HI 233 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: The Communist Manifesto, Class Conflict, Proletariat
Industrial Cities
How did the Industrial Revolution transform social, economic, and political conditions in the
West? Consider how they fueled imperialism.
People now experienced:
● Smog in cities
● Disease-filled areas
● Poor ventilation, lighting and environmental control
● Poor living and working conditions
In the factories of England:
● Women and children originally participated in the work in the early stages
● There was a shift to men being the “breadwinners” as fewer and fewer women and
children worked in the 19th century
Industrialization changed how people viewed time
● Factory workers now were time-disciplined
● Time and money became counted by the clock
● Schools adopted the importance of time
○ Regulated society
Industrialization changed political thought and activity
● New working class was startling to the elites; many members saw the working class as a
mob and people who lack discipline
● Said the working class was morally different, and something was wrong with them
○ The elite were more disciplined, more moral, and generally better than the
working class because they deserved their high states
● Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest became part of life
● New ideologies and movements emerged in the form of…
○ Reform campaigns
○ Labor unions
● These movements worked towards better wages, better working conditions and voting
rights
● Some revolutionary ideologies were from K. Marx and F. Engels’ Communist Manifesto
and from his ideas, revolutions happened in 1848, but were unsuccessful
○ Argued history consisted of stages of development that were marked to have came
from struggles between the dominant class and the exploited class (ex: Roman
slaves, the feudal system, proletariat versus bourgeois)
○ History was a history of class struggle, and they argued that the working class
would rise up to create a classless system where no one is exploited (this is
communism)
○Argued industrialization relied on markets and profits, so what you get is crisis of
overproduction and conflict with capitalism → this leads to cuts in wages, new
technologies, and oppression to the point the working class rises up and takes over
● The importance of the right to vote in the working class became important, and this
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Document Summary
How did the industrial revolution transform social, economic, and political conditions in the. Women and children originally participated in the work in the early stages. There was a shift to men being the breadwinners as fewer and fewer women and children worked in the 19th century. Time and money became counted by the clock. New working class was startling to the elites; many members saw the working class as a mob and people who lack discipline. Said the working class was morally different, and something was wrong with them. The elite were more disciplined, more moral, and generally better than the working class because they deserved their high states. Darwin"s theory of survival of the fittest became part of life. New ideologies and movements emerged in the form of . These movements worked towards better wages, better working conditions and voting rights.
