Early Capitalism s Discontents. Marx, Engels, and the Communist Critique

Transcription

1 Early Capitalism s Discontents Marx, Engels, and the Communist Critique

2 Today s Class Brief Review Capitalism s Success Stories The Failures of Markets Capitalism s Discontents Colonialism

3 Brief Review

4 The Case of Great Britain Compared to other European states, the United Kingdom had unique advantages that enabled it to develop a strong national economy and rapidly expand its colonial holdings.

5 Britain s Advantages Geography: British isles uneven geography amenable to textiles. Unified national identity: Merging of England & Scotland in Maritime imperitive: Need to develop specialized industries. Population growth: Pressure for free trade in agriculture. Head start: Early advances enabled vast colonial holdings.

6 Liberalizing Governance & Trade Charter of Liberties (1100) Magna Carta (1215) Corn Laws ( ) Navigation Acts ( ) Cobden Chevalier Treaty (1860)

7 1. The Industrial Revolution Technological Change and Industrial Restructuring The 18th and 19th centuries brought technological innovations in energy (coal to steam), production (machinery), transportation (railroads), and communications. The invention (or perfection) of the steam engine by Thomas Newcomen (1712) made it possible to harness the power of combustion to increase productivity and speed up the transportation of goods in the economy.

8 2. The Gold Standard Britain s hegemony in international markets bolstered and was bolstered by the adoption of gold as the primary basis of currency instruments around the world. Using gold as currency or as the basis of a fixed currency offers the advantage of stability, but creates the problem of inflexibility and zero-sum competition for gold.

9 3. British Colonial Expansion Since the age of mercantilism, national competition was fueled by colonial expansion. Industrialization increased British power and territorial control around the world.

10 Exchange Rates: The Price of Currency The price of one currency relative to another is known as the currency exchange rate The number of units of a currency required to buy another currency uses a simple formula: o Y-to-X exchange rate = o 1 / X-to-Y exchange rate The more abundant the supply of pesos, the fewer dollars it takes to buy them. Conversely, the fewer dollars available, the more pesos required to buy a dollar.

11 Capitalism s Success Stories

12 Shifting Global Production Percent Shares of Industrial Production, 1870s-1910s United States United Kingdom Germany France Russia Japan India s United States Germany Russia India Source: Table 3.1, Lairson and Skidmore, p. 50. United Kingdom France Japan

13 An Emerging Hegemon After gaining independence, United States enjoyed abundant advantages, including a large territory, abundant resources, a growing population, flexible institutions.

14 The Case of the United States Consolidation of nation-state Centralization of political authority Restructuring from agriculture to manufacturing National identity forged to reduce social cleavages

15 Competing Interests Jefferson s vision argued for an agrarian society, and favored free trade in agriculture. Hamilton s vision argued for an industrial society and advocated the protection of infant manufacturing industries Thomas Jefferson Alexander Hamilton

16 Friedrich List Also reacting to the perceived threat from the United Kingdom, German immigrant Friedrich List argued for U.S. protectionism, claiming that The power of producing [is] infinitely more important than wealth itself. Friedrich List ( ) was a German exile and vigorous proponent of mercantilist policies in the United States.

17 A Reluctant Hegemonic Power With British economic power in decline, the United States was the world s emerging hegemonic power U.S. isolationism and reluctance about global leadership created a power vacuum in the international system

18 Late 19 th Century Shift New technologies (trains, steamships, telegraph, refrigeration, and chemicals) Emerging industrial economies with large domestic markets (USA, Germany), as well as newcomers like Japan.

19 The Case of Germany Consolidation of nation-state Centralization of political authority Restructuring from agriculture to manufacturing National identity forged to reduce social cleavages

20 The Case of Japan Consolidation of nation-state Centralization of political authority Restructuring from agriculture to manufacturing National identity forged to reduce social cleavages

21 The Failures of Markets

22 The Problem with Markets Left to their own devices, markets can have difficulty achieving: Public goods Equity Morality Sustainability Stability You want a toe? I can get you a toe this afternoon.

23 19th & 20th century labor strikes The May 4, 1883 Haymarket Riot in Chicago arose from growing class polarization in the late-19th century, and is considered one of the inspirations for international May Day observances. Chavez fought for farm worker rights in the 1960s.

24 19th & 20th century child labor exploitation

25 19th & 20th century child labor exploitation

26 19th & 20th century female repression

27 Early carbon emissions 19th & 20th century Modern industrial emissions smokestacks and pollution members.aol.co m/ captncandlepowe r/portfolio2.html

28 Capitalism s Discontents

29 The Communist Manifesto What was the goal of the authors of The Communist Manifesto? What is their main argument, and against whom or what? What is the prescription that follows?

30 Objective of the Manifesto Published in 1848, on commission from the Communist League, the manifesto offered arguments and predictions intended to mobilize the proletariat to overthrow bourgeois (capitalist) states to generate a classless, stateless society

31 Their Argument History as class struggle Class struggle as political struggle & engine of history Bourgeois seeks to replicate itself, but sows the seeds of its own destruction Communists as the true voice of the proletariat Communism = end of history

32 Hegelian Dialectic

33 Dialectical Materialism Mode of production in society sets the parameters for the political economy Economic structure determines social and ethical relations of society Dialectical contradictions between the forces and relations of production provoke change

34 Dialectical Materialism From primitive communism to slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and pure communism

35 The Problem of Modern Industry Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Marx and Engels

36 The Worker and the Man Not only are they [the proletariat] slaves of the bourgeois class, and of they bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself.

37 The Re-Gendering of Work The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labor the more modern industry becomes developed, the more the labor of men is superseded by that of women.

38 Working Poor vs. Filthy Rich The modern labourer sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class And here it becomes apparent that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society. Average wage: Wallmart ($11.22) In 2015, CEO C. Douglas McMillon made $19,070,249

39 Inequality Hurts

40 The End Result What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, after all, are its own grave diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

41 Five laws of capitalism sewing the seeds of its self-destruction 1. Falling rate of profit. 2. Increasing concentration of wealth. 3. Deepening crises. 4. Industrial reserve army of unemployed. 5. Increasing misery and alienation of the proletariate.

42 Marxian Prescription: 10 pt. Plan 1. Abolition of property. 2. Highly progressive taxation. 3. Abolition of right of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of property of emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state. 6. Nationalize means of communication and transportation. 7. Increase state controlled production. 8. Equal obligation for all to work. 9. Abolish town-country distinction, mixing agriculture with industry 10. Free education for all children, eliminate child labor.

43 Later Works To explain the failures of Communist revolution, Marx studied French revolution in his work, the 18 th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1952) Later he and Engels developed a more expansive treatment in the three volumes of Das Kapital Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. Marx, The 18 th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon

44 Was Marx Wrong? Was Marx s critique of the capitalist system, and the stranglehold of economic interests on the state ultimately valid? What were the problems with Marx s historical predictions?

45 Late 19 th Century Anarchists Anarchists were also appalled by the ills of the Industrial Revolution, and saw violence as a tool to fight oppression. Eschewing all hierarchy, they differed with Marx on the need for dictatorship of the proletariat. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first self-declared anarchist, is called the "father of anarchism. Mikhail Bakunin: "Liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality. Pyotr Kropotkin initially championed the use of propaganda by deed Johan Most, suffered a skin infection in his youth that led to the disfiguring of half his face.

46 19 th Century Global Context The first age of globalization brought new technologies and industries, newfound prosperity and inequality, & political tension. New technologies & industries (trains, steamships, telegraph, refrigeration, and chemicals) Social & economic divisions (inequality, urbaniztaion, migration, ethnic tensions) Emerging national economies with large domestic markets (USA, Germany), as well as newcomers like Japan.

47 Emile Henry & Mass Terror In an effort to punish the Carmaux mining company for its failure to negotiate with strikers, Henry targeted its offices for an attack. The bourgeoisie as a whole lives by the exploitation of the unfortunate, and the bourgeoisie as a whole should expiate its crimes.

48 Terror as Propaganda by Deed Italian Republican anarchist Carlo Pisacane argued that violence was a necessary means to draw attention to a cause (propaganda by deed). Pisacane inspired the Russian populists, Narodnaya Volya (People s Will), which assassinated Tsar Alexander II of Russia in Pisacane: "ideas result from deeds, not the latter from the former, and the people will not be free when they are educated, but educated when they are free."

49 U.S. Presidents Assassinated In the spirit of Piscane, Pres. James Garfield was shot at a railroad station on July 2, 1881, months after Tsar Alexander II. Pres. William McKinley was shot on Sept. 5, 1901 by Leon Czolgosz, a 2 nd generation Polish immigrant with anarchist leanings. President Garfield is shot in the back at a railroad station by Charles Guiteau and died three months later from complications.

50 Catalyst of World War I The assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, by a Serbian nationalist from the Black Hand Society. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand II by an anarchist terrorist due to concerns that his possible concessions to Bosnian nationalists might dampen the push for revolution.

51 Historical Considerations European militarization and resource competition precipitates WWI Separatist Serbians ignite conflict with Austria-Hungary (and Germany) Escalation of conflict through a cascade of alliances (Russia-Serbia, Britain-France, Ottoman Empire-Germany, etc.)

52 Pre-WWI Europe

53 Colonialism

54 King Leopold of Belgium Using King Leopold as an example, Freiden argues that the policies of a nation s rulers were the main determinant of its economic development, whether the rulers were colonial or local. In the late 1800s, Belgium established control of the Congo Free State, using forced labor and various forms of repression to exploit the local population to extract ivory and (later) rubber.

55 Rev. William Sheppard Eye witness accounts by Sheppard, Morel, and Edgar Canisius brought world attention to Belgium s exploitative practices.

56

57 Forced Labor & Mutilation

58 Starvation

59 Extra-Territorial Expansion European states competed to enhance their power though what Twain called a European Game of colonial expansion from the 1500s to the early 1900s. Mark Twain Imperialism is a great, global European Game played on a green cloth like a card game.

60 Lenin s Basic Argument For Lenin, World War I was the ultimate result of annexationist, predatory, plunderous competition among monarchic empires. Imperialism as a special stage of capitalism: pulls together Lenin s thinking on the workings of monopolistic capitalist imperialism. Parasitism and the decay of capitalism: on the evils of parasitic rentier states

61 A Glimpse Around the World Hegemonic role of United Kingdom in 19th & 20th Century Tensions related to rise of the United States and Germany Asia and Africa as a battleground for imperialist powers Large scale migration as an indicator of imperialism Buying off the upper proletariat at home with a higher standard of living

62 Colonialism

63 Lenin: 5 Key Features of Imperialism 1. Monopolistic concentration of production and capital 2. Forming of a global financial oligarchy 3. Primacy of export capital 4. Formation of internationalist cartels (monopoly associations) 5. Global territorial division among largest capitalist powers; super-exploitation. Imperialism, which means the partitioning of the world and the exploitation of other countries besides China, which means high monopoly profits for a handful of very rich countries, makes it economically possible to bribe the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby fosters, gives shape to, and strengthens opportunism. Lenin

64 20th Century Post-Colonialism After WWII, pressures for colonial sovereignty gave rise to new nation-states in the global south.

65 Colonialism in the Americas 19th Century Border Conflicts U.S.-Mexico War U.S.-U.K. War of 1812 U.S. incursions into Mexican territory produced the current border outlined in the Treaty of Guadalupe. Paraguayan War, Trade disputes and British efforts to block U.S. northwest expansion trigger first major U.S. war. Francisco Solano López s bid to gain sea access via Brazil resulted in the War of the Triple Alliance. Chile fought Bolivia and Peru to expand its access to the nitrate-rich Atacama dessert War of the region. Pacific,

66 Colonialism in Asia Pressures for colonial sovereignty gave way to the emergence of new nation-states in the global south: the Americas, Asia, and Africa.

67 Colonialism in Asia Post-WWII Border Conflicts 1940s: British decolonization brought the partitioning of India-Pakistan, followed by the partitioning of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Jinnah & Gandhi 1944

68 Colonialism in Asia Post-WWII Border Conflicts 1950s: After French Indochina War, the 1954 Geneva Conference partitioned Indochina into North and South Vietnam. Dien Bien Phu, 1954

69 Colonialism in Asia Post-WWII Border Conflicts 1960s: Separation of Malasia from Indonesia in 1957 provokes konfrontasi conflict in border region on Borneo island, with the UK supporting Malaysian independence. President Sukarno, 1957

70 Colonialism in the Middle East Late 20th Century Conflicts In 1948, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia attack Israel; Israel won and later expanded its holdings in 1967 Six Day War. After the Iranian Revolution, Iraq sought to gain greater access to the Gulf and liberation of Arabs in Iran. Palestine seeks separation from Israel, but continued clashes and expansion of Israeli settlements prevent resolution.

71 Colonialism in Africa European Colonies Sequence of Decolonization

72 Colonialism in Africa Sequence of Decolonization Early 21st Century Conflicts

73 Colonialism in Africa Late 20th Century Border Conflicts Between , South Africa clashed with Angola-Namibia over boundaries and Namibian independence (1990). After a 30-year fight for independence (1993), Eritrea invaded the Badme region of Ethiopea in Still unresolved in Since Somalian independence in 1960, efforts to expand its borders have resulted in chronic border clashes. During 2011 separation, South Sudanese forces clashed with the north in oil producing border zone.

74 Colonialism and Development Are some colonial masters better than others?

75 Special Considerations: TODAY Special role of U.S. in 20th & 21st Century Tensions related to rise of the China and India (?) Asia and Africa as a battleground for imperialist powers Large scale migration as a challenge for advanced states Advances in developing countries at the expense of middle and working classes in advanced countries

76 Final Thoughts

77 Historical Review 1400s-early 1800s: National expansionism, economic nationalism, and protectionism Early 1800s-late 1800s: Increasing openness to international trade Late 1800s-early 1900s: Growing resistance to capitalism and greater competition due to the rise of new powers

78 Take Home Points The course of development is neither linear nor positive, and most great powers tend to decline eventually 19 th Century economic progress rested on a foundation of state-building, industrialization, and increasing trade The criticisms of capitalism center on the amorality and failures of markets, and the tendency toward the concentration of capital.

79 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: Bernie Sanders' Labor Day Index

80 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: Bernie Sanders' Labor Day Index

81 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: Bernie Sanders' Labor Day Index

82 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: Bernie Sanders' Labor Day Index

83 Thank You