New Dynamics in the Industrialized World By 1900, 80% of world industrial output came from Europe and the U.S., the rest came mostly from Asia (Japan-

New Dynamics in the Industrialized World

New Dynamics in the Industrialized World

• By 1900, 80% of world industrial output came from Europe and the U.S., the rest came mostly from Asia (Japan- 10%, China- 7%, India- 2%).• The 19th century saw a great reversal of roles,

with Europe and the U.S. switching places with China and India in terms of trade.• Whereas pre-industrial societies were

dependent on the climate to produce favorable harvests, industrialized societies were subject to cycles of “boom and bust”.

Recessions and DepressionsRecessions and Depressions

• As more factories were built to supply a particular product, global supply would often surpass demand, leading to falling prices.

• Competitors would then cut wages to recover their losses, which would lead to decreased demand as people’s spending power dropped.

• Depending on how long this situation lasts it is called a recession, or a depression for longer times. Recessions occurred in 1857 & 1873.

Collapse of Global Trade?Collapse of Global Trade?

• The trade system almost crashed following the 1873 recession when Germany, Italy, the U.S., and France all raised tariffs on imports to help protect their textile industries.

• Britain, now a proponent of free trade, did not tax imports and soon owed large amounts of $ to the other countries. Global trade may have collapsed if England had not had a trade surplus in Asia, partially due to the opium trade.

Social ConsequencesSocial Consequences

• Work, families, cities, time, culture, values, and more changed with the industrial mode of production.

• For instance, most jobs created by industrial-ization are located in cities. One measure of a country’s level of industrialization is the number of people living in urban areas. 50% of people lived in cities in England by 1850, in Germany by 1900, in the U.S. by 1920, and in Japan by 1930.

Work in FactoriesWork in Factories

• Work in factories was not pleasant but peasants who were forced off of the land due to changes in agriculture were often glad to be working.• Because of the miserable working conditions,

“disciplining” the workforce became the job of “management”, a new middle-class that arose.• Dissatisfaction with working conditions could be

expressed by quitting (and losing pay), by slowing down the work intentionally, or by sabotaging machinery to stop work temporarily.

Organized ResistanceOrganized Resistance

• Workers soon discovered that collective action could win them higher wages, better working conditions, or shorter hours, but usually only after long, bitter, and often bloody strikes.

• People opposed to factories and the capitalist system in general pointed to the “unnatural” working conditions in factories, compared to the “natural” ones working the land.

Women and ChildrenWomen and Children

• Much of the workforce in Britain and Japan was made up of women and girls, especially the textile industry. Laws soon restricted children’s and women’s labor and increased the # of men.• A woman’s place was redefined as staying at

home and taking in odd chores to make ends meet. Children were expected to go to school, at least through elementary school.• As children began to be perceived as costing

income instead of providing it, the size of families started to decline.

RevolutionRevolution

• The most rigorous and long-lasting challenge to the capitalist mode of production came from ideas propounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They published the Communist Manifesto in 1848.

• For a few months, it looked like their predictions might come true. Revolts of the laboring poor toppled governments in France, Italy, the Habsburg empire, and Switzerland, threatening a number of others.

Modern StatesModern States

• Nations underwent changes during the 19th century so that they more closely resembled those of the 20th century.

• A modern state is a territory (usually contiguous), over whose inhabitants are ruled by salaried bureaucrats, enforcing uniform administration and taking notice of citizens, usually through representatives.

• The French Revolution lead to people wanting to be “citizens” of a country rather than “subjects”.

NationsNations

• The idea of “nations” arose only after modern states and industrial society had emerged. States were confronted with a dilemma of how to ensure loyalty to the state and the ruling system. As industrialism created new social classes (the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class, and the proletariat, or working class), huge schisms were appearing among the people and between the people and the state, threatening to bring the latter down.

National IdentityNational Identity

• As industrialization created new forms of communication, people who seemed to share common bonds of language and culture but did not have a unified state often clamored for one. This idea informed the rulers of states who used it to ensure the loyalty of “their people”.

• Rulers were faced with the problem of getting their subjects to identify themselves as a “nation”, and then to link that identity with the state.

NationalismNationalism

• Two things helped mold national identity: public education and historians. Both repeated celebratory “national histories” to their listeners.• Some territorial states had been formed with

more than one “nation” in them, for instance Great Britain and the former Soviet Union. One solution was to define a nation not in ethnic, religious, or linguistic terms but in political ones.• Some people considered themselves nations but

had no states, including the Zionists, Irish, and Serbs.

European WarsEuropean Wars

• Nationalism, economic competition, social tensions arising from industrialization, and strategic considerations led to wars among European states.

• The largest inter-European war was the Crimean War of 1854-1856, in which Russia fought against Britain, France, and Turkey.

• Four more major European wars culminated in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.

AfricaAfrica

• After the Franco-Prussian War, Europeans stopped warring against each other for the most part (until WWI), concentrating instead on Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.• European penetration of Africa had been

difficult due mostly to the tropical disease which were endemic to the interior. Slave trade had historically been limited to the coasts. When a process of trial and error led to the realization that cinchona bark lead to protection against malaria, this opened up the interior to Europe.

MalariaMalaria

• Cinchona is a tree native to South America, its bark contains quinine, which is toxic to the malaria parasite, although the cause of malaria was not known at this time.• The British military planted cinchona seeds in

India and greatly increased the supply of quinine to their troops.• Also, the development of steam boats had

made the interior of African accessible via its rivers.

Gun TechnologyGun Technology

• Guns did not radically change between the 1500s and 1800s, and featured the muzzle-loading musket. These were barely accurate for a few hundred yards.

• Around 1850, it was learned that the barrels could be “rifled” to improve accuracy and copper cartridges that were breech loaded could be ignited by smokeless powder. In the 1880s, a machine gun was invented by Hiram Maxim (the Maxim gun) that could fire repeatedly.

Out GunnedOut Gunned

• A example of European technology being used against Africans is the Battle of Obdurman in 1898. Here British troops confronted the 40,000 man Sudanese army using Maxim guns mounted on river boats.• After 5 hours of battle, the British had lost 20

soldiers, while 10,000 Sudanese were killed.• By 1900, most of Africa had been divided

between Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Portugal. Only Ethiopia had defeated Italy.

Ecological ConsiderationsEcological Considerations

• In addition to industrialization and improvements to military technology, there was an ecological dimension to creating the gap between industrialized and non- industrialized parts of the world.• Large parts of Asia and Latin America

experienced significant environmental damage caused by deforestation and the depletion of soil fertility. These changes put additional stress on the biological old regime.

DeforestationDeforestation

• China- basic needs of large population• India- warring Indian princes denied enemies

cover• Latin America, Brazil, and Caribbean- sugar or

coffee plantations• This, combined with climate changes which

occurred in the late 19th century, as well as the European-dominated world economy, served to impoverish vast swaths of the world, turning much of these regions into the “3rd world”.

el Ninoel Nino

• Late in the 19th century, a climatic phenomenon known as el Nino intensified to the greatest extent in the past 500 years.

• This brings excessive rainfall to the Midwest, does not affect Europe at all, and brings drought to parts of Asia, Africa, and Brazil. Three droughts between 1876 and 1902 killed 50 million people.

• Governments were either unwilling or unable to act to relieve these disasters.

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Social DarwinismSocial Darwinism

• Some Europeans thought that the rise of the West and the “backwardness” of Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans had a scientific explanation: social Darwinism.

• Charles Darwin had published his book, The Origin of Species, in 1859. This explained how evolution occurs by the process of natural selection, or “survival of the fittest”.

• Darwin’s ideas were soon applied to societies.

“Natural” Selection“Natural” Selection

• The idea that evolution could be applied to human society and the relationship between different races was believed to be true by large numbers of Europeans and Americans.

• To social Darwinists, the poor deserved their dismal fate, it was the only “natural” outcome. This was a comforting ideology for those on top of the world. An extension of this believe was that human populations could be improved by selective breeding.

EugenicsEugenics

• Eugenics, or “true breeding”, can be divided into two types: positive (encouraging those with “desirable” traits to breed) and negative (preventing those with “undesirable” traits from breeding). Usually traits associated with North Europeans fit into the desirable category, while those associated with the poor and non-white fit into the undesirable one.• In Europe and the U.S., eugenics contributed to

racist ideas about the natural superiority of whites.

The Future, RevisitedThe Future, Revisited

• If the “Rise of the West” was inevitable- than nothing we do now can change the future concerning Western dominance.

• If it was highly contingent on other events- the future is contingent on what we do now.

• We can now conclude that the “Rise of the West” was indeed contingent on other events in the world and that the future of our Western culture, rather than being predetermined, is highly dependent on what we do right now.