In school lately, the cirriculum has been hugely biased. It is unbelievable. When learning about the industrial revolution we learned how socialism was good, how ending so much capitalism was good, how change was needed, we learned about Marx for 2 whole days ( about 3 hours), she specifically adressed how laisez-faire and excess capitalism were a problem, and used a 30 minute socialism discussion to back Obama. I swear, my friend has the audio, I can try to get it to anyone who requests it. But anyway, we learned that child labor, women’s labor, harsh conditions, 20 hour days in shafts, and low pay were problems, and how work hour regulations were needed and minimum wages, and how polution was a problem and life during Industrial England straight up BLEW. I am an anarcho-capitalist/austro-libertarian and I know this is all wrong, but I never thought of the industrial revolution and its horrors and it really does seem government regulation was needed. There is no doubt this time sucked and that capitalism was very present and free at the time. We also discussed how monopolies hurt people and were prevelant but I thought Free Market capitalism did not allow monopolies. I am confused and actually have some doubt in austrian economics now… someone save me!! Can anyone explain why conditions got so bad before government regulation, why the government seemed to help, and alternate solutions ( I know the "why not make minimum wage $10000000 argument, please don’t use it ).Thank you everyone.
(Skip to On-Topic towards the end)
I missed the part where you stood up and announced that until the propaganda ceases you will be in this class, & that even if you agree with said propaganda, it’s complete lunacy to expect this passing for “the truth” when it it’s merely being memetically spewed by ideologues wanting to spread their virus.
And the part where you per-emptivley dismiss being marginalized as the “enemy” or “conservative” & that just because someone disagrees with ideas that be demonstrated to be bad or incorrect, doesn’t make them a conservative, loony, or redneck. And the part where you walk out & change profressors (assuming this isn’t high school).
It sounds harsh, but they get away with this as more & more people just passively take it up the academic a** & do not verbally resist or argue against. You’d be surprised at how much respect you’ll have for yourself for doing this at least once, & one or two other people might follow your example & stand up for themselves. This is ironic considering how much liberal*history (especially since the 60’s) are based on this focus of the underdog rising above, as they are now the system and/or majority to rise up against.
*I’m including the Republicans with this label, because they are never consistently conservative, but I am not giving a pass for statist-conservatives either, they also have problems.
Sure, everyone make look at you like an annoying nat who sounds like a flat-earther to them, but just remember the gleam of brainwashing in their eye when they repeat tired platitudes they picked up from the same dolt “teaching” the class via PowerPoint.
If this high school, do yourself a favor: skip it, take the GED, and move on. You don’t need to take this nonsense for free, at least.
On topic: Some googling will help you, but I will tell you right now that you will have a hard time finding a consistent history on the working conditions of the industrial revolution: some will completely idolize it, villianize it, but few will just give you statistics and/or unfiltered anecdotes.
Even those will be skewed. A lot of people have a hard time accepting that there might not be some grand teleology of history at work, & that the industrial revolution just happened over a period of time, rather than was planned or pre-ordained, regardless of ideology.
I have yet to find satisfactory accounts myself, honestly.
If you wish more precision response I recommend you ask further precise questions.
The basic answer is that government can not legislate worker productivity into being. It can not legislate prosperity. child exemption from labour is the result of economic progress under capitalism which means that more productive, wealthier parents, can excuse their children from work without risking the health and wellbeing of the family. Women’s labour? women should be exempt from work? it takes capital to alleviate harsh conditions, a good recipe for never alleviating harsh conditions is to place barriers to capital accumulation. hello regulation. ditto work hours. Pollution is always going to be an issue if private property rights are not respected, if capitalism is not respected.
life before the industrial revolution BLEW HARDER.
“Sucked” compared to what? Is you teacher/professor actually claiming that working and living conditions for the unskilled laborer was worse during the industrial revolution than before the industrial revolution? Life “during Industrial England straight up BLEW” compared to today’s standards, but was a shitload better than life in pre-Industrial England.
Your argument on child labor does not make much sense because a very small percent of people owned factories and those who did had the wealth to do so because of previous aristocracy under monarchies. Also, pregnant women should not work 20 hours a day in a mine shaft for 5 cents… My question is how could harsh pay, hours, and conditions be reduced other than government regulation.
How was it worse before? We learned before children and women worked in families on farms with controlled coniditions and were not sent away and abused. Industry outsourced much of the labor from before and those without jobs were forced to suffer factory conditions because those were the only jobs. That is what we learned at least.
so? it was not factory owners kids in the factories, but non-factory-owning parent’s kids… you think things would have been better without factory owners ?
Did they disagree with you by saying ‘no, c le master, i want to earn 5cents today, so i am going to the mine shaft’ or did they agree with you and decide to not go?
capitalism and the passage of time. this is commonly known as progress.
I highly recommend you listen to Rothbard’s lectures on U.S economic history. He explains how the history is really between the free-market and government interference. Unfortunately, most critics of free-market literally don’t know what is free market.
Look through these links for the ones on history that were recorded in NY Poly Institute.
no, arbitrarily not allowing poor parents to send their children to earn money for the family, would increase inequality and lead to worse conditions than allowing them. is this not clear?
its a rhetorical device.
I was saying that if they felt it was not in their interest to do so why did they do it, what man with a gun made them a slave and ‘forced’ them to do it? surely, you recognise that if you had stood there in their path and said ’ No ladies! do not come into this mine to earn your money, go away and do other things’ do you think they would have all slipped away quietly; or would they argue with you and maybe fight you to get you out of their way so they could start earning…?
wrong, the ‘problem’ is nature and the existence of human beings. This is a world of scarcity. capital accumulation and increasing productive power is the cure. the industrial revolution was the most remarkable period of progress in history. the comfort that you are used to and can’t imagine not having (it would be a crime not to live in comfort!) is a direct product of capitalism generally and the industrial revolution in england in the particular.
If you think nature is cruel for making the children of the poor need to work to eat, why do you hold this against the capitalist factory owner who not only give the poor the income they need, but is necessary for progress to a world of material comfort for the masses?
isn’t it clear that this is backwards?
because of nature and economic reality, not because of the plans of evil people… refer to the above point.
no, they retard progress.
surely you mean your logic, not mine… my logic is that your comfort today is based on the free market of the past and whatever there remains of the free market of the present. The government have trapped people in poverty, and ensured that progress has come about slower.
I am taking highschool classes in the U.S. and I heard the ‘excess production theory’ in my economics book; and in my history book they talk about how good progressives and union are. I writing essay on both of them to prove they are wrong; because I refuse to answer with the ‘book’ answer.
BTW, C Le Master, you should know that whenever some Lefty is talking about poverty, realize that it’s just a gimmick. That’s because poverty is meant in relative terms, not absolute terms. If you have ten people in a room and the poorest of them makes $5 million a year, he’s, by definition, in the poverty level in that room.
However, if it is once decided that there is an absolute definition of poverty, a free-market system will constantly reduce poverty until it’s eradicated.
What the socialists and mild socialists implicitly want you to think is that it’s egalitarianism that’s the ultimate end for civilization and not prosperity.
War, Peace and the Industrial Revolution by Ralph Raico
The Industrial Revolution by Ralph Raico
Is this high school or college?
Alright, the profile says age 16, so I guess high school. Hmm. This is why government school sucks.
By the way, working standards and wages are increased by increased labor productivity which is caused by increased capital. Anything getting in the way of that is reducing labor standards.
From my own reading it seems to me that the best answer is that industrial capitalism was basically skewed by the incentives provided by feudal law which still existed in britain. Also free enterprise was a legislated into being through enclosure acts and those same acts outlawed unions. Also we have to remember that torts were always limited in those days by law.
As for the fact that pregnant ladies had to work in unhealthy conditions one can say that was an implication of the above and plus people really did want to work -they were legally stopped from owning land. Hence they worked hard even if they were pregnant. Have you been taught that some mothers would lie about the age of their children to get them into the factories? People were desperate at some points…
The conditions were “controlled” by whom?
Sent away by whom?
Is it your claim that the children and women who “worked in families on farms with controlled conditions” could not have continued to do so? If the families did not see factory work as a better life, why in hell did they start working in factories?
I’m in no way claiming that the life of a poor factory working in Industrial England was anything but shitty. But life on a pre-industrial farm was no piece of cake either. There is a reason the farmers stopped farming and took factory jobs - it made their lives better, at least in their opinions, which really is the only opinions that matter.
I think we could be more of use if you specifically gave us a claim that you want refuted.
About the pollution thing, Rothbard writes in For a New Liberty that pollution caused by the industrial revolution in England was a failure of the courts to recognize property rights. Instead of being concerned about the harm of the individual, the courts sided with the factory owners on the appeal to “the greter good.” That is, the courts didn’t care that the pollution from factories were causing property damage to less profitable and/or productive enterprises such as apple orchards. This is a failure of government, not capitalism.
I really question the claim that there were no other jobs than factory work during the industrial revolution, so it isn’t like women or other workers had no other options. For example, around the turn of the 20th century in America, about 40% of the labor force worked in agriculture. So, clearly, there were other options. This isn’t even including services and other sectors. People worked in factories because it was the best option for them. Saying that they should have stayed in the fields suggests that you have a better understanding and grasp of what is best for individuals whom you have never known, experienced, or lived in their particular situation.
I am saying that factories with harsh conditions did things faster and made them with better quality than humanly possible. A family of shoe artisans might have no market because of these factories. With no market and a factory monopolising the shoe market in an area, the family could not continue what they did. They would virtually be forced into working in factories right? I am just asking, not claiming so, so do not get mad and say I am statist, just giving counter arguments I may receive.