5.8: Reactions to the Industrial Economy

Labor Unions

• Dangerous and unsanitary working conditions, low wages, and long hours were common in factory work

• When factory workers went home, they went home to slums and crammed living conditions called tenements

• Factory workers started to resist this through labor unions

• A labor union is an organized group of workers who seek to use their combined power to demand reform

• Labor unions were able to win the following:
• Five day work week
• Limits on hours worked
• Minimum wage

Voting Rights

• Labor unions also brought about political changes

• Britain expanded the right to vote to more men (before you had to own land to vote)

Child Labor

• Labor unions began to stand up for children and pressured the government to pass laws
• British law in 1843 banned children under 10 from working in coal mines

• At the same time governments passed laws for mandatory education for children

Intellectual Response

Utilitarianism

• Rise of criticisms against laissez-faire capitalism

• John Stuart Mill wanted to reform capitalism, which in his eyes was causing harm to the people doing the work

• Offered a new solution called utilitarianism
• Seeks “the greatest good for the greatest number of people”
• Championed legal reforms to allow labor unions, limit child labor, and ensure safe working conditions in factories
• Didn’t want to replace capitalism but rather reform it

Karl Marx

• Society divided in two
• Bourgeoisie: people who owned means of production
• Proletariat: people who worked in the factories

• Marx criticized capitalism as benefitting the bourgeoise while causing suffering for the proletariat

• In his Communist Manifesto, Marx argued that workers should own the means of production

• In communism, all the social classes would be erased and everyone would be equal

Ottoman Response to Industrialization

• Sultan Mahmud II (1839-1876) rapidly reforms Ottoman Empire
• Abolished Janissaries
• Abolished feudalism
• Built roads and a postal service

• Mahmud’s successors continued these reforms under a program called Tanzimat
• Tanzimat was also influenced by Enlightenment values

• However it is important to note that these reforms mostly only applied to men

• In some cases, women actually lost some rights protected to them by Islamic sharia law as Ottomans adopt secular law

Tanzimat Reforms

• Equality for all before the law

• Secular schools established (big deal as before, schools were handled by ulama, Islamic scholars)

Opposition to Reform

• When Sultan Abdulhamid took power in 1876, he was initially in favor of reforms but later massacred supporters of reform and industrialization
• He feared that modernization would undermine his power
• He killed so many people he is also known as the Red Sultan

Reform Efforts in China

• Leaders of Qing China realize they need to modernize so they launch the Self-Strengthening Movement in the 1800s
• Similar to Japan: main motive was to prevent further Western influence and strengthen Chinese culture and authority
• Government hoped to strengthen military and use that to combat both external and internal problems

• These reforms largely failed and were eventually abandoned

• However when China was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War, their desire to reform was rekindled
• China from this put in place the Hundred Days of Reform
• Civil service exam abolished, industrial and commercial systems created based on Western systems

Resistance to Reforms

• Empress Cixi was a conservative who hated these Hundred Days of Reforms

• She hated the idea of China “scrapping its culture” (evidence is abolishment of civil service exam) while adopting Western technology

• Imprisoned emperor, undoed these reforms, but later realized that these reforms are important

• These internal conflicts weakened China

• As such China forced to accept help from Western powers to modernize in exchange for exclusive trading rights

Resistance to Reform in Japan

• Rapid modernization in Japan displaced the samurai, whose bushido (samurai code of conduct) was no longer important

• Some samurai decided to serve the government as genros, elder statesmen who served as advisors

• Others resisted change, but they were crushed by the emperor’s forces

Rise and Decline of Liberalization

• Japan became kinda liberal:
• On top of improved literacy rates and an industrialized economy, Japan developed traits of democracy such as a free press, strong labor unions, and respect for individual liberties

• However by 1920’s (around Great Depression), army officers again began to dominate the government