...As industrialization transformed the agricultural economy and society in Western Europe, the rapid increase in wage labor influenced the emergence of new political forces that, proclaimed the equality of all people, and sought dramatic social and political change. One of the most powerful results of the growing uneasiness with the condition of workers was the birth of the movement known as socialism. In the 19th century Europe, socialism focused on worker equality, equitable pay scales and, perhaps most important, humane living and working conditions. Over time, European socialism became politicized, evolving into mass party movements. Utopian socialists, most of whom were French, critiqued the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution. The name “utopian” reflects their dreams of creating a perfectly harmonious way of life. Utopian Socialism is defined as socialism based on a belief that social ownership of the means of production can be achieved by voluntary and peaceful surrender of their holdings by propertied groups . This philosophy emphasized their determination to put forward demands for political and social reform. Utopian socialism was the first form of socialism to come about as well as one of the biggest branches of socialism in the 1800s. They got their name because of their belief in an ideal and perfect world that could...
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...When a social system and its productive relation are no longer compatible with its demand for productivity development, people are going to overthrow that system and introduce a new one suitable to current economic situation. In the case of Europe, when history rolled its wheel to 1500’s, such a situation applied. In this century, alongside the great discovery, the activities of Europeans was suddenly not confined to the continent and the neighboring waters, but reached great remote oceans and any corners of the world with their vessels and compasses. Trade and commerce grew exponentially as several small nations like Spain, Portugal, and later Holland became masters of the sea and the route of their vessels reached more and more land and the people on it. The great discovery changed, to a great extent, the people’s outlook on the world and the development of trade and commerce facilitated by this discovery increased substantially the riches of European countries and their people, propelling the economic development to such a point that the old social structure became compatible no more. On the other hand, the Renaissance emancipated people’s mind and facilitated the spread of ideas as freedom, equality and democracy which are essential to the founding of modern society. If the great discovery updated people’s physical outlook on the world, the Renaissance transformed their conception upon society and human beings. They became more conscious of the position they were in and...
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...Robust Political Economy The nirvana fallacy is the informal fallacy of comparing actual things with unrealistic, idealized alternatives. We are always going to come up short when we compare to expectations of the ‘perfect world.’ Economist Harold Demstez, creator of the idea of the nirvana fallacy, states, “The view that now pervades much public policy economics implicitly presents the relevant choice as between an ideal norm and an existing 'imperfect' institutional arrangement.” This nirvana approach differs considerably from a comparative institution approach in which the relevant choice is between alternative real institutional arrangements. Comparative institutional analysis focuses on the rules people operate by and is defined as the assessment of feasible organizational or policy alternatives. Comparative institutional analysis goes conjointly with robustness, which is the normal standard we apply. Robustness asks questions such as, ‘what set of rules produces better outcomes in bad circumstances?’ and ‘how well does it keep the really bad things from happening?’ Mark Pennington on Robust Political Economy, draws on two problems: the knowledge problem and the incentive problem. This goes hand in hand with the economic calculation problem proposed by Ludwig von Mises and later expanded by Friedrich Hayek as well as the comparison between private versus public property in economics. All economic and political systems must challenge both knowledge problems and incentive...
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...unveiled hidden realities. Marx shared a further similarity in the sense that his “combination of insight and method permanently altered the manner in which reality would thereafter be perceived” (Heilbroner, 17). Marx’s works in his book Capital is still more relevant today than Adam Smith’s renowned work Wealth of Nations. Marx‘s book placed importance on technology and crises and social tension, and more importantly, undertakes the task of critiquing the political economy. However, the problem of Marxism is within trying to define it. Heilbroner believes that there exists a set of premises that can assist in defining Marxist thought, “so that any analysis that contains these premises can be properly classified as Marxist” (Heilbroner, 20). There are four main premises as described by Heilbroner; the dialectical approach to knowledge itself; the materialist approach to history; the socioanalysis of history; and commitment to socialism. Marxism has the political goal to overthrow the capitalist order and replace it with socialism, which will eventually lead to communism. “The self-declared objective of Marxism is as a force for revolutionary change, as a rallying ground for the oppressed of...
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...In a way, communism is an extreme form of socialism. Many countries have dominant socialist political parties but very few are truly communist. In fact, most countries - including staunch capitalist bastions like the U.S. and U.K. - have government programs that borrow from socialist principles. "Socialism" is sometimes used interchangeably with "communism" but the two philosophies have some stark differences. Most notably, while communism is a political system, socialism is primarily an economic system that can exist in various forms under a wide range of political systems. Comparison chart | |Communism |Socialism | |Philosophy |From each according to his ability, to each according to |From each according to his ability, to each according to| | |his needs. Free-access to the articles of consumption is |his contribution. Emphasis on profit being distributed | | |made possible by advances in technology that allow for |among the society or workforce to complement individual | | |super-abundance. |wages/salaries. | |Economic System |The means of production are held in common, negating the |The means of production are owned by public enterprises | | |concept of ownership in...
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...The Islamic Economic System and Socialism The last 500 years, Islam could not be brought in the public affairs of social, political and economic domain and remained in the religion sphere, the foundation of Muslim’s getting in troubled water and finding no way out to reach to its shore. In the absence of Islamic economic system, the West – devoid from the moral and spiritual foundation- has taken over to steer the world economy. That is resulting in unprecedented human misery to the world economy starting from economic derailment to collapse economic system of many world giants flexing economic muscle. The felt need is to touch the facts lurking below the surface of the present economic order - source of unforgettable human suffering across the world, resulting even losing of human lives. Lacs of jobs are curtailed and people are getting jobless and find no social and economic patronage. Companies are being bailed by the public paid taxes to protect existence of multi nationals with the common people’s hard earned money. Even the economists are not sure the depth of deficiency and how long it will take come on track. Islam puts a different economic system which categorically forbids charging the interests for loans. The Quran says, “The interest which imposes seeking to increase your health will not bring about any increase in sight of God. Rather it is zakat which you pay for the sake of God alone, that brings about such increase of your fortune”. The Quran advocates...
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...industries were so strong, that they had overtaken the production produced by Britain. During this era Germany was the scientific capital of the world and was incredibly strong in modern industries such as chemicals and engineering. However, the workers working in the industries had poor pay and lived in squalor conditions. The conditions encouraged many workers to support socialism, the main source being the Social Democratic Party (SPD). However, Germanys most significant figures feared and hated the SPD as it threatened their wealth and status. They saw them as disloyal to Germany saying “Every social democrat is an enemy of the realm of the father land.” During this time, the Prussian leader was the Kaiser and he commanded the armed forces. Due to this, Germany had a strong military. Also, Germany was a highly divided country. There was a strong divide in religion. The ruling classes were suspicious about the Catholics because they thought that they were more loyal to the pope than they were to their own country. Catholics were mostly second class citizens and were not enthusiastic about the political system. Germany was also divided into four “camps”. At the top in camp one was the conservative camp with consisted of the ruling classes. These were the most important people within society e.g Junkers, Big business men and the church. What this class said, you were supposed to comply with as they held the power. In the second camp was the arch enemy of the conservative...
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...Why did Marx argue that capitalism was doomed to collapse? Marx saw capitalism as a progressive historical stage that would eventually stagnate due to internal contradictions and be followed by socialism. Therefore Marx argued that capitalism was doomed. One of Marx’s most powerful ideas was his idea of ‘false consciousness’s’. He believed that everyone in the capitalist society was under false consciousness, meaning that they believed themselves to be free, but in fact the truth was opposite to this. He believed that capitalism actually led to a significant loss of political, democratic and economic power for the vast majority of citizens in the society. He believed that the ‘Power Elite’ took advantage of their position to take money away from hard working citizens to spend it on what they wanted to spend it on all in the name of ‘tax’ and ‘capitalist democracy’, and that capitalism and its evil ways had got the people to think that they are free, when in fact this couldn’t be further from the truth, they are limited excessively by the rules of capitalism and therefore Marx believed that if false consciousness could be destroyed then people would ‘wake up’ and realise the evils of capitalism and socialism would be the answer. Socialists would define capital as a ‘social, economic relation’ between people’, rather than a ‘social, economic relation’ between people and things. In this sense they seek to abolish capital. They believe that because of this fact capitalism generates...
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...Socialists are inspired by the wish to improve the quality of life for all members of society. They believe in a political and social structure characterized by robust government direction in political, fiscal and and social strategy. Another important idea is the redistribution of wealth to equalize inequalities intrinsic in a free-market economy. Socialism emphasizes equality rather than achievement, and values workforce by the quantity of time they put in rather than by the amount of value they produce. It also makes people reliant on the state for everything from food to health care. Critical values of socialism are equality, solidarity, and empowerment throught collective action. Example of the socialist view can be found in the Socialist Labour Party on Education based on the believe that all individuals have a basic right to unrestricted, high-quality education from infancy through to old age,The Socialist Labour Party proposes the implementation of free creche, play group and nursery provision for all children, and full-time school-based nursery provision from the age of three. The Scocialist labour Party argues that All privatised education services, Such as faith schools,and private colleges and their assets must be returned to local public control.They argue that proper administration of nurseries, schools, colleges or universities is utterly incompatible with privatisation in any form. The Socialist Labour Party is dedicated to the full reinstatement of trade union...
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...I choose this source from the Library of Congress because it represents in the era of the story for Harrison Bergeron, this type of subject in the reading describes more about socialism. Socialism developed as a political movement towards ideology in the eighteenth and nineteenth century,its reaction towards society was lead to industrial injustice and labor exploitation. Karl Marx established and defines the great definition of modern theory of socialism, Marx advocated a revolution towards equality for the working class which lead into control the poor citizen as in dictatorship.Socialism is the meaning of the word that has been also used for political power, both nationalist socialism in Germany under Hitler and the Soviet style developed by Lenin....
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...Mrs. Acres Homemade Pies Business 508 Professor Jack McCaffery Summer 2010 Rosie Wright BUS508 Assignment #1 1. Choose your company or service for your business proposal. It is not to be a franchise (McDonald’s). I would like to complete my business proposal on the company I work for; the name of the company is “Campus Crest Communities”. Campus Crest builds student housing across the United States. Their corporate office is located in South Park, they have 29 properties. 2. Analyze the situations below, complete the actions, and prepare a 3-4 page report with your conclusions: o Given the business situation of Mrs. Acres Homemade Pies (p. 30) and using the economic concepts of supply and demand, explain 1. Discuss what you think will happen to the supply, demand, and price of the product in the short-term; 2. Discuss what you think will happen to supply, demand, and price of the product in the long-term. 3. Explain why you think supply, demand, or equilibrium price will be different, if at all, in the short-term and the long-term. Mrs. Acres Homemade Pies Discuss what you think will happen to the supply, demand and price of the product in the short-term Mrs. Acre’s homemade pies are very successfully within her local supermarkets and a few family restaurants. Although the company’s success is driven by the quality of the product and the incentives provided for her employees. It’s very important that we pay attention...
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...achieve a better society for everyone and in order to achieve social change there must be class conflict. Marx’s major concern for social change was economic change and his most famous work dealt with the issues of class conflict and the opposition between the capitalists/bourgeoisie and the working class. During that time it was the bourgeoisie who were responsible for the controlling of land and factories whereas it was the working classes who were being exploited by the higher classes. One of largest manuscripts that Marx produced was The Grundrisse which discussed issues such as the capital of labour, wages and property and was not published until after his passing. Marx is considered to be one of the founders of communism, modern socialism and sociology and...
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...jobs paid barley paid enough to scrape by, and jobs were often extremely unsafe. In his book, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair makes it clear that working life in America is miserable, and changes need to be made. For Sinclair this change is socialism, a form of government that focuses on economic equality for all. Sinclair believed that socialism would save the American people from the corruption and greed caused by the capitalistic system, but Americans knew very little of socialism or the possible benefits. Sinclair decided to take the political movement into his...
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...Industrial Revolution Test Multiple Choice: Choose the best answer for each question and mark it on your scantron sheet. Each question is worth three points 1.) Which of the following factors motivated European nation’s to compete for colonies? a. Nationalism b. Communism c. Socialism d. Urbanism 2.) What was a result of the invention of the cotton gin? a. Slaves were no longer needed b. The need for slaves increased c. Farmers stopped growing cotton d. Cotton production decreased 3.) During the Industrial Revolution, how did the factory owners feel about the formation of trade unions? a. The owners encouraged the unions to form b. The owners did not care about the unions c. The owners did not like the unions d. The owners were excited about the unions 4.) Which of the following is the correct definition for collective bargaining? a. Process of negotiation between the United States and Japan b. Process of negotiation between management and union representatives c. Process of expanding educational opportunities for children d. Process of expanding a nation’s control over another nation with force 5.) Which of the following was included in child labor reforms passed by parliament? a. Increased the hours that children could work b. Restricted how many men could work c. Increased the hours that men could work d. Restricted the hours that children could work 6.) Adam Smith is...
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...What is Marxism? Marxism is an economic and social system based upon the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. While it would take veritably volumes to explain the full implications and ramifications of the Marxist social and economic ideology, Marxism is summed up in the Encarta Reference Library as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in Western societies.” Marxism is the antithesis of capitalism which is defined by Encarta as “an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a free competitive market and motivation by profit.” Marxism is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. Under capitalism, the proletariat, the working class or “the people,” own only their capacity to work; they have the ability only to sell their own labor. According to Marx a class is defined by the relations of its members to the means of production. He proclaimed that history is the chronology of class struggles, wars, and uprisings. Under capitalism, Marx continues, the workers, in order to support their families are paid a bare minimum wage or salary. The worker is alienated because he has no control over the labor or product which he produces. The capitalists sell the products produced by the workers at a proportional value as related to the labor involved...
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