01:510:102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Keir Hardie, George Bernard Shaw, Annie Besant
12 May 2018
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Chapter 24 - The Crisis of European Culture, 1871-1814
2nd Industrial Revolution
• 1896 increased $ supply resulting from the discovery of new gold fields
in South Africa and the Klondike
• Fueled the electrical and chemical industries
• Internal combustible engine drove electrical industries
• Chemical: fertilizers, synthetic fibers and gasoline distillation
Impact:
1. Completed the process of creating a “mass” society
• Europe had embraced a “mass culture”
2. Allowed countries without strong coal / iron resources to industrialize
3. Increased international competition
• tariffs continent wide, Japan entered the market place as an industrial
power
4. Ottoman Empire became more attractive to European Imperialists (Oil)
5. Industry became increasingly capital intensive
6. New social, economic, and political tensions arose throughout Europe
European Economy and the Politics of Mass Society
1872-1914 – rate of urbanization continued to boom
• Urban centers came to dominate provincial culture as centers of
production, distribution and communication
1873-1895 – Series of Economic slumps (falling prices and production)
became termed as the “great depression” of the 19th century
Period of economic fluctuation rather than sustained recession
• Agricultural boom increased recessionary cycles
• Fertilizers created greater output – drove down prices – increased
unemployment
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• Bust periods were increasingly seen as dangerous of the large amounts
of capital required to enter industrial growth (electrical / chemical
industries)
• Lesson: Business cycle needed to be regulated
• Solution: Regulation through cartels
Cartels: Combination of firms who work together to set prices and production
levels
• Oligopoly
• Vertical Consolidation - all aspects of production
• Horizontal Consolidation - all firms who perform same task
• Consortiums: group of banks who pool resources to set fees and
provide greater amounts of capital at a decreased risk to each member
• Tariffs were used to protect domestic industry throughout Europe
(England was the exception)
• State: Russia used state sponsorship to start industry.
Business generally welcomed greater State regulation to offset increased
risks resulting from the massive capital demands and nature of heavy
industry.
European Industrialization broke down into distinct geographical
regions:
• North / West = industrial
• South / East = Agricultural
Mass Democracy Breaks form Liberalism
Trade Unions
England - 1900 declining standard of living led to the development of trade
unions
• included both skilled and unskilled labor
• James Keir Hardie began the Labour Party to represent workers in
Parliament
• 1892 won election as a member of the House of Commons
• 1906 Labour Party had 26 seats
• Fabian Society - moderate Socialists who sought to create a Socialist
state through reform (Intellectuals)
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• Beatrice Webb, Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, Annie Besant,
H.G. Wells
• Supported the Labour Party
Impact of Fabian Society and Labour Party was to force the Liberals to
reform
• "New" Liberals led by David Lloyd George, elevated the House of
Commons and expanded Govt. Welfare services
• Trade Unions continued to grow as mistrust of the "Regulatory State"
developed, Irish home rule and women's suffrage remained unsolved
Political Struggles in Germany
• Bismarck supported a continually weak Reichstag (Iron Chancellor)
• Worked with Liberals to attack foreign elements
• Kulturkampf: Attack on any foreign influence (Papal influence)
• Expelled Jesuits, removed priests from state posts, attacked rel.
education and created Civil Marriages
• Met opposition - forced to abandon program
• Early example of German Nationalism turned exclusive
Social Democratic Party - Marxists
• Attacked by Bismarck, by 1890 held 20% of the seats in the Reichstag
• Bismarck began with repressive legislation and even presented social
welfare programs as a means of weakening the Social Democratic Party
• Bismarck's failure eventually led to Kaiser Wilhelm II to remove him from
office
• Revisionism within the Social Democrats focused on the eventually
failure of Capitalism
• Edward Berstein
• Revisionism failed because Trade Unions continually achieved higher
standards of living for their membership, while new political parties
provided assimilation into the political process.
• Labour Party and Social Democrats – acceptance of welfare reform
• In Germany the right united industrial and agrarian interests to defeat
the Social Democrats
• With the rise of the Right the Kaiser kept authoritarian power
Mass Politics in France
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