industrialization fundamentally changed how goods were

produced

Industrial Revolution

• Period from 1750 to 1850 where changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times.

• It began in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spread throughout Western Europe, North America, Japan, and eventually the rest of the world.

Why Great BritainWhy did the most important economic change since the

Agricultural revolution begin on this Island?

Why Britain – One More Time

• Europe’s location on the Atlantic Ocean• The geographical distribution of coal, iron and timber• European demographic changes• Urbanization• Improved agricultural productivity• Legal protection of private property• An abundance of rivers and canals• Access to foreign resources• The accumulation of capital

Industrial Revolution Essentials

• Origin in England, because of its natural resources like coal, iron ore, and the invention and improvement of the steam engine

• Spread to Europe and the United States• Role of cotton textile, iron, and steel industries• Relationship to the British Enclosure Movement• Rise of the factory system and demise of cottage

industries• Rising economic powers that wanted to control

raw materials and markets throughout the world

Innovation Spurs Progress

Technological advances that produced the Industrial Revolution

• James Hargreaves - Spinning jenny• James Watt—Steam engine• Eli Whitney—Cotton gin• Henry Bessemer—Process for making steel

Watt’s Steam Engine

Internal Combustion Engine

Advancements in science and medicine

• Edward Jenner—Developed smallpox vaccination

• Louis Pasteur—Discovered bacteria

Enter the FactoryProduction is centralized into one building

• Industrial Factory – Chief means of organizing labor around the new machines

Impacts of the Industrial Revolution on industrialized countries

• Population increase• Increased standards of living for many, though not

all• Improved transportation• Urbanization• Environmental pollution• Increased education• Dissatisfaction of working class with working

conditions• Growth of the middle class

The nature of work in the factory system

• Family-based cottage industries displaced by the factory system

• Harsh working conditions with men competing with women and children for wages

• Child labor that kept costs of production low and profits high

• Owners of mines and factories who exercised considerable control over the lives of their laborers

• The development of the factory system concentrated labor in a single location and led to an increasing degree of specialization of labor

Second Industrial Revolution

• As the new methods of industrial production became more common in parts of northwestern Europe, they spread to other parts of Europe and the United States, Russia, and Japan

• The “second Industrial revolution” led to new methods in the production of steel, chemicals, electricity and precision machinery during the second half of the nineteenth century.

New patterns of global trade and production developed and further integrated the global economy as

industrialists sought raw materials and new markets for the increasing

amount and array of goods produced in their factories

• The need for raw materials for the factories and increased food supplies for the growing population in urban centers led to the growth of export economies around the world that specialized in mass producing single natural resources – Cotton– Rubber – Palm oil– Sugar– Wheat– Meat– Guano– Metals– Minerals

The profits from these raw materials were used to purchase finished goods

Industrial Impact Abroad • The rapid development of industrial production

contributed to the decline of economically productive, agriculturally based economies– Textile industry in India

• The rapid increases in productivity caused by industrial production encouraged industrialized states to seek out new consumer markets – British and French attempts to "open up" Chinese

markets during the nineteenth century for their finished goods.

Need…• The need for specialized and limited metals

for industrial production, as well as the global demand for gold, silver and diamonds as forms of wealth, led to the development of extensive mining centers – Copper in Mexico– Gold and diamonds in South Africa

To facilitate investments at all levels of industrial production,

financiers developed and expanded various financial

institutions

Capitalism

• The ideological inspiration for economic changes lies in the development of capitalism and classical liberalism associated with Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill

Financial Instruments

• Stock markets• Insurance• Gold Standard• Limited Liability Corporations

Large-scale Transnational Businesses

• The global nature of trade and production contributed to the proliferation of large-scale transnational businesses – United Fruit Company,– The HSBC- Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking

Corporation

There were major developments in transportation and

communication

Developments in Transportation and Communication

• Railroads• Steamships• Telegraphs• Canals

The development and spread of global capitalism led to a

variety of responses

Impact of the Industrial Revolution on slavery

• The cotton gin increased demand for slave labor on American plantations.

• The United States and Britain outlawed the slave trade and then slavery.

Social effects and Reforms of the Industrial Revolution

• Women and children entering the workplace as cheap labor

• Introduction of reforms to end child labor• Expansion of public education• State pensions and public health (Germany)• Increased male suffrage (Britain)• Women’s increased demands for suffrage

Child Labor

The rise of labor unions

• Encouraged worker-organized strikes to increase wages and improve working conditions

• Lobbied for laws to improve the lives of workers, including women and children

• Wanted worker rights and collective bargaining between labor and management

Capitalism

• Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations• Role of market competition and

entrepreneurial abilities• Impact on standard of living and the growth of

the middle class• Dissatisfaction with poor working conditions

and the unequal distribution of wealth in society

• In industrialized states, many workers organized themselves to improve working conditions, limit hours, and gain higher wages, while others opposed capitalist exploitation of workers by promoting alternative visions

Utopian Socialism

• Exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen

• Inspired Karl Marx and other early socialists• Generally don't feel class struggle or political

revolutions are necessary to implement their ideas; that people of all classes might voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it were presented convincingly

Socialism and communism

• Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto (written with Friedrich Engels) and Das Capital

• Response to the injustices of capitalism• Importance of redistribution of wealth to the

communists

Other Responses• In Qing China and the Ottoman Empire, some

members of the government resisted economic change and attempted to maintain preindustrial forms of economic production– China’s Self-Strengthening Movement

• In a small number of states, governments promoted their own state-sponsored visions of industrialization – Economic reforms of Meiji Japan– Developments of factories and railroads in Czarist

Russia– Muhammad Ali’s development of cotton textile

industry in Egypt

The ways in which people organized themselves into societies

also underwent significant transformations in industrialized

states due to the fundamental restructuring of the global

economy

• New social class, including the middle class and the industrial working class developed

• Family dynamics, gender roles, and demographics changed in response to urbanization

• Rapid urbanization that accompanied global capitalism often led to unsanitary conditions as well as to new forms of community– Tenement housing

Final Thoughts

• Industrialization fundamentally altered the production of goods around the world.

• It not only changed how goods were produced and consumed, as well as what was considered a “good,” but it also had far-reaching effects on the global economy, social relations, and culture.

• Although it is common to speak of an “Industrial Revolution,” the process of industrialization was a gradual one that unfolded over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, eventually becoming global.