Chapter 24

Futurists
  • futurists- those with a desire to break free from the past and pull down all that preserved art and learning in the West in hopes to fashion a new and dynamic civilization, were a small group with limited influence, believed European culture was on the edge of a serious moral and cultural crisis
  • Italian writer Emilio Marinetti is a futurist poet; Umberto Boccioni was a futurist painter who painted Riot in the Galleria (shown p839) which shows a galleria (shopping mall) in front of a caffé (Italian coffee shop) with members of the middle class; two women are fighting and people are rushing toward it, depicted as blurs
European Economy and Collaborations

General Economic Condition

  • early 1900s saw new forms of communication and transportation, inventions of the bicycle, automobile, airplane, and cinema and discovery of X-rays
  • Great Britain slipped out of place as most industrialized nation, now: United States, Germany, Great Britain, France
  • Berlin became the capital of the new German nation, and grew incredibly 1875-1900
  • cities underwent enormous growth, even less industrialized ones
  • 1872 towns of Buda and Pest were united to create Budapest
  • proportionately few people remained on the land, and those that did were linked to cities through new transportation and communication networks
  • 1873 to 1895- bust period of epidemic of slumps in European economy, falling prices, downturns in productivity, declining profits, known as the “Great Depression” of the nineteenth century (not like the Great Depression of 1929, instead was a period of economic uncertainty and fluctuation, didn’t strike all nations same time, didn’t affect all nations with the same degree)
  • 1895 to 1914- boom period of intense economic expansion
  • industrialists, financiers, and politicians learned that “alternative booms and busts in the business cycle were dangerous and had to be regulated
  • deflation of last quarter of 1800s caused by “too much of a good thing”, sharp contrast with famines 50 years earlier; overproduction resulted from two factors: 1) technological advances in crop cultivation; 2) low cost of shipping and transport, which had opened up European markets to cheap agricultural goods from the US, Canada, and Argentina
  • “With every passing year proportionately fewer people remained on the land.” … “The absolute numbers of those employed in agriculture remained more or less constant…”
  • boom and busts were dangerous now and not before because of the amount of capital
  • in order to invest, businesses had to look toward the stock market, banks, or the state

Cartels, Trusts, and Consortiums

  • banks that businesses relied on for capital to buy equipment etc wanted to ensure they would receive profits as well, did this through regulation of markets by the establishment of cartels- combinations of firms in a given industry united to fix prices and to establish production quotas (not as extreme as monopolies of the U.S. during the same period made for the same purpose), agreements among big firms intent on controlling markets and guaranteeing profits
  • trusts- another form of collaboration that resulted in the elimination of unprofitable business, firms united horizontally within the same industry (all steel producers agree to fix prices/set quotas), or united vertically by controlling all levels of the production process from raw materials to finished product and all other substances necessary for production
  • Great Britain was falling behind in heavy industry, firms failed to form cartels and remained mostly in private hands; heavy industry in Germany, France, and Austria sought regulation of markets through cartels
  • banks, which had provided necessary capital to begin regulated economy, formed consortia (plural of consortium) to meet the need for greater amounts of capital; the consortium was the parallel of a cartel and was a partnership among banks, often international, in which interest rates and the movement of capital played an important role in directing the economy

Other

  • capital-poor Russia issued indirect taxes on the peasantry to finance industrialization and railroad construction and imported capital (especially from France); the Russian government had to guarantee foreign loans and regulate the economy to ensure foreign investors on a return of their capital
  • nations in Europe created tariffs to protect domestic industry, except for Great Britain which had a system of free trade; Europe was split into industrialized (north and west) and agricultural nations (south and east)
  • economic regulation was NOT created by the twentieth-century; intervention and control began in the late 1800s (why did they mention that? I don’t know)
Great Britain
  • Britain avoided revolution and social upheaval and had a strong Parliamentary tradition
  • British aristocrats, businessmen, financial leaders, parliament members were similarly educated in schools such as Oxford or Cambridge, produced a common outlook and attitude toward parliamentary rule for both Conservatives and Liberals

Trade Unions and Workers

  • suffrage in Britain had been quadrupled in 1800s
  • British economy did not experience the roller-coaster effect of recurrent booms and busts after 1873 or the economic crisis or labor unrest between 1890 and 1914
  • quality of urban housing deteriorated, cities were overcrowded
  • workers responded to distress with militant trade unions; new unions included unskilled and semiskilled workers in 1880s and 1890s
  • Scottish miner James Keir Hardie attracted national attention by creating the Labour Party, whose goal was to represent workers in Parliament; 1892 Hardie became the first independent working man in the House of Commons; unions supported the Labour party which had 29 members in Parliament by 1906

Fabian Socialism and Parliamentary Reform

  • Fabians- group of intellectuals concerned with social welfare who believed that Parliament was failing the poor; named themselves after Roman dictator Fabius (noted for his delaying tactics which enabled him to avoid battle with Hannibal in the Punic Wars, believed in cutting off supplies of enemies and engaging in skirmishes)
  • -Fabians were socialists who wanted a gradual sense of government commitment to social justice, not Marxists who wanted ultimate revolutionary confrontation; -Fabians were led by Beatrice Webb and Sidney Webb and included members such as playwright and critic George Bernard Shaw, theosophist Annie Besant, and novelist H. G. Wells; -Fabians were successful propagandists who kept people aware of issues of social reform, advocated collective ownership of factories and state direction of production, supported the Labour party candidates at turn of the century meaning intellectuals joined with trade unions to make living conditions better
  • the existence of a Labour party made Conservatives and Liberals support reforms in order to maintain support for their parties; after 1906 the “new” liberals helped strengthen the right of unions to picket peacefully; David Lloyd George, chancellor of the exchequer, led liberals in sponsoring the National Insurance Act of 1911- modeled after Bismarck’s social welfare policies and provided compulsory payment to workers for sickness and unemployment benefits; George renovated Parliament with the Parliament Bill of 1911, which got rid of the ability of the House of Lord (dominated by Conservatives resistant to proposed welfare reforms) to deny proposals of the House of Commons, which took advantage of this and raised taxes to pay for new programs that benefited workers and the poor