History 1807 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: John Stuart Mill, Pessimism, Thomas Robert Malthus
Document Summary
Person who provided most incisive analyst of capitalism is karl marx. Would leave to capitalism to decline by destroying itself. Believed everything would come after the collapse of capitalism. Look at transformations and modern periods (march towards globalization and how it affects capitalism) More and more people are seemingly poor more poverty. The more the markets are allowed to operate freely, the more poverty grows. People living in 19th century going through change b/c poverty was spreading. Smith"s free market principle not slowing/stopping poverty but leading to its expansion/growth. Realization that market wasn"t going to solve problem of poverty. Great blow to optimism of the age and belief that smith was right. Challenges adam smith"s optimism about ability of market to distribute wealth warns that continued population growth will condemn poor to perpetual poverty. Rather than serve to eradicate poverty, market merely perpetuates problems of poverty.