February 25, 2016
Get out reading-T Chart from yesterday
Industrial Revolutions sparks new ways of thinking
• Business leaders wanted less government intervention
• Workers wanted more rights
• Reformers wanted more government regulation
Capitalism
• Capitalism:
– factors of production are privately owned
– Goal is to make a profit
– Don’t believe in helping poor workers because it would hurt the free
market
Capitalism
• Based on laissez-faire
economics
– “let people do as they please”
– Natural laws would promote
economic growth
• Adam Smith
– Believed in free markets and free
economy
– Wrote “The Wealth of Nations”
– Based beliefs on three natural
laws
Three Natural Laws
• Law of self-interest
– People work for their own good
• Law of competition
– Competition forces people to make a better product
• Law of the “invisible hand”
– Everyone working in own self interest will promote efficiency
– Enough goods will be produced at the lowest price possible to meet
demand in a market economy
Socialism
• Socialism:
– factors of production are owned by the public
– operate for the welfare of all
– Believe it is the government and the wealthy people’s job to help out
the poor members of society
– Opposed to laissez-faire
– Government should plan economy
Marxism
• Radical form of socialism
• Coined by Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels in 1848
• Argued the Industrial
Revolution had enriched the
wealthy and impoverished
the poor
• Society was divided into
“warring classes” of “haves”
and “have nots”
Communist Manifesto
• Pamphlet written by Marx and
Engels
• Wealthy controlled the means
of production while workers
performed the labor
• They argued the workers will
unite and overthrow the
wealth factory owners
Communist Manifesto
• Capitalism would destroy itself
– Large corporations would buy up small factories
and control all the wealth
– Workers would revolt, seize factories, and produce
necessary goods
– Workers would spread wealth equally
– Workers would control the government
– Government would slowly diminish
– The country would be ruled by a classless society
– Finally, communism
Communism
• Communism: a complete
form of socialism where all the
land, mines, factories,
railroads, and businesses are
owned by all the people
• Private property does not exist
• All goods and services shared
equally
• Examples of Communism
– Soviet Union, Cuba, China,
Vietnam, North Korea
Unions and Reforms
• Union: voluntary labor
associations formed by
workers with the intent of
fighting for workers rights
– Shorter hours, better pay,
better working conditions,
job stability
– Strike: refusal to work
Reform Laws
• Laws aimed at improving industrialization’s
negative effects
– Child labor, unsafe conditions, long workdays, poor
pay
• Factory Act of 1833: illegal to hire children
under the age of 9
• The Ten Hours Act of 1847: limited the
workday to 10 hours for women and children
Reform Spreads
• Abolition of Slavery: fight to
end slave trade and slavery
• Women’s rights: fought for
suffrage and equal pay
• Public Education: free
public school for all
children in the US