The Cold War and Decolonization Cuba and the United States Cuba was ceded to the USA in 1901 at the conclusion of the Spanish-American war. The US made Cuba an independent state, but retained the “right of intervention” in order to insure a pro-American government. The ensuing political instability led to years of corruption and questionable elections. The United States continued to dominate Cuban politics and US companies control the majority of Cuba’s resources (sugar). Cuba and the Cold War Political instability and corruption led to a Communist insurgency in the 1950s led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Castro succeeded in ousting the government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Castro initially looked to the United States for support, but his policies of seizing the property of American companies angered the Eisenhower administration. The Cuban Missile Crisis: Cold War meets Decolonization US unhappiness with Cuba turned to hostility in 1961, when the CIA sponsored the “Bay of Pigs” invasion. Castro immediately turned to the USSR for assistance. The USSR, under Khrushchev, offered assistance in return for military cooperation. Castro agreed, and the Soviets placed medium range nuclear weapons in Cuba, 90 miles from the USA. The USA responded with a 13-day naval blockade and the threat of general war. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles. Decolonization in India Gandhi The basis of Gandhi’s efforts were non-violence and non-cooperation. Swadeshi The “Quit India” movement was started in 1939 because Gandhi believed India could not support a war to defend democracy when India was denied democratic self-rule. In 1947, his movement forced Britain to accept Indian independence. Nehru, Gandhi’s partner in the independence movement, worked hard to keep India unaligned with either the USA or the USSR. The Soviet Union on Western Imperialism “If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.” --Lenin, 1916 The official policy of the USSR was to aid anti-imperial efforts, primarily by supporting communist insurgencies and uprisings, in places like Africa and Latin America. Bandung Conference Nehru of India and Sukarno of Indonesia organized the Bandung conference in 1955 for newly independent former colonies. The goal of the conference was to offer support to one another, and to avoid having to become involved in the Cold War. The countries which tried to remain outside the East versus West struggle became popularly known as the “Third World” French Indochina Ho Chi Minh was a civil rights worker in French Indochina. Versailles Conference, 1919 Communism, 1920s. Viet Minh, his resistance movement against Japan, 1941-1945 Provisional government and declaration of independence, 1945 He immediately turned to the United States for aid and recognition, citing his cooperation in fighting the Japanese. Why ...

1. The Cold War and Decolonization
Cuba and the United States
Cuba was ceded to the USA in 1901 at the conclusion of the
Spanish-American war.
The US made Cuba an independent state, but retained the “right
of intervention” in order to insure a pro-American government.
The ensuing political instability led to years of corruption and
questionable elections.
The United States continued to dominate Cuban politics and US
companies control the majority of Cuba’s resources (sugar).
Cuba and the Cold War
Political instability and corruption led to a Communist
insurgency in the 1950s led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.
Castro succeeded in ousting the government of Fulgencio
Batista in 1959.
Castro initially looked to the United States for support, but his
policies of seizing the property of American companies angered
the Eisenhower administration.
The Cuban Missile Crisis: Cold War meets Decolonization
US unhappiness with Cuba turned to hostility in 1961, when the
CIA sponsored the “Bay of Pigs” invasion.
Castro immediately turned to the USSR for assistance.
The USSR, under Khrushchev, offered assistance in return for
military cooperation.

2. Castro agreed, and the Soviets placed
medium range nuclear weapons in
Cuba, 90 miles from the USA.
The USA responded with a 13-day
naval blockade and the threat of
general war. Khrushchev agreed
to remove the missiles.
Decolonization in India
Gandhi
The basis of Gandhi’s efforts were non-violence and non-
cooperation.
Swadeshi
The “Quit India” movement was started in 1939 because
Gandhi believed India could not support a war to defend
democracy when India was denied democratic self-rule.
In 1947, his movement forced Britain to accept Indian
independence.
Nehru, Gandhi’s partner in the independence movement, worked
hard to keep India unaligned with either the USA or the USSR.
The Soviet Union on Western Imperialism
“If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of
imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the
monopoly stage of capitalism.”
--Lenin, 1916
The official policy of the USSR was
to aid anti-imperial efforts, primarily
by supporting communist insurgencies

3. and uprisings, in places like Africa and
Latin America.
Bandung Conference
Nehru of India and Sukarno of Indonesia organized the Bandung
conference in 1955 for newly independent former colonies.
The goal of the conference was to offer support to one another,
and to avoid having to become involved in the Cold War.
The countries which tried to remain outside the East versus
West struggle became popularly known as the “Third World”
French Indochina
Ho Chi Minh was a civil rights worker in French Indochina.
Versailles Conference, 1919
Communism, 1920s.
Viet Minh, his resistance movement against Japan, 1941-1945
Provisional government and declaration of independence, 1945
He immediately turned to the United States for aid and
recognition, citing his cooperation in fighting the Japanese.
Why did Ho look to the USA?

4. The Atlantic Charter, a statement issued by Britain and the USA
as part of the post-war rebuilding plans:
1) No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or
the United Kingdom.
2) Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of
the peoples concerned.
3) All peoples had a right to self-determination.
4) Trade barriers were to be lowered.
5) There was to be global economic cooperation and
advancement of social welfare.
6) Freedom from want and fear.
7) Freedom of the seas.
8) Disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common
disarmament.
The Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, 1945
All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty,
and the pursuit of Happiness.
This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of
Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a
broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal
from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and
free.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of the
French Revolution made in 1791 also states: All men are born
free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and
have equal rights.
Those are undeniable truths.
Vietnam or French Indochina, 1946
Unfortunately for Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese, the USA

5. decided to support French wishes to retain their colonies in
order to prop-up their battered economy.
The French and Ho Chi Minh briefly tried to work out an
agreement to grant Vietnam autonomy, but the deal broke down,
and fighting between the Viet Minh and the French began in
1946.
Vietnam War, 1946-1975
After 1950, aid from People’s Republic, USSR
1954, Viet Minh defeat French
Elections were to be held in
1956, but the US rejected this
aspect of the treaty. Ho Chi Minh
controlled the north of the
country, and anti-communist
forces sponsored by the US
controlled the south.
The fight then became the US vs.
North Vietnam, with full US troop
commitment from 1965-1972
Domino Theory or Decolonization?
By 1975, North Vietnam defeated the South Vietnamese
government and unified the country.
Ho Chi Minh had died in 1969, and never lived to see a united
and independent Vietnam.
The US involvement in the war cost 59,000 US lives and 1.1
million Vietnamese lives.

6. Why is the Third World poor?
For those countries which chose to align themselves with the
West, IMF and World Bank economists recommended the quick
adoption of export economies and capitalist policies.
Most of these countries could only export natural resources and
agricultural commodities, just like they had as colonies.
Their ability to compete economically with industrialized
nations was minimal.
For countries who tried to join the Communists, war was the
frequent outcome, resorting in wide-spread devastation.
For non-aligned countries,
foreign aid and assistance was
hard to come by.
Frequently offers of aid required
the adoption of capitalist export
policies and the removal of protections
for domestic markets.
Globalization: the international capitalist
Economic order promoting free trade as
the only viable economic strategy.
Life and Debt
“The market forces that operate once [the IMF and World
Bank] become involved are an economic form of Darwinism.
The fittest economies prosper while the weaker ones tend to be
snared in an endless and escalating cycle of debt repayment that
eventually erodes the debtor country's economic base. The
banks' lending policies are, of course, determined by the
wealthier countries, especially the United States and those of
Western Europe.” NYT
Decolonization: the Middle East

7. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (1918), much of the
Middle East was occupied by Britain and France as
“protectorates” under the auspices of the League of Nations.
Sykes-Picot treaty
Britain and France would administer the region “until they can
stand on their own”.
Decolonization
and the
Middle East
Sykes-Picot agreement, 1916
Dealing with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
Jewish Nationalism, The State of Israel
1897, Theodor Herzl, Zionist Organization
Negotiations with Ottomans, British after 1919 for a Jewish
State in Palestine.
Gradual immigration, increasing massively during World War II
Conflict with the Muslim population of Palestine for land,
political control.
British plans for a two-state arrangement, failures.
Israel
Britain decided to withdraw from the region between 1945-
1948.
United Nations tried to create a two-state system between 1946-
1948, but neither side was happy with the outcome.
1948, Jewish leaders unilaterally declared the State of Israel.
Neighboring Arab states immediately invaded.

8. Israel and the Arab World
1948 was the first of a series of terrible wars: 1956, 1967, 1973,
1982, 2006, 2009, 2014
United Nations plans never implemented
Intense hostility remains, despite normalization of relations
with some nations (Egypt, Jordan, Turkey).
Alignment with US
Ongoing source of tension
between the Islamic world and
the US and Europe.
From the Cold War to Terrorism
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, in an effort to
gain a strategic foot-hold in the oil-rich Middle East, where US
influence was expanding.
They were resisted by Mujahideen fighters supported
extensively by the CIA. These fighters combined national pride
and religious convictions.
Eventually, the Afghanis won, and the USSR pulled out in 1989.
Mujahadeen: Friends to Enemies
The CIA encouraged and funded the Muslim fighters who
flocked to Afghanistan to fight the USSR.
Once the USSR left, so did the CIA.
Afghanistan remained an impoverished, war-torn nation, whose
government was happy to play host to wealthy religious

9. warriors…
After the 1991 Gulf War, many of the
Mujahedeen came to regard America
as they had the Soviets: a foreign
invader interested only in the
region’s oil.
ISIS and Sykes-Picot
European Integration
Conceived of in the post-war years as an anti-nationalism
strategy.
2010, 27 member states of the European Union,
16 Eurozone states.
Embedded Liberalism in Europe: regulation, high taxes, strong
labor unions,
robust welfare states.
Democratic socialism
Neoliberalism and the USA
Embedded liberalism of the Bretton Woods system largely ends
in the 1970s.
From 1980s, a gradual shift in economic philosophy and
government policy towards laissez-faire policies and the
principals of classical liberalism.
Return of the instability of capitalism: creation of massive
wealth, poverty, environmental issues, etc.
Collapse of the Soviet
Union in 1991 led many
to believe that the
challenges to capitalism were

10. over.
The Shape of the Modern World
Terrorism and Globalization
Note that the two buzzwords of the modern world are essentially
tied to major themes of our course:
Imperialism, colonization, nationalism, socialism,
capitalism
Post War Asia
xs
China
Republic of China (1912-1949)
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
Chiang Kai-Shek
Mao Zedong

11. People’s Republic, 1949
Taiwan
Japan
Occupied by US, 1945-1952
New Constitutional Monarchy,
constitution written by
US military occupation
government.
Post-War Europe
“Candy Bombers” during the Berlin Airlift, 1948
Ideal Organization of the Post-War World:
The Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter, issued in late 1941 by Britain and the
USA as part of the post-war rebuilding plans:
1) No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or
the United Kingdom.
2) Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of
the peoples concerned.
3) All peoples had a right to self-determination.
4) Trade barriers were to be lowered, primarily within British
Empire.
5) There was to be global economic cooperation and

12. advancement of social welfare.
6) Freedom from want and fear.
7) Freedom of the seas.
8) Disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common
disarmament.
Rebuilding the Economy: Bretton Woods
“Embedded liberalism”– free trade, government regulation and
management of key economic issues.
Allies met in New Hampshire in 1944 to plan for rebuilding the
world economy.
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were
established to promote free international trade.
“Economic Nationalism” was discouraged as harmful to global
prosperity.
Currency Exchange rates were set for European and American
currencies.
United Nations
League of Nations failed to prevent war
During the war, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed that a
new organization was needed.
The UN was created to replace the League, with expanded
powers including the Security Council.
The Security Council has the power to make binding
decisions regarding war and peace.
The major allies of WWII make up the
permanent members of the Council:
USA, Britain, Russia, China and France.

13. The Marshall Plan
In 1947, the US began an aid plan to help European countries
rebuild.
European and American policy makers were afraid that
economic difficulties would encourage people to support
socialism and the Soviet Union.
Billions of dollars of US aid was spent to help rebuild the
nations of Western Europe.
Marshall Plan and the Cold War
At first Stalin and the Soviet Union planned on participating in
the negotiations to rebuild the European economy.
The French and British were largely not interested in Soviet
participation; the negotiations soon became contentious, and the
Russians withdrew.
No Marshall Plan money went to Eastern Europe.
The Cold War
Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech, 1946
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an
iron curtain has descended across the Continent… all these
famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I
must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or
another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in
some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.
In a great number of countries, Communist fifth
columns are established and work in complete unity and

14. absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the
Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in
the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the
Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing
challenge and peril to Christian civilization.
Occupied Germany, Berlin Blockade, 1948
Escalation: 1949
May 1949, US and allies create West Germany from their
occupied zones. USSR counters by creating the German
Democratic Republic.
August 1949, Soviets successfully test their first atomic
weapon.
NSC 68, 1950
Within the past thirty-five years the world has
experienced two global wars with tremendous violence. It has
witnessed two revolutions—the Russian and the Chinese—of
extreme scope and intensity. It has also seen the collapse of five
Empires….The international scene was marked by…a system of
sovereign and independent states…over which no state was able
to achieve hegemony.
Two complex factors have now basically altered this
historical distribution of power. First, the defeat of Germany
and Japan and the decline of the British and French
Empires….Second, the Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants
to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to
our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest
of the world.

15. Eisenhower, Why we fight:
Q. Robert Richards, Copley Press: "Mr. President, would you
mind commenting on the strategic importance of Indochina to
the free world? I think there has been, across the country, some
lack of understanding on just what it means to us."
Eisenhower: "You have, of course, both the specific and the
general when you talk about such things.
"First of all, you have the specific value of a locality in its
production of materials that the world needs.
"Then you have the possibility that many human beings
pass under a dictatorship that is inimical to the free world.
"Finally, you have broader considerations that might
follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle. You
have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one,
and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will
go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a
disintegration that would have the most profound influences.”
Korean War
US in Korea
Marines at Chosin
December 1950

16. Mussolini on War:
War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energy
and puts a stamp of nobility upon peoples who have the courage
to meet it.
German Expansion, 1936-1939
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
Break down in world trade led many states, including Japan, to
attempt to create trading-zones which they could dominate.
Germany Invades Poland
September 1939
Invasion of France, May 1940

17. Britain vs. Germany
1940-1941
Attack on the Soviet Union, 1941
Japanese Pacific Empire
Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941
War in North Africa, 1940-1942
Battle of Stalingrad, 1942
The Holocaust

18. Death Camps
Holocaust Deaths:
6 million Jewish
500,000 Gypsies
200,000 Others
Normandy, 1944 Pacific Campaign 1942-1945
Strategic Bombing
The Air War over Europe
Strategic bombing was
approached differently
by the RAF and the
USAAF.
American commanders
preferred massive daylight

19. bombings raids, the
British preferred carefully
directed nighttime raids.
In the end the American strategy caused more damage, but with
very high casualty rates among bomber crews.
Between the RAF and the USAAF, 700,000 tons of bombs were
dropped on Europe
Dresden, 40k civilian deaths Tokyo, 100k civilian deaths
Eastern Front, 1944-1945
By 1944, Stalin’s efforts to
industrialize began paying dividends
With help from Britain and the US,
Russian industry began
producing large numbers of
modern weapons, and soon
outnumbered the Germans
in tanks.
VE Day, May 8 1945

20. The Manhattan Project
Los Alamos, New Mexico and Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Hiroshima,
August 6, 1945
Nagasaki
August 9, 1945
Hiroshima
Hiroshima- 90,000-140,000
Nagasaki- 60,000-80,000
9% Cancer rate among survivors
World War II Dead
Military – 15,000,000

21. Civilian- 45,000,000
Occupied Germany
The Allies, 1944
Organizing the Post-War World
The Atlantic Charter, issued in late 1941 by Britain and the
USA as part of the post-war rebuilding plans:
1) No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or
the United Kingdom.
2) Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of
the peoples concerned.
3) All peoples had a right to self-determination, including the
British Empire.
4) Trade barriers were to be lowered, especially within the
British Empire.
5) There was to be global economic cooperation and
advancement of social welfare.
6) Freedom from want and fear.
7) Freedom of the seas.
8) Disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common
disarmament.

22. Post-War economic woes
The Gold Standard
Under Liberal-Economic policies, all countries valued their
currency by how much gold they possessed.
During WWI, many countries printed paper money in excess of
their gold-reserves to fund the war.
After the war, some countries had a hard time returning to the
gold standard, especially Germany, which had paid most of its
war reparation payments to France in gold.
Hyper-inflation
War indemnity payments
2 billion a year!
Government printed money
to make payments.
By 1923, the German Mark was completely worthless.
Payments in industrial goods.
1920s Economy in General
German currency was stabilized in mid-20s, but only through
austerity measures that led to high unemployment and loss of
investments and savings.

23. High unemployment and low government spending was common
throughout Europe.
Relatively healthy US economy loaned lots of money (both at
the government level and through private investment) to
Europe.
Struggle to maintain the gold standard, while managing war
debts and rebuilding programs.
International Communism
Success of the Soviet Union in the 1920s
End of European empires
International solidarity of the working classes
Strong government-led reorganization of the economy to meet
peoples’ needs
Seizure of productive private property (not personal property)
Radical egalitarian, active abolishment of social classes; in
theory, at least, democratic
Racial awareness
Fascism: Starting with Italy
Fasces- Bundle of rods around and ax, the symbol of executive
authority in ancient Rome.
Totalitarian/Authoritarian
(anti-democratic)

24. A “Third Way” which is not
Communism or capitalism
Economic interests must serve the
nation first and foremost, but hopefully
through patriotic cooperation between
government and the economic elites
Nationalist and expansionistic
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
-elected 1921 to the Italian parliament.
Squadristi or Black Shirts
March on Rome, October 1922
Il Duce

25. (The Leader)
-Prime Minister in 1922
-Dictator from 1925-1944
What Fascism is not, according to Il Duce
Mussolini on Democracy: Fascism affirms the irremediable,
fruitful, and beneficent inequality of men, who cannot be
leveled by such a mechanical and extrinsic fact as universal
suffrage.
Mussolini on Majority Rule: Fascism denies that the majority,
through the mere fact of being the majority, can rule human
societies…
Mussolini on Liberalism: In the face of liberal doctrines,
Fascism takes up the attitude of absolute opposition both in the
field of politics and in that of economics.
What Fascism is, according to Il Duce
Mussolini on the State: For Fascism, the State is an absolute
before which individuals and groups are relative.
Mussolini on the Purpose of the State: The State is the
guarantor of internal and external security, but it is also the
guardian and transmitter of the spirit of the people as it has
been elaborated through the centuries in language, custom,
faith…
Mussolini on collectivism: If the nineteenth was the century of
the individual (liberalism = individualism) it may be expected

26. that this one may be the century of collectivism, and therefore
the century of the state.
Mussolini on leadership: It is necessary that every great
movement to have a representative man who shall feel all the
passion and carry the flame for the movement…
Adolf Hitler and Mussolini
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
National Socialist German Workers Party (1921)
SA (Sturmabteilung) Paramilitaries
Beer Hall Putsch, Munich 1923
Mein Kampf, 1924

27. Hitler’s Fascism
As a State the German Reich shall include all Germans. Its task
is not only to gather in and foster the most valuable sections of
our people but to lead them slowly and surely to a dominant
position in the world.
The State is only the vessel and the race is what it contains. The
vessel can have a meaning only if it preserves and safeguards
the contents. Otherwise it is worthless.
Hitler über Deutschland
-January, 1933, becomes Chancellor
- Reichstag Fire, February 1933
- Enabling Act, March 1933
-Fürher und Reichskanzler, 1934
Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists (1930s)
German American Bund (1930s)

28. Stalin and the Soviet Union
Lenin died in 1924
Stalin vs Trotsky; Stalin wins
Rapid modernization
Five-Year plan to industrialize and rebuild agriculture.
Stalin also violently purged his political
opponents from the Soviet government
and military.
Sever economic disruptions
Totalitarian state
Ultimately successful in building up Russian
economic power.
1929 and the Great Depression
US real-estate bubble disrupted economy.
In October, 1929, the US Stock Market crashed, precipitating a
run on banks.
7000 banks failed in the next three years, and millions of people
lost their deposits.
European countries which had been relying on US loans to float
their economies were similarly affected.
FDR and the New Deal
Roosevelt was elected in 1932 in the face of a deepening

29. Depression.
US unemployment was over 25% in 1932-33.
FDR’s response was massive government intervention in the
economy…
Banks regulated, FDIC introduced
CCC and other government agencies used to provide jobs.
Massive government investment in all sectors of the economy…
a 1930s “bailout”
Social protections created like unemployment insurance and
social security
Re-Thinking the Economy
Laissez-Faire/Liberal economic theory called for no government
involvement in economic regulation.
Socialism called for complete government management of
important sectors of the economy.
Fascism called for government and corporate cooperation for
the promotion of state/national interests.
What is the New Deal? Embedded liberalism
Mussolini on War:
War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energy
and puts a stamp of nobility upon peoples who have the courage
to meet it.

30. Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
Guernica, 1937, Pablo Picasso
Foreign Involvement
Franco, Hitler, Mussolini

31. The First World War
saxa
Confidence to Stalemate: Trench Ward
Trench Warfare on the Western Front.After their initial success,
the Germans
had a hard time advancing in France.For the next three
years, the lines were
almost totally fixed near Paris.Each side dug trenches and
fortifications,
leading to the so-called Trench Warfare.
Modern Weapons: War and the
Industrial RevolutionNew weapons, like the machine-gun, were
especially suited to defensive trench fighting.Both sides
developed new offensive weapons to try and counter the
defensive advantage, such as heavier artillery and poison gas.
Planes and Tanks…
And Zeppelins

32. Naval CombatWilly’s navy finally fought the British Home
Fleet at the battle of Jutland, May 1916.The Germans actually
inflicted great damage on the British Navy, but were out-
numbered, and forced to retreat to their ports, where the British
blockaded them.
Lusitania, May 1915
British passenger liner sunk off Ireland, 1198 casualties,
including 128 Americans
More New Technology: U-BoatsGermany built many submarines
to counter the British surface fleet.After 1916, the German fleet
began unrestricted submarine warfare, attacking any ship which
approached Britain. This led to the sinking of US ships and
American involvement in the war.
Ireland, 1916Easter Uprising, mostly in DublinDeclaration of an
Irish
RepublicViolent British
responseExecution
(without trial)
of the leadersStrong
negative
world reaction.

33. The West, 1916-1917Stalemate, horrific casualties.Verdun,
winter 1916: 250k dead, 1 million woundedThe River Somme,
summer 1916: 1.5 million casualtiesBy 1917,
neither side
could
advance
against the
other.Conscription
and
resistance
The Eastern Front: The Russian RevolutionThe Russian Army,
though very large, was not as technologically capable as the
German forces, and faired badly.Shortages and hunger in the
Russian cities led to widespread discontent.In March, 1917,
Nicholas II abdicated. The government was soon taken over by
Vladmir Lenin
and his Bolshevik party.They quickly made peace with
Germany and left the war in early
1918.
JapanJapan also got involved, allying with Britain and France,
and seizing many of Germany’s Pacific possessions.
US ArrivesThe US Congress declared war on Germany in March
of 1917, and instituted a draft.By early 1918, thousands of US
soldiers began arriving in France.For the first time, the
Germans were at a real
disadvantage
numerically.

34. 1918The Germans launched a new offensive in early 1918, and
nearly took Paris.The Allies, now with thousands of US troops,
counter-attacked and captured hundreds of thousands of German
troops.Allied advances continued, and by October, the German
Army was in full retreat.The Austrians were badly beaten in
Serbia and Italy, and were about to surrender as well.An
armistice was declared in November, 1918.
Results20 million military and civilian casualties. 11 million
dead.Collapse of the Russian Empire, and the emergence of the
Soviet Union.The collapse of the Austrian Empire.The collapse
of the Ottoman Empire.Defeat of Germany, ruin of
FranceDestruction of the European economySpanish Flu, 1919
(20 million more dead)British victoryAmerican victory,
emergence as a world power
Treaty of Versailles, 1919Germany
Return Alsace-Lorraine to France (1871)
Give up overseas empire (mostly to Britain and Japan)
Reparations!Austria gave up all imperial possessions,
including Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Bosnia, Italian
Territories.Ottoman Empire Newly organized as TurkeyMiddle
Eastern territories divided up by Britain and FranceArab (and
Kurdish and Egyptian) national ambitions?Poland rebuilt from
land given up by Germany and AustriaWoodrow Wilson and the
League of Nations (an antecedent to the United Nations)

35. Sykes-Picot Agreement
End of the Nineteenth CenturyNationalism largely repudiated as
the cause of the “Great War” as it was called.Competition for
Imperial possessions was essentially over, also seen as a cause
of the war.Classic Liberalism was essentially over as well, as
the European economy was in complete shambles after the war.
Many observers saw WWI as a total failure of the politics and
policies of the Nineteenth Century, a sentiment which led to the
creation of several reactionary political philosophies.
Europe in the Late Nineteenth Century
Nineteenth Century Global System
Capitalism, global markets, industrial rev.
Nationalism, state-building, international competition
Imperial/colonial expansion, competition
Boom/bust cycle of capitalist economies
By the early twentieth century, much pessimism.
Russia
Expansion east, from sixteenth century (fur trade)
Expansion towards Ottoman Empire
Slavic nationalism

36. Royal family: the Czars
Peasant reform and private vs. common property
Resistance movements, socialism.
Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5
Austria, 1866-1900
Bismarck, and the defeat of Austria (1866)
Challenges to the monarchy
Austria-Hungary
Nationalist aspirations of the various cultural groups: Czechs,
Serbs, Slovenians, Italians, Slovakians, Hungarians, etc.
Towards the First World War
Balance of Power, Capitalism, Nationalism
Free trade and peace
Economic cycles (boom/bust) and economic nationalism-
backlash against free trade.
Competition for colonies/empire had a strong economic
component, and many policy-makers saw capitalism as a zero-
sum game.
High unemployment often fueled nationalist sentiments.

37. Competition and Balance
Ambitions of new nationalist movements
Competition between older European countries
Britain vs. Germany
Naval arms race
The descendants of Queen Victoria:
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany
Czar Nicholas II of Russia
Edward VII and George V
Triple Alliance and Triple Entente
France allied with Russia because they resented Germany, and
now threatened them from two fronts.
Germany allied with its “natural” partner Austria-Hungary, and
Italy as well.
Britain allied with France as German naval ambition became
more dangerous.
The Balkans
Frontier between Austrian and Ottoman Empire
Serbia (rebelled against Ottoman Empire, 1878)
Nationalist sentiments in Bosnia, especially among the Serbians
living in Bosnia, who wished to unite their lands with the
kingdom of Serbia and form a nation of the South Slavic people
(Yugoslavia).
Insurgencies, rebels, supported by Serbia

38. x
The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand von Hapsburg
In June, 1914, the crown-prince of Austria, Franz Ferdinand,
went to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, to tour the province.
A Bosnian-Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, shot the Prince and
his wife while they were traveling through the city in a
convertible.
Fallout from the Assassination
Austria blamed Serbia
Demands place on Serbia
Serbia asked Russia for support.
Slavic nationalism.
Austria looked to its ally, Germany, for support.
On July 28th, Austria declared war on Serbia.
Russia and Germany mobilized their troops as well.
German Strategy for a Two-Front War
France-Russia alliance (1894) put Germany in an awkward
position.
The Schlieffen Plan
The idea was that France would be defeated quickly, as they had
been in the Franco-Prussian War.
Wilhelm summarized the plan:

39. “Lunch in Paris, dinner in
St. Petersburg.”
sq
The First World War
saxa
Confidence to Stalemate: Trench War
d
Other European Empires (pre-1890s)
France (under Napoleon III, and later)
Algeria (North Africa)
Siam (Vietnam)
Germany
Influence in China
East Africa

40. Italy (after 1870)
Libya, East Africa
The Scramble for Africa, 1890-1914
Africa
Berlin Conference, 1884- Bismarck convened a conference in
which the European powers established their zones of control in
Africa.
Bismarck wanted to avoid wars in Europe as a result of colonial
expansion.
Cairo to Cape Town: British Africa
Egypt, 1888
Germany and Italy in the way
Empire as Duty
Civilizing mission
Notions of biological racism,
widely accepted.
A new phenomenon of the
nineteenth century: prejudice
was not new, but religious
divisions replaced by new racial
categories which had not been

41. major categories of human
identity in the past.
qw
Take up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
--Rudyard Kipling, White Man’s Burden, 1899
s
Scientific Racism
Science was used to justify imperialism by “proving” the
inferiority of Africans, Asians, etc.
This was especially true after 1859, when Charles Darwin
published The Origin of Species.

42. Social Darwinism and the Theory of Evolution
Darwin’s model for the Theory of Evolution was quickly
applied to living humans and their societies.
Social Darwinism basically took the notion that “only the strong
survive”, and applied this to social and international relations.
This scientific justification simply reinforced preexisting
notions of the differences between classes and races.
The Upside of Empire?
Despite the dark episodes of European Imperialism, most
European powers did try to “improve” their colonial empires.
Railroads, ports and modern cities were built, however often
these served the economic needs of the home countries, and did
not benefit the people living in the colonies.
Schools and hospitals were constructed in most colonies, which
did prove to be tangible benefits to the colonial populations.
But consider: did the colonies want or need European schools?
Imperialism in Asia

43. China and the West
Imperial power of Asia
Zhongguo, Middle Kingdom
Highly-centralized, bureaucratic tributary state
Self-image as the heart of the civilized world
Foreign relations conducted through tributary exchange,
imperial gift giving.
Imperialism in China
The Chinese government allowed European traders only very
limited and tightly controlled access to Chinese trade.
Trade was conceived of as part of the tributary system in China.
Starting in the nineteenth century, European traders, especially
the British were eager to open Chinese markets to free trade.
The British East India Company in China
Indian-grown opium and China.
The East India Company expanding its trade networks.
EIC merchants objected to the limited nature of trade allowed
by China, and began using any means to import more and more
opium
The Chinese government disapproved, and seize opium
shipments in 1839
First Opium War, 1839-1842

44. The opium ban led to war with the British, and the British navy
quickly seized coastal towns. The Chinese fought on until
British ships seized the tax revenues for all of southern China in
1841.
Hong Kong and the Five Treaty Ports
British citizens were granted extra-territorial rights in the treaty
ports
Arrow War, or Second Opium War, 1856-1860
The second Opium War erupted when the Chinese seized a
pirate ship selling British Opium.
The French and British joined forces to defeat the Chinese,
forcing them to accept humiliating terms.
China was forced to open ten more ports to foreign trade, and to
extend extra-territorial rights to all Europeans anywhere in
China.
China also lost all tariff autonomy, and could no longer tax
imports.
The Emperor was forced to accept a British embassy in Beijing,
a major violation of custom and protocol in Chinese diplomatic
relations.
Results for China
Massive government budget shortfalls; loans
Problems with drought-relief in the 1870s, 1890s
Rebellions and political chaos
Anti-foreign sentiment
Constant European interference
“Spheres of influence”
End of the Imperial

45. government by 1912.
Japan and the West
Like China, the Tokugawa government of Japan restricted the
access Europeans had to their territories and markets.
Since 1605, all trade was limited to an island in Nagasaki. One
European (Dutch) ship was allowed per year. The Japanese
government liked to buy guns in exchange for Japanese silk and
other trade goods.
“Opening” Japan
Beginning in the 1830s, British and American ships attempted
to land at other ports in Japan and to negotiate new treaties.
After several failed attempts, American business men requested
that Congress send a negotiation party backed up by a show of
naval strength.
Commodore Perry and the Black Ships, 1853-4
Perry entered Tokyo harbor, and threatened force if he could not
meet with government officials.
The Japanese government agreed to open more ports to
American and European trade.

46. Meiji Restoration, 1860-1870
Perry’s expedition led to a civil war in Japan.
Traditionalists (samurai) fought against those who wanted to
return the emperor to power.
The Imperial faction won, and Emperor Meiji replaced the
Tokugawa government.
If you can’t beat them, join them
To counter European and American aggression, Japan embarked
on a course of very rapid modernization.
By the 1890s, Japan had imported Western technical experts,
equipment, weapons, and technology, and created an industrial
economy and modern military for Japan.
Within a few years, Japan too became an imperial power,
fighting Russia for influence in East Asia and conquering
Korea.
Dismantling the Ottoman Empire
Nationalism and rebellion
Greece, 1821
Bulgaria, 1878
Serbia, 1835
Egypt, 1867
Wars with Russia: Crimea, Black Sea
Free trade agreement with Britain, 1838
“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of
unequals”

47. Debt to European
countries:
Dette Ottomane,
1875- loss of fiscal
control to French and
British bankers.
“The Sick Man of
Europe”
Suez Canal and Egypt
99 year lease obtained by French businessmen from Ottoman
governor of Egypt, 1856
Constructed 1859-1869 with Egyptian peasants doing corvée
labor service.
Britain obtained a major stake in the canal in 1875 due to
Egypt’s deep debt to European bankers.
1882 revolt by Egyptian nationalists, suppressed by British
invasion
1888, Treaty of Constantinople, Britain controlled Egypt… and
the Canal.
Imperialism

48. Defining Imperialism
From the 1500s on, European countries established colonies
world-wide.
Early expansion: trade, resources (gold and silver, sugar and
tobacco, etc.)
Colonies involved transplanting people from the home country
to establish a new outpost
Colonies were economic, designed to bring resources back to
the home country.
Many colonies were simply trading posts for establishing
commerce with local populations (Africa and Asia)
Some colonies became major land empires (Spanish America,
British North America)
Nineteenth Century Imperialism
The political ascendancy of the bourgeoisie/liberal/industrial
class, and the success of the industrial revolution changed the
nature of colonial projects.
Countries now wanted markets for their industrial products
Colonies could also enable further industrialization by
providing raw materials and food (British India).
Nationalism greatly contributed to colonial expansion… If one
country had an empire, it might be seem as greater or more
powerful. Soon all the European countries wanted empires.
Britain
Britain
Maritime Commercial Empire
“The Sun never sets on the British Empire”

49. After 1840s, Britain became entirely dependent on imported
food, especially from India.
Importance of the British Navy (what does this tell us about the
relationship between state power and free-market economics?)
Europe in India
s
British India
British East India Company, 1600
Rivalry with Dutch and Portuguese
Aggressive interference in local politics
Seven Years War (1756-1763)
Defeat of the French and Indian allies in Bengal
By 1800 the Company had extended its political control
throughout India
Local elites, local mercenaries employed to control and
administer the country
Company to Empire
Food exports from late 1840s
Indian Rebellion of 1857-1858
Sepoys, caste, and religious observances
Atrocity and massacres
End of the East India Company
The orders went out to shoot every soul.... It was literally
murder... I have seen many bloody and awful sights lately but
such a one as I witnessed yesterday I pray I never see again.
The women were all spared but their screams on seeing their
husbands and sons butchered, were most painful...

50. The Raj: The British Empire in India
End of all independent Indian political rule
Rapid expansion of rail and canal networks to further food
exports and textile imports
Dismantling of peasant agriculture in favor of liberal policies
Malthus, Liberalism, and Empire:
Indian Famines, 1870s-1890s
Davis’s “Causal Triangle”
P. 310
Ecological poverty
Household poverty
State decapacitation
Discussion of nationalism in Ottoman Empire
Discussion of British influence in Ottoman empire- help against
nationalists sometimes, economic investment (RR), French and
Germans too. Liberals in Ottoman lands
Dette Ottomane, 1875, Suez Canal
Balance of power, by who (Metternich, then Finance, later
Bismarck) and why (global trade benefits from peace)

51. Politics, 1815-1870
Congress of Vienna
1815
Clemens von Metternich, the Austrian Foreign Minister
The Great Powers:
Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia,
and France
Bourbon restoration: Louis XVIII
Charles X, Louis Philippe
Settlement of Italy, Germany
The Holy Alliance
1848
Economic depression, wide-spread unemployment
Widespread calls for expanded voting rights, fewer property
restrictions
Liberals and the bourgeoisie; working class politics
Their were uprisings across Europe, starting in France, and
spreading quickly to
the Rhineland, Bavaria
(southern Germany),
Austria, Prussia, and Italy
German uprisings of 1848

52. Napoleon and the idea of German citizenship and nationhood
Germany divided into 39 principalities after
The Treaty of Paris
The revolutions failed due to a lack of leadership. Frederick
Wilhelm IV of Prussia was asked to become the King of
Germany by the Frankfurt revolutionaries, but refused to accept
a crown from rebels.
France, 1848, and Napoleon III
Nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, born Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte, 1808
Lived in Switzerland as a child, as his family was in exile
Led an abortive coup in 1830, to try and take the French throne
Exiled the USA (New York), he later moved to England
In 1848, he was elected president of the French Republic after
the February uprising kicked out the Bourbons.
Emperor Napoleon III
1851 conflict with National Assembly
In 1852, he had himself declared Emperor of France.
Modernization and Industrial Revolution
Aggressive foreign policy, especially searching for colonies
(Algeria, Vietnam)

53. Nationalism and the French Revolution
Napoleon’s popularity Levée en masse
How does a country transition from revolutionary excitement to
a new sense of political identity?
Nation States
State- any discrete political entity: kingdom, principality,
empire, republic, city-state, etc.
Nation- A collection of people who share a common political or
cultural identity.
Where does that national identity come from?
Common history?
Self-Identity?
One ruler or government?
Common language?
So who exactly speaks French?
Or German for that matter?
Or Italian?

54. But the British at least all speak English, right?
Politics, 1815-1870
National Identity, Nationalism
National identities do not necessarily exist in any given state,
and may need to be created.
New political movements which emphasized citizenship also
emphasize the formation of these national identities.
Liberals and political activists largely were educated elites,
promoted these political goals.
Language of the political center, education, the media
(newspapers, books, plays, songs).
Starting in France, governments began to push for
standardization of languages throughout different countries.
Economic benefits of national unity; liberal elites
il Risorgimento, or the Unification of Italy
In the 1790s, when Napoleon I had conquered the Italian states,
he unified the peninsula as the “Republic of Italy”.
1830s-1850s: Kicking out the Austrians, unification under the
leadership of Savoy.
Papal resistance.

55. Prussia through 1860
Strong monarchy
Strong military
Industrial Revolution
The Unification of Germany
Otto von Bismarck
foreign minister, then chancellor or Prussia, 1863-1871
Wilhelm I
King of Prussia,
1861-1888
Emperor of Germany,
1871-1888
Unification through warfare
Bismarck engineered three wars to enhance Prussia’s position
and forge strong alliances with smaller German states
War with Austria insured that they were not at the forefront of
German unification.
War with Napoleon III of France, 1870
Bismarck manipulated Napoleon III into declaring war on
Prussia’s North German allies with inflammatory newspaper
stories about a largely made-up diplomatic conflict
Napoleon took the bait, and was defeated by Prussia at the
battle of Sedan, September 1870

56. The Franco-Prussian War
Prussia won the war in a single battle, Sedan, September 2
Napoleon III captured, deposed
Siege of Paris until January 1871
Defeated France ceded much territory to Germany
Bismarck used the celebratory mood of the victory to declare a
unified German state.
Wilhelm I was declared German Emperor in Versailles, the
palace of the French kings.
The Treaty of Versailles formally brought all of the German
states together into one German Empire.
The German Empire
Germany, 1871
Policies of Nationalization
The unified European states (France of Napoleon III, Germany,
Italy, Britain) enacted policies designed to bring about national
unity and standardization.

57. Education was standardized in the language of the core regions
(Tuscany, Prussia, Paris, London)
Minorities were encouraged to leave or assimilate, especially in
Germany, were thousands of Poles were forced to leave
Prussian-occupied Poland for Russian-occupied Poland.
European nations all practiced aggressive foreign policies,
designed to bring wealth and honor to their countries. The
competition for colonies was one of the main features of this
foreign policy.
Liberals, Conservatives, and Labor: The Politics of
Democratization
France, Universal Suffrage in 1848 with the creation of the
Second Republic (for men).
1867 Parliamentary reform act, Britain went from 1 in 7 to
about 1 in 3 men being able to vote; universal suffrage had to
wait until 1918.
United States, 1870 through the 13th and 14th amendments
(universal for men).
Working Class Power
More Factory Acts:
1847: 63 hour work week for textile mills (Ten Hour Act)
1850: Half days on Saturday; worker safety provisions
1867: 60 hour work week in all industries
1878: banned child labor under 10 years of age
1867 expansion of voting rights meant that the working class
now played a role in elections, and often allied with the
Conservatives against the Liberals.
Criticising Capitalism
Socialism as a political ideology was
created by Karl Marx, a German-born

58. historian, in the 1840s-1860s.
Marx was inspired by utopian socialist
philosophers of the Enlightenment,
who believed that peace and cooperation
was the natural disposition of mankind.
Marx’s major political project was to test the theories of
capitalism, as explained by the liberal economists, to explain
the poor conditions of industrial society.
Marx, Capital, vol. 1, chapter 25
[W]ithin the capitalist system all methods for raising the social
productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the
individual labourer; all means for the development of
production transform themselves into means of domination over,
and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer
into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an
appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his
work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the
intellectual potentialities of the labour process in the same
proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent
power; they distort the conditions under which he works,
subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more
hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into
working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of
the Juggernaut of capital…. It follows therefore that in
proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his
payment high or low, must grow worse… It establishes an
accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of
capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the
same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery,
ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,
i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the

59. form of capital.
Marxist Socialism
Marx essentially believed that most social problems which arose
during the Industrial Revolution were due to the fact that
Capitalism/Liberalism was essentially exploitative of the
workers.
Marx thought that eventually the conditions of industrial
workers would become so bad that they would start a revolution
and seize control of the government and the factories.
Marx fundamentally believed that the revolution had to happen
spontaneously, and could not be jump-started artificially.
After this revolution, a new system based on collective
ownership of industry and agricultural land could be introduced.
Marx believed this would lead to ultimate peace and happiness
because all would be free to pursue their own goals and dreams,
and not tied to the necessity of working for a wage. Eventually
government would disappear and everyone would live in a
peaceful state of anarchy.
International Socialism
Marx’s ideas, and those of Frederick
Engels, became popular to those interested
in organizing labor unions and political
Parties to advocate for workers’ rights.
Socialists and Communists met at large
International conferences to discuss their
Aims and goals.
Socialism was especially popular in
Germany, England and Italy.
Emerges as a political challenge to liberal capitalism

60. Accelerating the Industrial Revolution, 1800-1850
More steel- steam
engine and smelting
Railroads- First RR was
built in 1823 to connect
Manchester with the
nearby port of Liverpool
Repeal of the Corn Laws,
Poor Laws, 1832-1846
Stockton-Darlington locomotive, 1825
American locomotive, 1850

61. Iron and railroads led to steel bridges and road improvements
Chemicals:
Gas lights, fueled by gas extracted from coal, were installed in
London, 1812-1820
Sulfuric Acid and Bleach for the textile industry were
developed in between 1790-1830
Portland cement, and improvement over traditional concrete,
was developed in 1824
SS Royal William, the first ship to cross the Atlantic under
steam-power, from Nova Scotia to Liverpool, 1833
Pollution
Great Stink, 1858
Discontent and Organized Labor
Luddites, Manchester, 1811-12, led a series of riots protesting
the use of steam engines in textile mills and the resulting
unemployment.
Workers’ Unions were illegal in the UK until 1824.
The Chartist movement of the 1830s and 1840s represented the
first real effort to build a labor union, and organized the first

62. wide-spread labor strike in 1846.
In 1844, Frederick Engels, the son of a textile factory owner,
published his Condition of the Working Class in England, one
of the founding works of Socialism.
Reform of Working Conditions
Factory Acts of 1802, 1833-
1)Children under 8 can’t work
2)Children 8-13 can only work 8 hours per day, but only from
6AM to 9PM (max work week of 58 hours)
3)Children 13-18 can work twelve hours per day (max work
week of 70 hours)
4) The employers of child-labor must send them to school at
least once per week for the first four years of their employment
(this was expanded to two hours per day).
Factory Act of 1844-
Women and children (13-18) not allowed to work beyond 58
hours per week.
Robert Owen (1771-1858)
Great fan of reforming industrial labor conditions
Ran his own mill town of New Lanark, Scotland, as an example
of how fair treatment and investment in the lives and education
of workers could alleviate the social problems of capitalism.
Believed poverty could be solved
by the creation of new villages
for the poor based on the
old principle of commonly-held
lands.
Edwin Chadwick

63. Member of Poor Laws Commission, but bitterly rejected the
reform of the Poor Laws in 1832
Published The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population
in 1842, complaining about working and living conditions in
London and other cities.
Made commissioner of the Metropolitan Sewer District, which
built London’s modern sewage system
Ireland: Britain’s First Colony
Celtic, Catholic
Partially conquered by
England in the twelfth
century.
Conquest completed in the
sixteenth century, English
nobles settled as major
land-owners over the Irish
peasants.
Ireland and Enclosures
During the eighteenth century, English and Irish-protestant
landlords pursued a policy of increasing cash rents or
enclosures for sheep farming, dispossessing large swaths of the
Irish peasantry.

64. Many moved to England,
looking for employment in
the cities.
Ireland and Liberal Revolution
In the late eighteenth century, a group of Irish liberals,
Protestant and Catholic, formed the United Irishmen.
The group soon attracted broad support from people unhappy
with British rule.
Their goal was to set up an
independent Irish Republic.
Inspired by French Revolution,
United States, and liberal principles
1798
Series of uprisings
Most of the leadership
arrested before uprisings
Tepid French support
United Irishmen badly defeated
Ireland under British Liberalism
Agricultural Revolution and mono-crop agriculture; marginal
land in the west of the country
Potato famine caused by fungus imported from America, 1845-

65. 1849
Whig government was convinced that the repeal of the Corn
Laws would help, as the market would help drive down the price
of food.
The opposite happened, and the government refused to interfere,
vaguely citing Malthusian theories.
Trevelyan: “The judgment of God sent the famine to teach the
Irish a lesson”.
Effects of the Famine
Demographic disaster:
The Workshop and the Factory
New towns, like Manchester, Leeds
Bigger machines made putting-out system impractical
Bringing workers in to the shop allowed the owner of the
machines to supervise and demand a certain speed of work
Technology
Wage laborers
Theorizing a Capitalist Economy:
Classical Liberalism

66. Defining Liberalism
Liber- free
The American and the French Revolutions have often been
described as liberal revolutions.
Political freedom, freedom of conscience, and economic
freedom, all coming from the ideas of natural rights.
What rights? Whose freedom? Compare to tributary system
Who were the Liberals?
The gentry, the urban class
(bourgeoisie), the factory owners, and those
who recognized the power of the Industrial
Revolution.
They were not the upper nobility, and they were
not the poor or peasants.
Think the Third Estate in the French Revolution, or our
members of the House of Commons in England.
Economics Classical Liberalism:
Classical Liberalism, also known as laissez-faire economics
Absolute believe in the power of market forces to regulate
economic life.
Predominant economic theory of the later eighteenth and

67. nineteenth centuries.
Classical Economics: Adam Smith
Scotland, 1723-1790
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,
1776
Adam Smith on Human Nature:
This division of labour, from which so many advantages
are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom,
which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it
gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and
gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature
which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to
truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. ..... Man has
almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is
in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will
be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his
favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for
him what he requires of them…It is not from the benevolence of
the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner,
but from their regard to their own interest.
--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith on Market Forces
...every individual necessarily labours to render the annual
revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed,
neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how
much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic
to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and
by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may
be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is

68. in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to
promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it
always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By
pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the
society more effectually than when he really intends to promote
it. I have never known much good done by those who affected
to trade for the public good.
--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
How the Invisible Hand is supposed
to benefit all of society
"The rich ... consume little more than the
poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness ...
They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly
the same distribution of the necessaries of life,
which would have been made, had the earth been
divided into equal portions among all its
inhabitants, and ... advance the interest of the
society, and afford means to the multiplication of
the species."
--Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments
The new economic system:
Capitalism
What is capital? Principally money used to purchase labor
power in order to make more money (by paying less for labor
than the productive output of that labor)
A process, not a thing
The emerging economic order of the nineteenth century and the
industrial revolution.

69. What’s so interesting about Labor?
John Locke
Human nature and work
Humans must change their environment to live.
Adam Smith and human nature: “to truck, barter, and trade”.
Adam Smith and the Labor Theory of Value
“Every man is rich or poor according to the degree in
which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniencies, and
amusements of human life. But after the division of labour has
once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small part of these
with which a man's own labour can supply him. The far greater
part of them he must derive from the labour of other people, and
he must be rich or poor according to the quantity of that labour
which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase. The
value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses
it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to
exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of
labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour,
therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all
commodities. The real price of every thing, what every thing
really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and
trouble of acquiring it.”
--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
The Market and Labor
Labor viewed as the source of all value
In the tributary system, command of the fruits of peasant labor

70. is the mainstay of the wealth of the nobility.
According to Smith’s model, command of labor is the way to
create wealth.
Money can only command labor if it is freely sold on a market.
Accomplished by abolishing other models of labor, feudalism,
subsistence agriculture dependent on common property, etc.
Only wage-labor meets Smith’s model of a free, self-interest
driven market.
How should a labor market work?
The Invisible Hand
David Ricardo on Wages:
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…
--Ricardo, The Iron Law of Wages, 1817
When the market price of labour is below its natural price, the
condition of the labourers is most wretched: then poverty
deprives
them of those comforts which custom renders absolute

71. necessaries. It
is only after their privations have reduced their number, or the
demand
for labour has increased, that the market price of labour will
rise to its
natural price, and that the labourer will have the moderate
comforts
which the natural rate of wages will afford.
These, then, are the laws by which wages are regulated, and by
which
the happiness of far the greatest part of every community is
governed.
Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and
free
competition of the market, and should never be controlled by
the
interference of the legislature.
--David Ricardo, The Iron Law of Wages, 1817
Liberalism and Utopia
Free markets of the sort called for by the liberals did not exist
in the eighteenth century
The political projects of the merchants and industrialists
therefore broadly became liberal projects, designed to create
free markets in England.
Money as social power
How do you build a labor market?
1) Enclosures: “In agriculture the years between
1760 and 1820 are the years of
wholesale enclosure in which, in village after village,
common rights are lost“

72. – E.P Thompson
2) Abolish tributary institutions, such as restrictions and tolls
on markets, corvée labor, common lands, etc.
3) Make it illegal to not work: Vagrancy Laws in England,
sixteenth to nineteenth centuries
4) Abolish social protections which impede a free labor
market…
England’s Poor Laws
In the Middle Ages, poor relief was the responsibility of the
Church
In the Sixteenth century, England began taxation policies for
poor relief
1601 Poor Law made provisions for a foster-home system for
orphans, and a food subsidy to those unable to work. It also had
a provision to help the unemployed find work as apprentices.
Speenhamland System, 1795, granted subsidies to poor families
allowing wages to keep up with grain prices.
Parishes (the church of England) also funded workhouses,
housing the unemployed and allowing them to pay for shelter
through organized work projects.
But Liberal economic thinkers did not like these laws…
England’s Corn Laws
Laws designed to protect domestic production of food,
especially grain (called corn) from cheaper foreign imports.
Under a lot of attacks throughout 1700s
Napoleonic Wars delayed any real changes
Conservative politicians (representing the interests of the old
land-owing nobility rather than the urban classes) tended to
support the corn laws

73. Liberal Reactions to the Poor Laws
“[The Poor Laws of England] though they may have
alleviated a little the intensity of individual misfortune…have
spread the general evil over a much larger surface.”
-- Malthus, Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)
“Hunger will tame the fiercest animals, it will teach
decency and civility, obedience and subjection, to
the most perverse. In general it is only hunger
which can spur and goad them [the poor] on to
labor; yet our laws have said they shall never
hunger.”
—Townsend, Dissertation on the Poor Laws (1780)
Hunger as social policy
“The laws, it must be confessed, have likewise said, they shall
be
compelled to work. But then legal constraint is attended with
much trouble, violence, and noise; creates ill will, and never
can
be productive of good and acceptable service: whereas hunger is
not only peaceable, silent, unremitting pressure, but, as the
most
natural motive to industry and labor, it calls forth the most
powerful exertions….”
—Townsend, Dissertation on the Poor Laws (1780)
Theorem of the goats and the dogs…
The Liberal Political effort
Tory (conservative) governments throughout the 1700s support

74. the rights of the aristocracy, land-owners.
Kept in power through 1815 by the Napoleonic wars.
Liberals attacked the Tories based on certain problems in the
voting system:
Voting rights restricted to males owning a certain amount of
property (40 shillings worth of land), effectively limiting the
vote to about 200,000.
“Rotten boroughs” caused by peasant migrations became a
prime liberal issue
Liberals in Power
In 1832, the Liberals (as the Whig Party) won the Parliamentary
elections for the first time, and enacted a number of changes:
Parliament Reform Act of 1832 redrew the electoral districts,
granting more representative to the industrial cities, and
expanding the voting pool from 200,000 to 650,000 (1 in 5), all
males who owned any property.
Poor Law Amendment Acts, 1834, 1840- Banned all forms of
poor relief except the Workhouse, which was nationally
organized.
Now poor relief was only available in the workhouse.
Workhouses were
intentionally made to be degrading and unpleasant, to
discourage the
poor from seeking help. Most people avoided workhouses,
because
they were segregated. Also, entering a workhouse meant that
you had
to give up your children.

75. Liberalism and Food: The Corn Laws
In the 1846, the Liberal politicians who controlled
Parliament abolished the Corn Laws, in favor of free-
market principles and open trade.
The effect was massive importation of grain from the Empire
(India
mainly), and a major reduction in the remaining farmers in
England,
providing more labor to the industrial sector.
From Peasant to Laborer: The creation of the Working Class