The Industrial Revolution and its Critics

Alexandria Kennedy

Many social and economic problems were caused by the Industrial Revolution

• Poorly paid workers endured terrible conditions in the workplace.

• Workers lived in squalid conditions in slums.• Child labor was widespread, and they worked

long hours in dangerous conditions.• There was a lack of opportunity for education.

Terrible Working Conditions

Squalid Living Conditions

Child Labor

Karl Marx

• Marx diagnosed the root causes of these

problems.

• Conditions of modern industrial societies result in the alienation of workers from their own labor.

• Marx believed that people were divided between the bourgeoisie – people who owned land, resources, factories – and the proletariat – people who worked for wages

• As businesses expanded, each worker became less important, each one has less political influence

• Owners didn’t care about safety and living conditions

Marx’s Solution

• Marx proposed an economic system in which the wealth of a society would be shared by all.

Communist Manifesto

• Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto which predicted that a revolution in which the proletarians overthrew the capitalists would come.

• Marx said, “Let the ruling classes tremble… The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains… Working men of all countries unite!”

• When property is owned by all, individual interest in one’s own labor is retained, avoiding alienation.

• Capitalism never collapsed as Marx predicted. His theories were used by Russian revolutionaries.

• Since Marx’s time, “communism” has evolved to mean an economic system that calls for government ownership of land, factories and resources.

Works Cited

• Marx and Engels: Communism. May 15, 2006 <http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/5o.htm>.

• Karl Marx. May 15, 2006 <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUmarx.htm>.

• The History Place – Child Labor in America. May 15, 2006 http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/

• Documenting "The Other Half": The Social Reform Photography of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine May 15, 2006 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Davis/photography/slideshows/slideshows.html

• The Living City New York City. May 15, 2006 http://www.tlcarchive.org/htm/framesets/living_city/fs_exh.htm

• Marx. May 15, 2006 http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/marx.htm

• Karl Marx: His Life and Work. May 15, 2006 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/photo/art/index.htm

• Communist Manifesto. May 15, 2006 http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthworm/73864710/in/set-72057594058670187/

• Graphic Witness:Hugo Gellert. May 15, 2006 http://www.graphicwitness.org/contemp/marxtitle.htm

• Klee, Mary Beth. The Human Odyssey Volume 2. McLean, VA: K12 Inc, 2005.