Key Concept 5.1

Industrialization and Global Capitalism

Industrialization fundamentally altered the production of goods around the world. It not only changed how goods were produced and consumed, as well as what was considered a "good," but it also had far-reaching effects on the global economy, social relations, and culture. Although it is common to speak of an "Industrial Revolution," the process of industrialization was a gradual one that unfolded over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, eventually becoming global.

I. Industrialization fundamentally changed how goods were produced.

• A variety of factors led to the rise of industrial production.
• Europe's location on the Atlantic Ocean
  • The geographical distribution of coal, iron, and timber
• European demographic changes
• Urbanization
  • Improved agricultural productivity
  • Legal protection of private property
  • An abundance of rivers and canals
  • Access to foreign resources
  • The accumulation of capital.
• The development of machines, including steam engines and the internal combustion engine, made it possible to exploit vast new resources of energy stored in fossil fuels, specifically coal and oil. The "fossil fuels" revolution greatly increased the energy available to human societies.
• The development of the factory system concentrated labor in a single location and led to an increasing degree of specialization of labor.
• As the new methods of industrial production became more common in parts of northwestern Europe, they spread to other parts of Europe and the United States, Russia, and Japan.
• The "second industrial revolution" led to new methods in the production of steel, chemicals, electricity and precision machinery during the second half of the nineteenth century.

II. New patterns of global trade and production developed and further integrated the global economy as industrialists sought raw materials and new markets for the increasing amount and array of goods produced in their factories.

• The need for raw materials for the factories and increased food supplies for the growing population in urban centers led to the growth of export economies around the world that specialized in mass producing single natural resources. The profits from these raw materials were used to purchase finished goods.
• Cotton
• Rubber
• Palm Oil
• Sugar
  • Wheat
  • Meat
• Guano
  • Metals and minerals
• The rapid development of industrial production contributed to the decline of economically productive, agriculturally based economies.
  • Textile production in India
• The rapid increases in productivity caused by industrial production encouraged industrialized states to seek out new consumer markets for their finished goods.
  • British and French attempts to "open up" the Chinese market during the nineteenth century
• The need for specialized and limited metals for industrial production, we well as the global demand for gold, silver, and diamonds as forms of wealth, led to the development of extensive mining centers.
• Copper mines in Mexico
• Gold and diamond mines in South Africa

III. To facilitate investments at all levels of industrial production, financiers developed and expanded various financial institutions.

• The ideological inspiration for economic changes lies in the development of capitalism and classical liberalism associated with Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.
• Financial instruments expanded
  • Stock markets
  • Insurance
• Gold standard
• Limited liability corporations
• The global nature of trade and production contributed to the proliferation of large-scale transnational businesses.
• The United Fruit Company
• The HSBC - Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

IV. There were major developments in transportation and communication.

• Railroads
• Steamships
• Telegraphs
• Canals

V. The development and spread of global capitalism led to a variety of responses.

• In industrialized states, many workers organized themselves to improve working conditions, limit hours, and gain higher wages, while others opposed capitalist exploitation of workers by promoting alternative visions of society.
• Utopian socialism
• Marxism
• Anarchism
• In Qing China and the Ottoman Empire, some members of the government resisted economic change and attempted to maintain preindustrial forms of economic production.
• In a small number of states, governments promoted their own state-sponsored visions of industrialization.
• The economic reforms of Meiji Japan
• The development of factories and railroads in Tsarist Russia
• China's Self-Strengthening Movement
  • Muhammad Ali's development of a cotton textile industry in Egypt
• In response to criticisms of industrial global capitalism, some governments mitigated the negative effects of industrial capitalism by promoting various types of reforms.
• State pensions and public health in Germany
• Expansion of suffrage in Britain
• Public education in many states

VI. The ways in which people organized themselves into societies also underwent significant transformations in industrialized states due to the fundamental restructuring of the global economy.

• New social classes, including the middle class and the industrial working class, developed.
• Family dynamics, gender roles, and demographics changed in response to industrialization.
• Rapid urbanization that accompanied global capitalism often led to unsanitary conditions, as well as to new forms of community