19th Century

19th Century





Nationalism/Reaction/Revolt/Reaction

Age of -isms

Many of the ideas and ideologies that shape our

world originated or were modified in the 19th

Century



Most of these –isms deal with economics;

however, many also describe or impact the

social systems of class and hierarchy and

imply political action. Other –isms deal with

politics and imply economic action. All are

interrelated.

Economic Concepts of the 19thC

 Class Consciousness

 Owners – capitalists

 Non-landed middle class

and white collar workers –

bourgeoisie

 Factory and

trade

workers—

proletariat

Economics—systems and theorists



 Capitalism (free market economy, free enterprise system) : an

economic system in which the

 means of production and distribution are

privately owned and operated for profit

 decisions regarding investment of capital are

made by investors

 production, distribution, and the prices of

goods, services, and labor are determined

largely by the forces of supply and demand in

a free market.

Classical Economics (capitalism)

 Adam Smith Wealth of Nations (1776) described

 Laissez faire economics is based on these principles:

 Though government must perform many important

functions, economic growth is best when unregulated (free

enterprise)

 Society=many individuals who compete out of self interest

to meet demand of consumers in the marketplace

 Distrust government regulation because government,

composed of individuals acting out of self interest, is

corrupt

 Government roles: maintain sound currency, enforce laws

and contracts, protect property, impose low tariffs and

taxes, maintain army and navy to protect foreign trade.

Malthus (British)

 The Principle of Population (1798) responding to

Romantic ideals of continuing progress of man: a

bleak picture

 Basic thesis: population will outrun food supply

 Population grows geometrically; food supply

arithmetically

 Cannot control two basic drives for food, sex.

 Eventually, resources will be gone: life will end.

 Life for working class inevitably continues to worsen

 If wages raised, workers will have more children,

who will consume extra wages PLUS more food

 Two solutions;

 Marriage/chastity/contraception (but he

considered contraception a vice)

 Convince the working class to work for a higher

standard of living, spending on consumer goods

instead of having children

 “Through the animal and vegetable kingdoms,

nature has scattered the seeds of life abroad with

the most profuse and liberal hand. She has been

comparatively sparing in the room, and the

nourishment necessary to rear them... The race of

plants, and race of animals shrink under this

great restrictive law. And the race of man cannot,

by any efforts of reason, escape from it. Among

plants and animals its effects are waste of seed,

sickness, and premature death. Among mankind,

misery and vice. ... ―

Ricardo (British)

 Principles of Political Economy

(1817)

 Iron Law of Wages

 Raise wages: more children in

working class

 Increased numbers enter labor

market: wages go down

 Low wages: fewer children in

working class

 Decreased numbers enter labor

market: wages go up

 Raise wages: more children, etc.



 Conclusion: Wages will always tned

toard minimum level

 Supported employers in desire for low

wages and against labor unions

 ―The market price of labour is the price which

is really paid for it, from the natural operation

of the proportion of the supply to the demand;

labour is dear when it is scarce, and cheap

when it is plentiful. However much the market

price of labour may deviate from its natural

price, it has, like commodities, a tendency to

conform to it.―

Influence of Classical Economics

 Working classes hated these ideas; landowners and

merchants loved them

 France: Louis Philippe and Guizot told French to go

forth and enrich themselves: anyone who worked

with enough energy need not be poor

 Capital intensive projects of roads, canals, rr’s

 Poor stayed poor

 Germany: stayed aristocratic

 Zollverein: free trade union 1834 all German states

(not Austria)

 State domination of economy

Utilitarianism (Britain)

 Jeremy Bentham popularized the basic

premise, principle of utility: Must evaluate

actions on basis of their consequences.

Best actions: the greatest happiness for

the greatest number

 Principle of utility would overcome special

interests of privileged groups=rational govt

 Apply reason/utility to strip traditional

abuses from legal system = justice

 New Poor Law –1834 (by followers of B)

 Poor Law Commission

 Government relief only in workhouses

 Workhouse life to be more unpleasant than

life outside (awful work, husband and wife

separated, social stigma)

 Assumption: didn’t work, because lazy

Repeal of Corn Laws



 Corn Laws 1815

 During French Revolution/Napoleon and continental system, no

importing of grains, so prices up, landlords profits soared

 After Waterloo, grain imports drove prices and profits down

 Corn laws: tariffs on imported grain to bring prices back up;

 Consequence: workers demanded higher wages to pay for bread—

social unrest

 Anti Corn Law League

 Organized by manufacturers to call for imported grain, lower prices,

no need for higher wages

 Then British manufactured goods’ prices stay low, strengthen

competitive position in foreign markets

 1846 Repeal of Corn Laws

 Sir Robert Peel 1846

 as result of Irish Potato famine: had to import grain to feed starving

Irish

 Accompanied with government aid to make British ag more efficient

and keep profits high

Socialism

 To right the wrongs of capitalism

 Free market CANNOT adequately produce and

distribute goods

 Mismanagement, low wages, unequal distribution

of resources cause much suffering

 Human society SHOULD NOT be individual, but

an unselfish community

 means of production and distribution are government

owned and operated

 decisions regarding investment of capital are made by

the government

 production, distribution, and the prices of goods,

services, and labor are determined largely by the

government

Utopian Socialism

 Definition: early 19th Century thinkers and

writers labeled as:

 utopian because ideals visionary and

advocated creation of ideal communities and

labeled

 socialist because they wanted change of the

structures of government and economics that

supported capitalism

 Often had radical ideas about sexual morality

(―free love‖) and family

 As a consequence, people who may have

shared their economic concerns rejected their

social ideas

Saint Simonianism

 Count Claude Henri de Saint Simon

(1760-1825), liberal French aristocrat

 Fought in Am Rev, welcomed Fr Rev

 Writer and social critic

 Advocated sexuality outside marriage

 Ideal government: large board of

directors organizing and administering

individuals and groups for social

harmony

 (kind of technocracy)

 Not redistribution of wealth, but

management by experts to provide

economic/social justice

 Only a few followed him: Saint

Simonian societies where discussed

feminism, other advanced ideas

Owenism

 Robert Owen, British cotton manufacturer

 Self made; partner in factory at New Lanark,

Scotland

 Believed in environmentalism of Enlightenment:

 If people in correct surroundings = good

character

 New Lanark put ideals in practice

 Provided good living conditions for his workers

 Recreation for all; education for children,

several churches (though he didn’t believe,

advocated ―free love‖

 Rewards for good work in factories

 Mad a good profit

 Pleaded for reorganization of industry based on

his model

 US: sold New Lanark to establish New

Harmony, Indiana

 Quarrels among members: failed

 Back to Britain, Grand National Union

 Attempt to gather all union members in one:

 Collapsed with other trade organizations in

1830’s

Fourierism

 Charles Fourier, French intellectual commercial

salesman, but not as known as Owens

 Writer who hoped for someone to apply his ideas

 They didn’t

 Believed industrial order ignored emotional man;

social discipline ignored pleasure seeking

 Advocated phalanxes: communal agrarian

communities with ―liberated‖ living; avoid boredom

 ―Free love,‖ with marriage for later life

 No one required to work at same thing for whole day,

move from one task to another to avoid boredom

Influence of utopian socialists

 Expected government to apply their ideas;

government, society too hard to change

 Louis Blanc, 1830 The Organization of Labor

demanded end to competition, but recognized

difficulties, didn’t seek whole new society, just

give vote to working class. Working class

with power would finance jobs for poor, social

justice to replace existing order.

Anarchism

 Basic idea: overthrow and abolish existing

social/economic/political order; then rebuild a

new order with equality and freedom so that

all develop to potential

 Anarchists believe that the classless,

stateless society should be established right

away, as soon as possible.

 Some wanted peaceful abolition of traditional

society; others felt that if assassinated

political or economic leaders, upper class,

existing order falls.

Auguste Blanqui (1805-81)

 Major spokesman for terrorism

 Société républicaine centrale vs

government

 in and out of prison for involvement in

movements to overthrow the government

 1870 two unsuccessful armed

demonstrations: 12th of January at funeral

of Victor Noir, journalist shot by Pierre

Bonaparte; 14th of August, led an attempt

to seize some guns at a barrack.

 Part of Commune; imprisoned through

much of it: condemned to death, then out

of prison; died of apoplexy

 He wanted to develop a professional

revolutionary vanguard (trained terrorists and

assassins) to attack capitalistic society

 Vague ideas of what would develop after

―it is my duty as a proletarian, deprived of all the

rights of the city, to reject the competence of

a court where only the privileged classes who

are not my peers sit in judgment over me‖

[defense speech]

Bakunin (1814-76)

 Russian anarchist

 Life of struggle

 Peasant, sought ed in Moscow

 Imprisoned and condemned to death for

part in uprising vs government

 Escaped to W. Europe: set up

international anarchist organization Social

Democratic Alliance

 Differed from Marxism: didn’t believe in

intermediate ―dictatorship of proletariat‖

before dissolved government altogether

 Rejected governing systems in every name

and shape, from the idea of God

downwards; and every form of external

authority

 The revolutionist should be a devoted man,

who allowed no private interests or

feelings, and no scruples of religion,

patriotism or morality, to turn him aside

from his mission: by all available means to

overturn the existing society.

Proudhon (1809-65)

 Much tamer anarchism

 The Confessions of a Revolutionary, Proudhon

wrote, anarchy is order.

 What is Property attacked banking system

 "Property is theft!".

 Do away with money, trappings of wealth

 Criticized banks for only lending to already rich,

cronies, large businesses

 Tried to establish banks that loaned only to small

businessmen

 Envisioned society organized on basis of

mutualism

 Like small businesses

 Peaceful cooperation, exchange of good instead

of competition

 No need for state

 Influenced French labor

 Karl Marx directed some of his writings against

Proudhon’s ideas

Influence of Anarchism

 STILL AROUND: Actual fomenting of riots and other

social disturbances from its inception into the 20th C

 Assassination of world political and business leaders,

royalty to disrupt society

 Most successful: anarchist party allied with liberal left

and socialists in Spain in early 1930’s after king

overthrown

 Anarchist government in Barcelona was actually

successful in redistributing means of production,

organizing factories, etc until revolution intervened

 Communists and rightists made sure, during the chaos

of the revolution, that successful leaders were killed or

exiled.

Marxism

 Another kind of socialism

 Difference from others:

 Abolition of private property with extensive,

radical rearrangement of society

 Claims to scientific accuracy in describing the

march of history

 Rejected reform of present society

 Call for immediate revolution

 Defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in

Communist Manifesto

Friedrich Engels (1820-95)

 Middle class German:

father owned textile

factory in Manchester,

England

 Partnership with Marx,

who became his great

friend because ideas

were similar

 Wrote Communist

Manifesto

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

 Early life

Rhineland German Jewish

(family converted to

Lutheranism) he atheistic,

anti religion and church

 Edited radical journal, so

driven from Germany to

Paris

 Partnership with Engels

 Asked to write pamphlet for

Communist League

 Communist Manifesto

(German, 1848), which

defined Communism,

differentiated vs socialism

 Pamphlet regarded as just

one more; no influence then

Das Kapital (Capital)

 Influences:

 German Hegelianism

 (thought from thesis vs antithesis=synthesis)

 Marx: dominant vs subordinate social groups = conditions

leading to new dominant social group = new discontent,

conflict, etc

 French socialism

 Portrayal of problems of capitalistic society with all its

inequalities

 Idea of forced redistribution of property

 Development of society/social conditions in historical stages

 British classical economics

 Vocabulary for analyzing industrial/capital economy and society

empirically and scientifically

Major Ideas

 Marx’s words:

 ―What I did that was new was to prove:

 (1) that the existence of classes is bound up with

particular historical phases in the development of

production

 (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the

dictatorship of the proletariat

 (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the

transition to the abolition of all classes and to a

classless society

History falls into an inevitable pattern:



 History is merely the record of humankind’s struggle

with physical nature to produce what man must have

to survive

 The particular productive process of a human group

at a given time in history determines structure, ideas,

values of society

 Inevitable class conflict results from this interaction:

traditionally conflict between class that owns and

controls and the classes who work for them to

actually produce

 Piecemeal reforms cannot eliminate resulting

inevitable inequalities and evils; inherent in

structures of production—must be total

transformation of society

 Capitalism makes such revolution inevitable

Specifically in the 19th C….

 Early 19th C (industrial revolution) produced struggle between bourgeoisie

(middle class) and proletariat (workers)

 Capitalism sharpens struggle by increasing struggle and size of proletariat class

 Production/competition drives out smaller and traditional industry for giant

factories and corporations

 Production/competition forces ex-middle class owners and artisans driven out

of business + increasing number of workers needed for factories down into

proletariat class

 Few giants can force workers to work for less = increased suffering = social

unrest increases to explosion point and…

 Eventually proletariat class will revolt, overthrow few remaining magnates,

organize means of production through dictatorship of the proletariat

 Culminates in class society free of class conflict

 Victorious proletariat, by nature, could not turn into oppressors

 ―From each according to his ability; to each according to his need‖

 Marx/Engels: ―The proletarian movement is the self conscious, independent

movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.‖

Political –isms Nationalism

 Single most powerful European political ideology of

19-20th C Europe (now in Central/E Europe and old

USSR)

 Based on concept that a nation is composed of

people with common language, customs, culture and

history. This nation, then should be administered by

the same government: national and ethnic

boundaries should coincide

 Also related: popular sovereignty– particular ethnic

group should be able to decide own form of

government, determine own leaders; BUT usually

significant minorities (sometimes ruling minorities)

within each ethnic grouping: (Slavs in German areas

of Austria, etc)

Influence in the 19th C

 Contraries: Congress of Vienna

 Settlement on basis that legitimate monarchies rather than dynasties should be basis

of political units

 Nationalists protested reestablishment of multinational Austrian and Russian empires

 Also protested when peoples of same ethnic group (

Germans and Italians) put in political units smaller than ethnic nation

 Creating Nations

 Elite writers/journalists spread idea of nationalism

 Language: ―official‖ or dominant sometimes imposed by government over local

dialects; during 19th c resurrect dead languages (in 1850 less than half inhabitants of

France spoke official French—Provence, etc. local languages)

 Problems of nation

 How big is big enough? Viable economy? Significant cultural association? Cultural

elite to nourish and spread? Ability to conquer others? Argument in reality lead to

unrest and rebellion

 Problem spots in the 1800’s:

 Ireland

 Italy

 Germany

 Poland

 E. Europe (Hungarians, Czechs, Slavs)

 Balkans: Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, Romanians, Bulgarians

Liberalism

 Often used by conservatives to mean anyone who challenges traditional

political, social, religious values

 19th C: political goals

 Based on Enlightenment principles (Dec. Rights of Man and Citizen);

Often from educated, middle class (who wanted careers open to talent,

not birth)

 Wanted legal equality, religious toleration, freedom of the press

 Government limited in power, recognizing legitimacy only when freely

given consent of governed

 Republican or Parliamentary government

 State or crown ministers responsible to Representatives of people, not just

to monarch or ruler

 Constitutional government, but not necessarily democracy: wanted

representation of propertied, middle classes

 Ironically, contemptuous of both aristocracy and lower classes

 Privilege based on wealth and property, not birth

 BUT NOT voices of common people==separated from rural and urban

working classes

Economic goals of 19th C liberals

 Followed Adam Smith

Laissez faire freedom from mercantilistic, regulated economies

 Ability to manufacture and sell goods freely

 Remove tariffs and internal barriers to trade

 Vs guilds: labor to be bought and sold as any other commodity

 Wanted freedom for talented and propertied to enrich selves

 Then more goods and services for all at lower prices

 Progress = material progress for all

 Programs

 Britain: protect civil liberties with reform; limit monarch and

parliament; expand electorate to middle class

 France: Napoleonic Code already guaranteed legal system; called

for greater rights ―principles of 1789‖

 Germany: little middle class participation in government and

military, no idea of individual liberty; therefore, wanted united

Germany so that they could achieve a freer social and political order

(didn’t happen)

Conservatism

 Conservatism in general seeks to preserve the traditional

institutions of government and economy to keep power in

hands of traditional aristocracies, church hierarchies and

monarchies

 Associated with Romantic thinkers such as Edmund Burke

(Irish born, British protested Fr Rev) and Friedrich Hegel

 Threatened by waves of Revolution, beginning with the

French Revolution

 Feared and hated Enlightenment rationalism and reformist

writings

 Saw selves surrounded by enemies; permanently defending

selves vs liberalism, nationalism and popular sovereignty

Philosophy

Rousseau: Basis of Romanticism

 State of nature opposite to Hobbes

 Noble savage;

 Man good, civilization bad



 Test of true values—feelings

 education =to free a person

 God=beyond reason



 Social contract: sum of wills of

individuals

 Come together to discuss, then all vote

 ―general will‖

Kant: Critique of Pure Reason

 World of phenomena=what we can perceive

 Categories of understanding: mind sets up to

impose on sensory experience; from

mind=reasoning

 God and most of nature really not in this

category

 Noumenal world=objective reality we cannot

perceive totally

 Can only be known through ―practical reason,‖

feelings/conscience (innate sense/moral duty)

 Categorical imperative: act by rules you will to

be universal law

Hegel



 German born philosopher: educated,

worked as editor, but didn’t like

journalism, so became teacher,

university professor

 Absolute (reality) = pure Thought, or

Spirit, or Mind, incapable of definition

because process of development; self

recognition

 Geist= between spirit and reality (world

Spirit) ―The Absolute‖

(Christian/others atheistic)

Dialectic

 developmental process = dialectic = thesis vs antithesis produces

synthesis.

 The thesis might be an idea or a historical movement.

 The idea or movement contains within itself incompleteness that

gives rise to opposition, an antithesis, a conflicting idea or

movement.

 As a result of the conflict, a third point of view arises, synthesis,

which overcomes the conflict by reconciling at a higher level the

truth contained in both the thesis and antithesis. This synthesis

becomes a new thesis that generates another antithesis, giving

rise to a new synthesis,

 Dialectic:

Synthesis

Antithesis

Synthesis which becomes Thesis

Antithesis

Thesis

Implications—why basis of conservatism

 Reality is the Absolute unfolding dialectically in this

process of self-development toward the goal of total self

consciousness

 ―God is God,‖ Hegel argued, ―only in so far as he

knows himself.‖

 Expressed in Nature and in history

 Its increasing self consciousness manifests in

 Art—material = beauty

 Religion—in symbols

 Philosophy--rationally

 Hegel considered membership in the state one of the

individual's highest duties. Ideally, the state is the

manifestation of the general will, which is the highest

expression of the ethical spirit. Obedience to this

general will is the act of a free and rational individual.

Schopenhauer: Anti Romantic

Freedom of the Will; Freedom & Reality



 Divided reality into what is capable of

being experienced and what isn’t

 Experience depends on the senses;

therefore, cannot conceive of reality

outside of sensory experience

 Independent reality is a closed book ; ―all

is one‖ (noumenal only describes what

happens inside you, not objective reality)

 No God, free will, etc.

Universe=energy/go/impersonal force you

cannot define ―nature red in tooth and

claw‖

 Relief from horror of existence only

through arts.