1. Indicate the socio-economic and political prerequisites for the industrial revolution. What internal and external factors contributed to the development of the economy?
Prerequisites:
As a result of colonial trade, significant capital was accumulated, and it was from entrepreneurs;
The nobility of Great Britain also did not consider it shameful to engage in entrepreneurship;
Entrepreneurs who became wealthy in Great Britain could relatively easily enter the ranks of the nobility;
The colonial empire became a vast market for goods;
The division of the production of complex products into small operations has reached a high level;
With the ongoing enclosure policy, the masses of landless peasants represented a suitable labor market.
Thus, the main external factor in the beginning of the industrial revolution was the colonial empire of Great Britain. The internal ones include the fencing policy and the special ideology of British society, in which there was no clear opposition between the nobility and entrepreneurship.
2. What changes in the social structure and social relations took place in English society during the era of colonial conquest? Explain why the position of the English "lower classes" was extremely difficult.
A special culture of the ruling class of Great Britain was gradually developed, for which land ownership and entrepreneurship were considered equally honorable. A person was accepted depending on what kind of capital he had, and it did not matter how this capital was acquired (with the exception of illegal methods).
At the same time, the process of landlessness of the peasants continued as a result of the fencing policy. People deprived of their land came to the cities, where they ended up in workhouses for begging. It was from such destitute people that not only the colonists came out, but also a new class for Europe at that time - the worker. However, the life of this poorest class was unenviable. Not only hard, but also monotonous work spoiled health, especially since the length of the working day was not limited by law; but the law limited the increase in wages.
3. Describe the policy of the ruling circles of England, tell us about its political development.
After the restoration of the monarchy, relative stability set in in society. The King and Parliament fought hard at times, but only in the form of political debates. The situation changed with the death of Charles II, who left no legitimate heirs. During the reign of the second son of Charles I, James II, the government made no secret of its pro-Catholic sympathies. They became the main cause of the Glorious Revolution, which replaced James II with the husband of his sister Mary, William II of Orange. Since that time, steady Anglicanism has become an integral part of the policy of the ruling circles. Catholics were forbidden by law to occupy the throne and seats in the House of Lords.
As a result of the Glorious Revolution, the powers of Parliament began to resemble the current ones in many ways. Part of political life was the balance of individual branches of government, including parliament and the royal government. But the parliament itself was not formed by the entire population. The House of Commons was elected from certain cities. At the same time, there was a high property qualification for voters. As a result, the parliament represented the interests of only the upper stratum of society, including entrepreneurs. In this parliament, throughout the 18th century, the political confrontation between the Whigs (representing more entrepreneurs) was preserved, on the basis of which the Liberals and Tories (representing the landed aristocracy) developed, who later also became known as conservatives.
4. Name the technical inventions that marked the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Inventions:
Spinning machine with a "flying shuttle" D. Kay 1733;
A new method of iron smelting using coal, 1735;
Mechanical spinning wheel "Jenny" D. Hargreaves 1765;
Arkwright's factory near Derby 1771, where the machinery was powered by a waterwheel;
J. Watt's improved steam engine from 1781.
5. Specify the consequences of the industrial revolution. What contradictions in society did he give rise to? What forms did the workers express against their oppressed position?
On the one hand, the industrial revolution increased the power of the country's economy and the well-being of the population as a whole. On the other hand, because of it, the number of the poor grew, because now, due to competition with factories and factories, artisans, handicraft industries and even manufactories were ruined. In addition, machine labor required less physical effort, so it was more profitable for entrepreneurs to hire women and children, whose labor was cheaper. At the end of the 18th century in England, only 10% to 25% of workers were men over 18 years of age. The latter, for the most part, remained unemployed and turned out to be a socially dangerous element.
The protest of the workers was expressed in different forms. The simplest was the destruction of machine tools and other industrial machines, called Luddism. Strikes were another form. They already demanded greater organization, therefore they were carried out by specially created workers' unions.
6. What was the significance of the industrial revolution and the modernization of society?
The Industrial Revolution did more than just reshape the economy. Cardinal changes began in the structure of society. In addition, he seriously strengthened the dominance of Europe in the world. Therefore, we can say that the industrial revolution and modernization played a key role in world history.
The Industrial Revolution brought about profound changes in the social sphere. First of all, the economic type of social stratification was finally established: the position in society was determined by the level of income, the material condition of the individual. The desire to have money now largely determined the way of life and behavior of people in Western society. Since the material condition of people can change, the emerging industrial society was characterized by a high degree of social mobility.
In this regard, a class-based social structure has developed. Society was divided into classes - social groups that differ from each other in relation to the means of production, place and role in the production process, method of generating income. The main industrial classes, the factory bourgeoisie and the proletariat, acquire leading importance in economic development. Commercial and industrial activity is becoming the most profitable area.
Under the new conditions, the social structure of Western society has undergone major transformations. The upper layer (elite) of Western society was still represented by the landed aristocracy and the top financial bourgeoisie. However, the big commercial and industrial bourgeoisie also gradually entered this circle. At the same time, the ratio between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie in the process of the industrial revolution changed in favor of the latter. The leading trend at that time was the strengthening of the class of the industrial bourgeoisie, the assertion of its dominant position in society. The big commercial and industrial bourgeoisie was already either merging with the landowners or ousting them from economic and political life.
A new phenomenon in the social structure of Western society is the formation of the so-called middle class. At that time, it was represented mainly by the middle commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, as well as by the wealthy part of the intelligentsia and officials. There was also a rapid growth of the urban petty bourgeoisie - small traders, owners of service enterprises (various workshops, small restaurants, hotels, hairdressers).
At the other extreme of the social structure in those years were the working classes, the hired workers. Among them, the leading position was occupied by the rapidly emerging factory proletariat. The latter, due to its relative homogeneity and high concentration, was the most organized and conscious force. The rest of the mass of workers employed in small enterprises (manufactories, handicraft workshops) was very diverse and disunited.
Special processes were going on in the countryside: the peasantry differentiated rather quickly. It distinguished a layer of the rural bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie (independent owners) and landless farm laborers (rural hired workers).
The organization and working conditions have noticeably changed: its intensity has increased, a strict regime has been established, subordinating a person to the rhythm of a machine. The introduction of simple mechanisms has created opportunities for the widespread use of female and child labor (cheaper). Throughout the industrial revolution, there was a decrease in the standard of living of the majority of the population, and the material situation of the people worsened. The low wages of the proletarians, the lack of job security and labor protection led to the impoverishment of the working masses and gave rise to many social problems. The process of migration intensified - the movement of many ruined and impoverished Europeans across the ocean.
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Read more in the source.
Goodbye poverty! A Brief Economic History of the World Clark Gregory
14. Social consequences of the industrial revolution
Therefore, to the same extent that the unattractiveness of work increases, wages decrease.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)
The driving force behind the Industrial Revolution was the increase in knowledge. Yet more than any other group, it has, oddly enough, benefited from unskilled labor. Marx and Engels, with their gloomy prophecies published in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto, could not have been more mistaken about the fate of unskilled workers. On fig. Figure 14.1 shows a typical image of the disasters brought by the industrial revolution, which has managed to survive in the modern mass consciousness. In reality, everything was completely different. By 1815, the real wages of both agricultural workers and urban unskilled workers began to rise in England uncontrollably, which eventually made all sections of the population well off.
RICE. 14.1. Able-bodied underprivileged pounding stone on gravel for roads in Bethnal Green (London), 1868
Even the notion that the industrial revolution initially proved to be more advantageous for the owners of land and capital than for workers is mistaken. From 1760 to 1860, real wages in England grew faster than real output per person. Advances in knowledge have given very modest or no reward to innovators, owners of capital and land, and owners of human capital. As a result, modern economic growth, from the very beginning bringing the greatest benefits to the most disadvantaged groups of pre-industrial society - and above all unskilled workers - has contributed to the reduction of social inequality.
But if so far economic growth has been good for people, there is no guarantee that in the future it will contribute to the establishment of equality between societies. Ahead of us may be the grim dystopia predicted by many authors, in which the wages of unskilled workers will fall below the socially defined subsistence level and societies will be forced to constantly support a significant part of the population at the expense of the state treasury.
PROFIT SHARED
To understand why the bulk of efficiency gains in the modern economy have gone to unskilled labor, note that as output per unit of factors of production—capital, labor, and land—is increased, average payments to owners of these factors of production must increase. However, the fundamental growth equation tells us nothing about how profits are distributed. In formal terms, it is only necessary that the equality
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Dmitry PERETOLCHIN. A hundred years ago, it was noted that it is the level of science and education that ensures the success of warfare. Therefore, in our turbulent times, I propose to talk about the correlation of education with the level of technological development.
Olga CHETVERIKOVA. Let's just say that education is determined by the interests of technological development. But in Russia it was understood in a slightly different way: as a full-fledged development of the personality, intellectual, moral and spiritual. And now we are talking about education for the sake of training, which refers us to the ideas of the third or even the fourth industrial revolution.
This is interesting because the phenomenon of the new industrial revolution is based on robotization and automation of production, which is displacing humans. We talked earlier about transhumanism as a consequence of changes in the person himself, in his mind due to modern cognitive technologies, and why this concept is being introduced into the worldview systems of different countries. The term "fourth industrial revolution", updated after the Davos Forum, as far as I know, was first used by German economists. In general, this is rather just one area of the third industrial revolution, affecting the digital economy and computer technology and talking about the creation of a “virtual person”.
Unlike ordinary reality, virtual reality has no boundaries and frames, so you can do anything with a virtual person or a virtual thing. We have to abstract from the production process, because the phenomenon of the emergence of 3D printing has changed the view of the industry in general. Although, in my opinion, there is also “scientific verbiage”, which, as an instrument of influence on society, justifies serious changes in the social sphere, and in politics, and in human consciousness, because if a scientist wants to understand the processes of the third industrial revolution, then he simply does not have enough time and creative energy to understand the main thing: what consequences it led to.
Therefore, operating with such categories looks like an attempt to drive human consciousness into the framework of dogmas, as was the case with the Marxist-Leninist teaching, in order to cover up the essence of the structural changes from this revolution. Among these changes, we single out two - in social relations between people and in the personality of a person. The industrial revolution, it turns out, affects ethics, aesthetics and many other components of a person's personality. Moreover, biologists specializing in the work of the brain, before sociologists began to pay attention to the phenomenon of “digital dementia”. "Mowgli effect" - in the event that the education of a child occurs during computerization, some areas of his brain do not develop.
Dmitry PERETOLCHIN. At the moment of communication, people simultaneously analyze up to seven parameters: intonation, gestures, and much more, and a certain part of the brain is responsible for each parameter. If children from an early age get used to communicating with a “finger”, for example, through a phone screen, then only one area of the brain is actively developing, while the rest begin to degrade. Our brain is an amazing phenomenon: the intraspecific difference in the brains of humans can be greater than the interspecific difference in animals.
Olga CHETVERIKOVA. Each person can develop into a spiritually and intellectually rich person if conditions are created for the internal, independent development of the brain. As a teacher, I can say that earlier social conditions had a very strong influence on education: some could, say, pay for education, others could not. Today, a person with an atrophied brain is deliberately created, but neither teenagers nor parents are told about this: if different areas of the child do not begin to work before the age of 7-10, then the consequences are irreversible. This is not a consequence of the objective laws of the development of technology, as they try to imagine, but a conscious influence on a person, because he somehow remains in the center.
Under capitalism, the value of a commodity is made up of fixed capital (the funds themselves), variable capital (expenditure on wages), and profit. In the post-war years, the main part of the cost was determined precisely by variable capital, and it was profitable to spend huge amounts of money on the maintenance of the labor force. But the rate of profit tends to decrease, and when this happened, an interest arose to reduce costs as much as possible: the denationalization of capital, the privatization of resources, and, most importantly, the exclusion of the maintenance of labor resources from the general cost formula, in other words, the person must be removed from the formula. Not only from the production process, but also from the service sector, which is actively robotized. He becomes a cyborg with minimal needs, which he will implement in virtual reality. In most developed countries, the market for basic needs is full, and therefore the manufacturer begins to dictate new, artificial ones that are not characteristic of a normal person.
According to various estimates, in 40 years from 50 to 70% of workers from production will be removed and replaced by robots. Now 10% of all goods are produced exclusively by robots, by 2025 the forecast speaks of 40%. At risk are not only "blue", but also "white collars": managers, car drivers, pharmacists, insurance agents, sellers, collectors will suffer. Outside this zone - psychologists, detectives, artists, photographers, social workers, priests. That is why show business is developing so actively - people ousted from production and the service sector are “placed” there. And the requirements of such people are minimal, and they are not interested in spiritual development (if only the phone was more fashionable), and it is very easy to manage them.
The British scientist Guy Standing, borrowing the term from his French colleagues, built an interesting concept of social change. He talks about the emergence of a new class - the precariat, the basis of which is instability, instability, unreliability. The elite, people with social guarantees and the old proletariat (the last two strata of society are declining) are followed by the precariat, which includes people working on temporary contracts, migrants, skilled youth who cannot find work because the specialty they have received does not have time adapt to rapidly changing technological conditions. This provides an easy radicalization of the precariat: for migrants, these are Islamist or pseudo-Islamist groups, for young people (especially in Europe) - the growing popularity of right-wing radical movements and parties. And instead of trying to fight the TNC elite, which started such a rift in society, these people begin to solve problems among themselves, being simply pitted.
What happens to a person? Back in the 60s, the term "human capital" was introduced - how much money needs to be invested in a person so that he starts to make a profit. At first, economists invested in this concept education, upbringing and development of professional qualities, and then expanded it by adding elements of consumption (food, entertainment, etc.) to it. And this remained unchanged - I am talking about treating a person only as a tool for making a profit capitalism. The term "human capital" is even used in all educational programs, in the concept of education in our country - the same attitude. Spiritual development and other personal things in a person become unnecessary, because it increases costs in the very formula of the cost of goods. Alas, in these conditions it is impossible to have any other education than that which works for a technological business. And this is objective, and loud words about patriotism are an empty phrase. It’s just that we can’t say to pupils and students: “You will integrate into society, and therefore we need you only as a function, a controlled biological object.” For today’s student, there are generally few opportunities to discuss some topics that were relevant for education in the past.
An interesting statement is made by Elon Musk, the founder of Space X and Tesla Motors, who joined the Donald Trump Policy Strategy Forum in December 2016. He believes that the introduction of new technologies must be skillfully managed so that there are no serious consequences. To do this, in his opinion, it is necessary to achieve the fusion of the biological brain with the digital one. The main problem is the bandwidth, the speed of connecting the real brain with the digital one. Regarding social issues: “The fusion of man and machine is the future, and the immediate effect of technology is autonomous machines. They can replace drivers. Such a process could take up to 20 years, be fast and destructive. 12-15% of all working people will be out of work, so they need to find new roles.” In the end, he plans to come up with the idea of a universal basic income. “Automation will be followed by an avalanche of cheap goods and services, but you need to understand what to do with the purpose of a person and what this person will matter if for many it is inextricably linked with work. If your job is not needed, what's the point in you? Therefore, the future is a serious test for us.”
By minimum basic income, he means a certain amount of money that the state will pay to everyone, regardless of a person's role in society and whether he works or not. In fact, this is an attempt to justify the total demolition of social policy (why is it needed, if they pay anyway?), Which will be followed by the abolition of this income, because there will be no one to resist.
If we talk about education and the changes that have taken place during this year: the processes mentioned above have only intensified, and the change in leadership turned out to be decorative. The Science and Technology Initiative project was quietly adopted and just as quietly passed. They started talking about it actively in 2013, when the question of how we should respond to sanctions was being decided.
Dmitry PERETOLCHIN. Interestingly, an attempt to reduce a person to a “function” or “competence” leads to personality degradation, because in order to discover or create something new, a person must have a level of basic knowledge about the world around him in all areas, and then, perhaps , at the intersection of sciences, there will be a discovery. It turns out that the capitalist system does not develop that much.
Olga CHETVERIKOVA. The Science and Technology Initiative project was supposed to create new export markets for high-tech goods. In this regard, the following areas have been developed: unmanned aerial vehicles, a driverless vehicle control network, a distributed energy and finance system, a food and water production and delivery system, life extension and individual medicine, an individual transportation system, brain mapping and the creation of a new generation "World Wide Web". This excludes industrialization and the revival of industry for import substitution.
Today, in fact, a new system of influence of technological centers is being created. The first thing to highlight when talking about these changes is the emergence of two subgroups within the groups of developed and developing countries: the zone of technological superclusters for the former and the zone of controlled instability for the latter. A product of technology leaves the zone of superclusters, but what is taken from others? - a talent that is becoming a staple today.
At the opening of the Science and Technology Initiative, it was said that Russia should become a generator of meanings and cultural codes. The idea was also voiced that it is necessary to capitalize talents from childhood, turning groups of children into companies that develop technological solutions. It was proposed to regulate people's behavior with the help of games (for example, "Pokemon"). According to the speakers, new methods of collective thinking can also be exported.
The current first-graders are the personnel reserve of the future, so the situation of a systemic shift in education should happen now. Speaking about this, at the opening of the program it was openly said that at the moment there are only 10% of talented children. This is considered a "breakthrough group", and the rest "need psychotechniques"
Higher education institutions should also be restructured according to a certain program, in which great attention is paid to the knowledge of the English language and the ability to integrate knowledge into world experience.
In winter, it became known from news agencies that the Minister of Education appealed to the Government with a request to reduce funding for non-basic universities by 20 billion. The rectors of these universities took this calmly and not because there are other sources, but because it made them think about how to earn money themselves and make breakthroughs in the rankings. This is a purely American position, in which a commercial university is essentially a venture company that produces and sells. In my opinion, this project is not well known, it should be brought to the discussion of the general public.
