Industrialization And Imperialism Essay

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Industrialization and imperialism, independent yet interconnected, are often described as the yin and yang of capitalism Indeed, industrialization gave rise to imperialism with its advance technologies in the motherlands and imperialism further fueled industrialization with raw materials and markets acquired from the colonies. Numerous countries experimented with industrialization and imperialism for different reasons and by different means, some dreamed of becoming a world power while others tried to escape being colonized, some naturally began the process without outside pressures while others had been issued an open door policy by established powers. From West to the far East, from market forces to governmental interventions, from Britain …show more content…

Without exception, the states who chose to practice these components, either at their free will or had been threatened, received overwhelmingly positive stimuli to their economy. Industrialization and imperialism were the inseparable complementary elements that interacted and assembled under capitalism, together forming a stabilizing force for the capitalist world. Aside from the more straightforward economic effects, and the resulting prosperity, the seemly more diverse social effects include the rise of working class, the development of nationalism, and the expansion of military power, all of which also contributed in maintaining the stability of capitalism.
After the end of feudal reign, “great masses of men were suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence, and hurled onto the labour-market as free, unprotected and rightless proletarians.” They were then forced into the labor market by their needs for survival. Thus it begun, the transformation of rural farmers into the modern working class. The once family-centered agriculture labors or putting-out system that took place at home had been replaced by more efficient ways, which brought together …show more content…

In Marx 's words, “Hard on their heels follows the commercial war of European nations, which has the globe as its battlefield.” The penetration of Africa, China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East all involved more than one colonial power at the time. Although the powers sometime collaborated together to intervene in local governance, such as the Eight-Nation Alliance that consisted of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which formed as a group to stop the Boxer Rebellion in China, more often the powers fought to gain the control of territories. The invention of the Maxim machine gun easily secured the victory for the industrialized powers; in the Battle of Obdurman, 10,000 Sudanese died while British only lost 20 soldiers. The opium trade is a classic example of how imperial power gained profits at expense of the less developed country. While Chinese goods were highly demanded in Europe, Europeans had little to pay with except gold and silver. To break this unbalance of trade, the royally-chartered East India Company decided to export opium, a highly addictive substance, to China. Though it was banned by the Chinese ruler, the importation of opium continued. When

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