This document discusses several economic ideologies and theorists that emerged in the 19th century, including: - Capitalism and classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo - Malthus' theory of population growth outstripping food supply - Utopian socialists like Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, and Saint-Simon - Anarchism as proposed by thinkers like Proudhon, Bakunin, and Blanqui - Marxism as defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The Communist Manifesto, with Marx further developing his theories in Das Kapital. Many of these new economic and political philosophies aimed to critique and reform capitalism or propose alternative systems.

1. 19th
Century
Nationalism/Reaction/Revolt/Reaction

2. 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.

3. Economic Concepts of the 19thC
 Class Consciousness
 Owners – capitalists
 Non-landed middle class
and white collar workers –
bourgeoisie
 Factory and
trade workers
—proletariat

4. 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.

5. Classical Economics (capitalism)
 Adam Smith Wealth of Nations (1776) described and
advocated, postulating that when free market is allowed
to work, ALL benefit, not just merchants and landowners
 Laissez faire economics is based on these principles:
 Though government must perform many important
functions, economic growth is best when unregulated (free
enterprise) because benefits all classes and groups
 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 and/or biased toward one area or another
 Government roles: maintain sound currency, enforce laws
and contracts, protect property, impose low tariffs and
taxes, maintain army and navy to protect foreign trade.

6. Malthus (British)
 The Principle of Population (1798) responding to
Romantic ideals of continuing progress of man (Adam
Smith, Rousseau, Godwin): his=bleak picture
 Basic thesis: population will outrun food supply
 Population grows geometrically; food supply
arithmetically; 1,2,4,8,16,32 vs 1,2,3,4,5,6
 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
 Social programs, charity negative, because will still
keep low alive, in misery, consuming scarce resources
 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

7.  “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. ... “

8. Ricardo (British)
 Principles of Political Economy (1817)
 Iron Law of Wages—spiral downward
 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.
 Only one who benefits is landowner: as more
population, more land in cultivation, rents upward and
price for ag commodities upward cause more demand;
therefore, wages also upward cutting into merchants/
manufacturers’ profits, but wages still do not buy more
than subsistence.
 Conclusion: Wages will always tend toward minimum
level; rents/cost of food will always tend upward
 Supported employers in desire for low wages and against
labor unions

9.  “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.“

10.  Malthus, trained as a pastor, became a college
professor, but most interested in facts/realities of
economics
 Ricardo, Jewish converted to Quakerism, an
entrepreneur who made a fortune early, elected
to Parliament, but in economics, most interested
in abstract
 Though they disagreed violently, they were very
good friends.
 Malthus: favored landowners over “trade”
 Ricardo: often voted vs own commercial interests

11. Influence of Classical Economics
 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 beginning with Hohenzollern—
Prussia, etc. domains(not Austria because of protected industry)
 State domination of economy
 Working classes hated these ideas; landowners, merchants
loved them; British struggled, fought for reform 1800-1880
 Continental system meant markets less, so less wealth for
merchants and workers;
 Corn laws to protect prices of grain, high because no imports

12. 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 could 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 agriculture more
efficient and keep profits high

13. 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 of 1834 (by followers of B)
 Poor Law Commissions
 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 only because lazy

14. 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 operate only for
individual, but an unselfish community for all
 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

15. 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; government
management of production and distribution
 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

16. 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
Reasoning: if nation lost merchants,
artisans and workers=hurt; if lost
aristocracy, no one would care
 Ideal government: board of directors
organizing producing groups for
economic justice and social harmony
 No leisure class; no work, no support
 (kind of technocracy)
 Not redistribution of wealth, but
management by technocrat experts to
provide economic/social justice
 Only a few followed him: Saint
Simonian societies/Churches where
discussed feminism, other social ideas

17. Owenism
 Robert Owen, British cotton manufacturer
 Self made; partner in factory at New Lanark,Scot
 Believed in “environmentalism” of Enlightenment:
 People in positive 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”; vs harsh rules, laws, punishments
 Rewards for good work in factories
 Made a good profit
 Pleaded for reorganization of industry based on his
model
 US: sold New Lanark to establish New Harmony,
Indiana
 Quarrels, fraud among members: failed
 Back to Britain, Grand National Union
 Attempt to gather all union members in one:
 Collapsed with other trade organizations in1830’s

18. 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

19. Influence of utopian socialists
 Expected government to apply their ideas;
government, society too much vested
interest, especially in aristocracy, 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 voting power would finance jobs for poor,
social justice to replace existing order.

20. 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 would fall, classless society
would be built to replace existing order.

21. Auguste Blanqui (1805-81) France
 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 barracks.
 Part of Commune; imprisoned through
much of it: condemned to death, then out
of prison; died of apoplexy (stroke)
 He wanted to develop a professional
revolutionary vanguard (trained terrorists and
assassins) to attack capitalistic society
 Vague ideas of what would develop after

22. “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]

23. Bakunin (1814-76)
 Russian anarchist
 Life of struggle
 Peasant, sought education 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
 Participated in 1st
International, opponent to
Lenin and Marxists, broke away
 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 other 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.

24. Proudhon (1809-65) France
 Much tamer anarchism—after 1848 rebellions, called
self “federalist”
 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
—NOT government ownership
 Like small businesses
 Peaceful cooperation, exchange of good instead of
competition
 Basis of economic cooperatives
 No need for state
 Influenced French labor
 Karl Marx directed some of his writings against
Proudhon’s ideas; friends before then

25. 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.

26. 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 (1848)

27. 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
 Supported Marx and
family for many years

28. 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

29. 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
 Marx adapted Hegel to explain history as a (dialectic) series of
class struggle between owners and workers, 18th
C on--
bourgeoisie vs proletariat
 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

30. 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

31. 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

32. 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—temporary
control of society to establish classless society with economic/social justice
 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.”

33. 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)

34. 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

35. 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

36. 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)

37. 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

38. Philosophy

39. 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”

40. 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

41. 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)

42. 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

43. 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.

44. 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.

45. Nietzsche
 German philosopher, composer, poet,
philologist
 Nietzsche's influence substantial :
existentialism, nihilism, postmodernism
 radical questioning of the value and
objectivity of truth.
 Own life tragic:
 Military thwarted with physical collapse
 During conflict with Austria, served as
medic
 Total mental collapse 1878

46. Basic doctrines
 Death of God: vs institutionalized religion, universal
morality BUT NOT anti Semitic
 Perspectivism: morality/right vs wrong all up to
individual perspective
 Basic doctrine can be basis for nihilism (nothing has
any meaning)
 He would substitute “life affirmation”—question any
societal imposed belief, anything that crushes individual
creativity
 Superman/ubermenschen: supermen are people who
are superior in physique, intellect, talent are above any
morality, judgment—should make own rules