REACTIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION

As the nineteenth century progressed, the Industrial Revolution redefined both society and the economy, stirring new tensions. Enlightenment ideas and sentiments inspired many political movements. Some were revolutionary, while others were reformist. Their impact would be global. 

REACTIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION: LIBERALISM

One response to industrialization was the rise of liberalism, which resulted from the rapid growth of the middle class. With philosophical roots in the Enlightenment, liberals opposed monarchies and wanted written constitutions based on separation of powers. They were proponents of natural rights. Having greatly benefited from the new capitalist, industrial economy, liberals were staunch supporters of laissez-faire economic ideas. They were lukewarm to unionism and socialism. 

REACTIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION: SOCIALISM

The appalling conditions experienced by industrial workers in the 1800s inspired revolutionary reformers. Under the broad title of socialism, these movements critiqued capitalism and suggested instead an economy that was run by the proletariat, the equivalent of the modern-day working class. Socialists opposed the bourgeoisie, the class of businessmen and professionals that was becoming ascendant after the decline of the aristocracy.

The most notable expression of socialism in the nineteenth century was the Paris Commune, a revolutionary socialist government that ruled the city of Paris following the collapse of the French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War. It existed from March 18 to May 28 in 1871 and enacted a number of anticlerical and prolabor laws. The Paris Commune inspired many later leftist revolutionaries, like Lenin. It popularized the red flag as a left-wing symbol. The French Army overthrew the Commune, killing approximately 20,000 revolutionaries in the process of retaking Paris. 

REACTIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION: UNIONISM

While often tarred as veiled socialism, unionism can be distinguished as reformist rather than revolutionary. The union movement wanted to improve the lives of workers within the constraints of the capitalist economy rather than seeking its overthrow. Unionists advocated the organization of workers so that they could negotiate with their employers for better wages and working conditions. Factory owners fought to stop workers from banding together, resulting in considerable bloodshed. Workers struggled to remain unified against violent oppression. 

REACTIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION: COMMUNISM

Communism, a radical form of socialism, sought to create self-sufficient communities in which property was owned in common. One of the most prominent socialist thinkers was Karl Marx, who, along with Friedrich Engels, wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848. Marx and Engels advocated the overthrow of the moneyed classes which would be followed by a “workers’ state.” Communism is notable for being an internationalist ideology. It saw workers as a unified class regardless of their outward nationality. Later, after the emergence in the twentieth century of communist states like the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, communism came to be associated with central planning of the economy by the government. 

REACTIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION: ANARCHISM

Anarchism arose as a revolutionary antiauthoritarian movement. The father of anarchism was the Frenchman Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who coined the assertion that “property is theft” and defined anarchy as “the absence of a master, of a sovereign.” Anarchism sought to replace existing authority structures with decentralized, self-governing cooperatives that rejected hierarchies. Anarchists played a major role in the Paris Commune, and the Commune’s decentralized structure reflected that.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, anarchists were responsible for a series of high-profile bombings and the assassination of various political leaders. These actions were termed the propaganda by the deed and were intended as catalysts for wider revolution.

REACTIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION: ROMANTICISM

Romanticism was a philosophical reaction to both industrialization and the Enlightenment. It manifested itself in the arts, literature, music, and various intellectual outlets. Romanticism emphasized emotion over reason, and glorified individualism over the collective, especially in the form of heroic deeds. Nationalism was a key expression of romanticism. In the twentieth century, it provided a basis for fascism. 

REACTIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION: CONSERVATISM

Various strains of conservatism developed in response to industrialization and the French Revolution. In England, Edmund Burke favored private property and laissez-faire economics, yet felt that capitalism should serve the traditional social order. In Germany, Otto von Bismarck favored “revolutionary conservatism” where the traditional social hierarchy was strengthened by a welfare state, depriving leftist radicals of modest goals that might organize workers and facilitate revolution. In general, aristocrats saw industrialization and the rise of capitalism as a corrosive threat to their privileges and to the structure of traditional society.