Marxism And The Industrial Revolution

Industrialism, Capitalism, and Socialism all have pro’s and con’s, positives and negatives. Industrialism is the economy were inventions reduce the labor needed to produce goods, and this is one of the positives of the Industrial Revolution. However, there were also some negatives. For instance, dangerous work conditions, child labor, loss of farm jobs, as well as the workers being paid poorly. Although the negatives are bad, the positives include faster and more production, more profits for industrialists, and more material goods.

The Industrial revolution started in Britain around 1750 and by 1850 it will make Great Britain the wealthiest country in the world. The revolution also spread to other European countries and the New World. Both Germany and United States will surpass Britain in the next fifty years. What was the effect of The Industrial Revolution on the working class?

Analyzing the Bolshevik State compared to Marxism can be difficult because Marx, Engels and their followers gave relatively little thought to what the state would look like after a socialist revolution. Engels famously wrote, “the state is not ‘abolished,’ it withers away,” which highlights the hazy and unfixed nature of Marx and Engle’s writings on the ultimate, classless society they envisioned. Further, what they did write is subject to the differing interpretations by numerous socialist parties all claiming to be Marxist. As discussed earlier, Lenin claimed he simply reshaped Marxism to fit the conditions of Russia. Others argue his interpretation was not true Marxism at all. However, the basic principles of a socialist state in the eyes of Marx’s are outlined in the Communist Manifesto as follows:

How useful are classical sociological accounts for understanding the rise of compulsory education in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain? Discuss with particular reference to Durkheimian and Marxist ideas.

The Industrial Revolution was period of rapid economic and social growth during the mid 18th and early 19th centuries. The new found power of coal and iron made for many new innovations in machinery. Not all of the Industrial Revolution’s changes were physical. A new ideology arose from the sweat of the working class: socialism. Socialism is a political theory advocating state or collective ownership of property and industry opposed to private ownership. To fully understand the relationship between the Industrial Revolution and socialism, one must first be comfortable with the Revolution and its changes, socialism itself, and the fine line of events linking the two together.

Marxism is a clear-cut view of the French revolution. It gives a central role to the Bourgeoisie for being the main inspirators for its cause. This is due to the fact that it was widely believed to be them who stood to gain the most. Lefebvre was the main and most revered of all Marxist historians. His belief is that the year 1789 was the one in which the Bourgeoisie took power. They had been waiting for centuries in order to do this, according to Lefebvre, and when they had finally reached sufficient numbers and wealth they took the initiative. They owed most of their success to a shift of what was considered important in society. In medieval society, the landed Aristocracy had dominated. They owed much of their success and wealth to the land. This is not the case in the eighteenth century when the impetus changed and economic power, personal abilities and confidence became more desirable than land.1Although the Bourgeoisie was growing in vast numbers, the Nobility had one thing over on them, Social Status.

There were many problems in the working class, during the Industrial Revolution, some of the problems were: the long hours they had to work, poor hygiene, their physical appearance, life expectancy. These things made up some of the working classes major problems.

The Industrial Revolution brought about great changes in how goods were produced and consumed, but it also brought about social and political changes. Some were positive, such as machines relieving much of the toil previously placed on worker’s muscles. But there were also negative changes.

During the Industrial revolution many people started to believe in the idea of Liberalism. At times it was difficult. People were imprisoned or persecuted because of their ideas. Riots even occurred because the government and some of the upper class would not stand for the Liberalists’ new ways to improve society. Aristocrats refused to change their ways. But through it all, liberalists persevered and brought about one of the largest changes in society that we are still experiencing even today.

Many political movements take root or are further developed during the Victorian Era in England. For example, industrialization leads to workers’ unions and the outcry

Think about your life for one second: you communicate with people, travel, make purchases, and utilize those commodities. But have you ever wondered what made those things possible? After all, you go to the store to buy things you need. You drive a car to work and to visit your friends. If you need to talk to someone, you simply pick up your phone or computer. However, none of this would be possible without a means of communication, factories to manufacture the products you need, places to work, and ways to travel and transport goods. And what made these possible? The answer is the Industrial Revolution, which started in Europe around the year 1730. A revolution is a major change or turning point in something. The Industrial Revolution

During the 19th century, Europe underwent political and economic change resulting in a shift from craft production to factory work. This was a time known as the Industrial Revolution, in which class division and wage labor were the most foregrounded aspects of society (Poynton). Karl Marx’s theories during this time gave way to new perspectives and different ways of viewing oneself in class positions. Comparisons between social and political structures in the 19th century and the 21st century expose the similarities that have yet to be modified. Marxist theory proved to offer a framework for society to undergo evolutionary change that would put an end to the capitalist mode of production that developed during the Industrial Revolution in Europe (Connelley). Marxism greatly outlines the struggle between different classes and groups belonging to the political world and how this class struggle affects the means of production. Broadly speaking, capitalism is a structure of political inequality and once overcome will lead to communism, inevitably weakening the boundary between classes. Although beneficial for the workers who want to live as free men, the upper class will be placed on that same wavelength. The greater political structure will form into a realm that will abolish the exploitation and oppression of workers, thus placing power in the hands of those who do not benefit from the unequal distribution of wealth. It involves a combination of political and economic factors

Karl Marx is the first in a series of 19th and 20th century theorists who started the call for an empirical approach to social science. Theorizing about the rise of modernity accompanied by the decline in traditional societies and advocating for a change in the means of production in order to enable social justice. Marx’s theories on modernity reveals his beliefs of modern society as being influenced by the advancement of productive forces of modern industry and the relationships of production between the capitalist and the wage laborers. The concept of modernity refers to a post-feudal historical period that is characterized by the move away from feudalism and toward capitalism. Modernity focuses on the affects that the rise of capitalism has had on social relations, and notes Karl Marx and Max Weber as influential theorists commenting on this. The quick advancement of major innovations after the Enlightenment period known as modernity stood in stark contrast to the incremental development of even the most complex pre-modern societies, which saw productive forces developing at a much slower pace, over hundreds or thousands of years as compared to modern times, with swift growth and change. This alarming contrast fascinated Marx who traced the spawning of modern capitalism in the Communist Manifesto, citing this record speed as the heat which generated the creation of the global division of labor and a greater variety of productive forces than anytime before. Ultimately,

The Industrial Revolution was the quintessence of capitalistic ideals; it bred controversy that led to Karl Marx’s idea of communism as a massive grass roots reaction to the revolution’s social abuses. Firstly, the Industrial Revolution featured the construction of machines, systems and factories that allowed goods to be manufactured at a faster rate with a lower cost. The seed drill made it so there could be “a semi-automated, controlled distribution and plantation of wheat seed”(Jones 2013). Secondly, there was a great social and economic divide between the wealthy owners and the poor workers, which gave rise to the mass’s vulnerability to the advent of extreme socialism. Figures of authority severely oppressed their employees by giving them insufficient pay, a treacherous work environment, and even making some children work more than 12 hours per day (Cranny 150). Finally, far right capitalism created a brutal boom and bust cycle of economics that made, for the multitude at the bottom, a perpetual nightmare of poverty and death. People responded to this social situation by taking part in violent protests; oppression sires rebellion. The Industrial Revolution was the chassis of great imagination and progress of political, economic, and social force that still affects this world today.

The major purpose of Marxism is to deliver a theoretical framework for assessing the world and providing the necessary changes. Such a policy has a precise and narrow-focused meaning. It also implies that Marxism pursues a specific sort of knowledge that is able to highlight the principles of historical movement and develop the points through which political actions could be introduced in the most effective way. In this respect, Wood has argued that the purpose of Marxist theory is to highlight the dimension of political action that considers historical context and provides the politics of capitalism, explaining the division between the political and economic in terms of distribution of power, production control and development of social resources and labor. Hence, regardless of the Marxism’s diverse strengths of Marxism theory in terms of the possibility of isolated analysis of economic and political issues, the paradigm promotes ahistorical conception of the capitalism, which is more close to bourgeois economics, which results in the formal approach to the mode of production, presenting the isolation between theory and practice.