Margin review 17 – Flashcards

1.Marx saw the Industrial Revolution as the story of class struggle between the oppressor (the bourgeoisie, or the owners of industrial capital) and the oppressed (the proletariat, or the industrial working class). 2.For Marx, the Industrial Revolution bore great promise as a phase in human history, for it made humankind far more productive, thus bringing the end of poverty in sight. 3.However, according to Marx, capitalist societies could never eliminate poverty, because private property, competition, and class hostility prevented those societies from distributing the abundance of industrial economies to the workers whose labor had created that abundance.

1.In the United States, social and economic change came as free farmers, workers, and businessmen created an industrilized economy without much direct government intervention. In autocratic Russia, change was far more often initiated by the state itself, in its continuing efforts to catch up with the more powerful and innovative states of Europe. 2. In the United States, working-class consciousness among factory laborers did not develop as quickly and did not become as radical unlike Russia, in part because workers in the USA were alowed to unionize and vote and as a result USA workers got better wages and conditions. 3.Unlike industrialization in the United States, Russian industrialization was associated with with the 5 year plans of Stalin

2.The immense religious, ethnic, and racial divisions of American society undermined the class solidarity of American workers and made it far more difficult to sustain class-oriented political parties and a socialist labor movement. 2.The country's remarkable economic growth generated on average a higher standard of living for American workers than their European counterparts experienced. 3.By 1910, a particularly large group of white-collar workers in sales, services, and offices outnumbered factory laborers.

1.Russian factory workers quickly developed an unusually radical class consciousness, based on harsh conditions and the absence of any legal outlet for their grievances. 2.A small but growing number of educated Russians found in Marxist socialism a way of understanding the changes they witnessed daily and hope for the future in a revolutionary upheaval of workers. 3.World War I caused enormous hardships that, when coupled with the immense social tensions of industrialization within a still autocratic political system, sparked the Russian Revolution of 1917.

1.Latin America exported food products and raw materials to industrializing nations, increasing exports by a factor of ten in the sixty years or so after 1850. 2.In return for these exports, Latin America imported the textiles, machinery, tools, weapons, and luxury goods of Europe and the United States. 3.Upper-class landowners benefited from the trade as exports flourished and the value of their land soared 4.But the vast majority of the population lived in rural areas, where they suffered the most and benefited the least from exports to the global economy; many lower-class farmers were pushed off their land, ending up either in remote and poor areas or working as dependent laborers for poor wages on the plantations of the wealthy

1.The population of Latin America increased rapidly, as did urbanization, similar to what was occurring in Europe. 2.Many Europeans immigrated to Latin America. 3.A middle class formed, although it was much smaller than that of Europe. 4.However, Latin America diverged from the historical path of Europe in certain ways; central to this divergence was the lack of a thorough Industrial Revolution anywhere in Latin America and the development instead of an economy dependent on financial capital from and exports to the industrial economies of Europe.

1.The enormous productivity of industrial technology and Europe's growing affluence created the need for extensive raw materials and agricultural products found in other parts of the world; and the Europeans went and took them. 2.Europe needed to sell its own manufactured goods, and colonies proved to be important markets. 3.The Industrial Revolution produced technological innovations such as the steamship, the breech-loading rifle, and the telegraph that facilitated imperialism.