Transcript Economic Advance and Social Unrest

Chapter 22
EQs: How did Europe develop economically while digress
socially? What movements emerged in the mid-19 th C in
reaction to the inequities in social status? What were some of
the impacts of economic growth in Europe during this
period?
 Britain had taken the lead in the Industrial Revolution through the
end of the 18th century into the 19th century and was at least a
century ahead of its competitors on the continent
 The Continental Wars coupled with the events surrounding the
French Revolution had pretty much kept industrial growth from
rapidly occurring in other European nations…there were small
pockets of industry in the Ruhr and Saar regions of Germany and in
several scattered French cities, but nothing that compared to that of
the British Midlands
 Britain was able to first expand the world’s most powerful textile
industry with very little competition (save the US) and then branch
out into other production areas such as transportation, iron and
domestic goods (house wares)…the British also had cornered the
global market for their goods in Latin America and the US by the
beginning of the 19th century
 The next serious impact associated with the Industrial
Revolution was population growth…even though some
areas were not fully industrialized, the advents in
political revolution and agricultural development caused
growth and migrations to cities
 In early 19th century Europe, around 50% of a nation’s
population lived in cities/urban areas (as opposed to less
than 15% just 2 centuries before)…this change was
precipitated by availability of opportunities coupled with
the collapse of the feudal system
 Conversely, this growth saw an increase in poverty, crime,
disease and pollution in these growing urban areas,
issues that nations would have to deal with during the
19th century
 The industrial revolution brought
with it new innovations in
transportation, first with the use of
steam ships to speed up river
transport (later over seas transport)
and railroads, which revolutionized
overland transportation
 Railways were a cheap, efficient
systems used to connect urban areas
to resources and were first meant to
transport goods…then they became a
method of people transport
 Railways inevitably spurred further
industrial innovation, as iron and
coal became easier to move in mass
quantities
 Industry prized talent and efficiency…which was generally lacking in
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Europe’s populace…most peasants were “unskilled” labor and generally
served in menial tasks in the factory
Other unskilled laborers worked in mines, in generally poor conditions
OR in transport and movements of raw materials or goods (shoveling
coal!)
Skilled workers earned the better wages yet still suffered in poor working
conditions and generally still were property-less in their domestic
life…this group became the proletariat (the property-less middle class)
This proletariat found themselves shut out by the property owners, not
generally through prosperity, but mainly through the political process, in
the factory AND locally/nationally
Proletariat artisans eventually found their position threatened by
capitalist expansionists who began the mass production of particular
items…metal workers, for instance, were not so threatened early on
because their skills were not widespread…BUT clothing makers were
greatly threatened by the factory process
 The proletariat did become politically
motivated…though satisfied with their earnings, they
became extremely dissatisfied with their place in the
pecking order
 The proletariat in England struck the first blow in the
1830s, forming the Chartist movement…reform
minded, they had 6 simple demands
 Universal male suffrage
 Yearly House of Commons elections
 Secret ballots
 Equal election districts
 Universal representation in House (not just by
property)
 Salaries for House members
 The movement was only modestly
successful…parliament refused most of their
demands…and the movement was divided between
moderate and radical factions…none-the-less, it was
the first of many workers oriented movements in
Europe
 Political movements also began to focus
on the working conditions within the
factory
 In the proletariat and lower classes, the
ENTIRE family worked…dad, mom and
the kids by certain ages…child labor
became a preeminent issue amongst
reformers…children did some of the
most difficult tasks in the factory (size)
 Women, likewise the children, also
received less wages for their work, an
inequality that reformers fought hard to
change to no avail
 Legal reforms that did occur, including
the English Factory Act of 1833, only set
the maximum number of hours a child
could work a day (8) and forced the
factory worker to provide and education
for their child workers
 As previously covered, the advent of industry
defined the “supposed” roles of gender as we
know them today…women became increasingly
domestic and men came to be the sole support
for the family
 However, some industries used women based
on the domestic skills they were best
suited…women found lots of work in textile
factories (it took a delicate hand!)…however, as
time passed, unmarried women and widows
were more likely to have factory jobs
 Some work for women at home could still be
found in what were called “cottage
industries”…making delicate fabrics like lace
and other time honored weaving (quilting,
needlepoint, glove making)
 Younger unmarried and even married women
also found the most readily available employ in
domestic service, as housemaids or nannies
 Increased population = increased poverty = increased
crime
 There were a variety of solutions to deal with these
issues…
 The first popular choice was to export your tired,
your poor, your huddled masses yearning to
breathe free…colonization offered a release of the
pressure, particularly for Britain (prisoners were
sent early on)
 The first organized police forces were established
in urban areas…1828, Paris and London (bobbies,
so named after Robert Peel) police forces
patrolled the streets…those on the continent were
armed…police in Britain were NOT
 If prisoners were not sent to far flung colonies, they
were put in new types of jails, ones that either
separated some of the time or all of the time…some
prisons promoted complete isolation (ie. Devil’s
Island)…all prisons were now required to provide
vocational training
 Malthusian Theory
 Swede Thomas Malthus postulated in 1798
that the world, now about to reach 1 billion
people by all estimations, would eventually
reach a point where its “carrying capacity”
could not support anymore people
 Malthus explained basically that as
population increases, food and resources
decrease (now known as Neo-Malthusian
theory)
 Ricardo (Suave!)
 David Ricardo argued in 1817 that as wages
increased, more children would be produced
(more money = ability to feed more mouths)
and as wages fell, less children would be
produced (this consequently would explain
why some employers, through conservative
aims, would try to keep wages down)
 Governments began to look at classical economic
theories and adapt them, resenting the ideas of laissez
faire
 France – The July Monarchy oversaw major capital
improvements to the infrastructure of France
between 1830 and 1848…though social issues were left
untouched (which is why there would be a revolution
in 1848)
 Germany – formed a free trade union called the
Zollverein, which restricted regional tariffs (precursor to the European Union)
 In England, the theories of Utilitarianism ruled the day, a
simple principle which purported “the greatest food for
the greatest number” or “the needs of the many outweigh
the needs of the few” (really early socialism)
 Utilitarians Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill pushed
legislation through the House of Commons…the Poor
Law set out to make poverty the most undesirable
condition and put poor people in “workhouses”…the Corn
Laws were also repealed in 1846 in the wake of famines
 Utopian Socialism
 The creation of the ideal community, very Romantic in
nature, since it dates back to Sir Thomas More’s inception of
the concept…try to get as close to the Garden of Eden idea as
possible
 Saint-Simonianism
 Claude Henri (Saint Simon) said that society would be best
run by experts or rational managers
 Owenism
 Brit Robert Owen determined that human character is
shaped by circumstance. It can therefore be transformed by
good working conditions, proper housing, and education
 Foureirism
 A system for social reform advocated by Charles Fourier in
the early 19th century, proposing that society be organized
into small self-sustaining communal groups (Fourier called
them phalanxes, they would basically become communes).
 Anarchism
 Marxism was nothing new, it virtually relied on all
of the previous –isms in some way or another…what
was different about it was it targeted capitalist
industrialism (greed as evil) and decried
government reform in favor of outright revolution
 Marx and his buddy Freddie Engels relied on
several past theories…Rousseau’s Social Contract
established that private property causes
antagonisms…Marx and Engels explained the main
antagonism was between the Bourgeoisie and the
Proletariat…Saint Simonism argued for property redistribution, which was to be a result of a
revolution…Fourierism and Anarchy provided the
base for what society should be like after the
revolution
 The result of the revolution would be the downfall
of capitalism in favor of socialist anarchy or a
classless society
 No single factor caused the uprisings the sprung up through out Europe in this
calendar year, rather a wave of discontent over the decline of social conditions
coupled with famine and unemployment (through a mini-recession) caused
outright revolution
 In France the monarchy was defeated once and for all…Louis Philippe and the
monarchist government were forced into exile and the Second Republic was
born…the result was the rise of yet another empire under Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte (aka Napoleon III) that eventually failed to alleviate social issues
 Habsburg Austria faced growing nationalism from the Magyars in Hungary, the
Czechs, the Tirolians (of Northern Italy) and from states in Italy bent on
independence from France and Austria…these rebellions were defeated for the
moment but would later set the stage for Italian Unification only a decade later
 Prussia also experienced a liberal revolution as neighboring German states cried
for greater freedoms…the people of Prussia demanded less absolutism and got it
as Frederick William IV capitulated to all demands in avoidance of
bloodshed…the neighboring German states also capitulated, to Frederick! When
they could not establish their own organized government, they offered executive
leadership up to the Prussian monarch, setting the stage for German Unification