What is this about?
How did industrialization contribute to economic and social changes?
Effects on Business Organization
- States began to ditch mercantilism in favor of laissez-faire capitalism
Rise of Corporations
- Direct successor to joint-stock companies
- The major difference is the concept of limited liability
- In joint-stock companies, losses were shared amongst everyone
- With limited liability, each investor could only lose the amount of money that they invested in
Rise of Multinational Corporations
- These are corporations that operated across multiple countries
- Example 1: HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation)
- British bank that stablished branches in China and Japan
- Example 2: Unilever Corporation
- British and Dutch partnered to create household goods, most notably soap
- Had soap factories in Australia, Switzerland, the United States and extracted raw resources from the Belgian Congo
Effect on Mass Culture
- Rise of consumerism
- Emphasizes buying lots of goods for personal satisfaction an social status
- This rise in consumerism leads to the rise of advertising and rise in production of non-essential goods
- Ex: decorative household items became popular
- In many industrialized countries, standards of living rose and people had more money to buy stuff
Rise of Leisure Culture
- Due to the exhausting nature of working in a factory, people wanted to escape
- Pubs popped up and soccer became more popular
- We also see the rise in a culture of alcoholism