Industrial Revolution Economic and Social Changes
Monopoly ► Total control of a product or market ► No Competition ► Illegal today ► Examples ??
Government Regulation ► Long hours, unsafe working conditions, low pay…..unions called for gov’t help ► Business owners wanted ‘laissez-faire’ approach (hands off), why ► Businesses would operate with little or no government interference ► How far could the gov’t then go??
Regulation ► Eventually Government stepped in ► Today… # of hours working OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) Health Benefits
Adam Smith ► Wrote the Wealth of Nations ► Promoted capitalist economy ► Capitalism is based on supply and demand
Socialism ► Focused less on the individual, more on society as a whole ► Believed capitalism created a wide gap between the rich and the poor (upper and lower classes) ► Farms and Businesses would belong to ALL the people, not individuals
Utopian Socialists ► Utopia – An Ideal society, with no problems (Sir Thomas More) ► All property and all work shared ► All would then have equal wealth
Karl Marx ► A Socialist who wrote ‘The Communist Manifesto’ with Friedrich Engels ► Believed that the problem throughout history is the social class system ► It was a social class struggle between the wealthy and the working class (Proletariat)
Marxism believes ► The capitalists took advantage of the proletariat (workers) ► The proletariat would eventually come together and overthrow the capitalist system ► It would establish a CLASSLESS SOCIETY (no social classes), wealth and power is equally shared
On a half sheet of paper… ► 2 positives of living in a capitalist world ► 2 negatives of living in a capitalist world ► 2 positives of living in a socialist world ► 2 negatives of living in a socialist world