What would you do if your power was threatened?

Throughout history when any one person had all the power, people were going to threaten it. People do not like when one person is making all the decisions for himself or herself. Napoleon was all powerful, but in 1814 he was dethroned. Europe needed a new leader, so the Congress of Vienna was formed. The congressmen were from over 200 states and they came together to solve the unresolved issues that Napoleon left behind.

In class we were put into groups and we were put in the shoes of Prince Metternich. Prince Metternich was an Austrian representative. He had to help decide where to redraw the borders, and pick governmental leaders, and had to help future revolutions. Once we guessed what happened, our teacher told us what really happened.

When trying to prevent future revolutions Prince Metternich and the Congress of Vienna put the Holy Alliance into place. The Holy Alliance made it so that monarchs had the divine right to rule. Also, it made it so any revolution was treason and against god. England did not take part in the Holy Alliance. Once that was put into place there were many less revolts. That was because if revolutions were treason people were afraid to revolt.

I think that the Congress of Vienna and Prince Metternich made some good decisions, and some bad. The good decisions they made were The Holy Alliance, and The Principle of Intervention. They were good because they were the most effective. They kept the revolutions from occurring. The Balance of Power was also good because it split up the power equally between the countries. That was bad for France because they lost a lot of their power, but in the long run it kept everyone else a lot happier than they were before. One bad decision they made was to keep the monarchy. That was bad because the same problem that they had with Napoleon could happen again. The monarchs could get greedy and keep all the power for themselves. The monarchs also could act like Napoleon and overstep their boundaries. This would start all the revolutions over again. In the long run I think they should have made a democracy because this keeps the equal representations from all ideologies, but eliminates the monarchy. That would have been the best of both worlds.

Do You Think Napoleon had an Impact?

Napoleon had a huge impact on the social, economic and political systems of Europe. He was the most controlling general of all time, second maybe, to Hitler. He was viewed very differently by different groups of people. Some people hated that he took away their power. Others loved all of the control he was able to gain for France, and the advancements that he was able to make during his rule as emperor.

Socially most people hated him. The way he took over so much land so quickly was violent. He went to war with any place that he came into contact with. That obviously killed many people that would have otherwise been living peaceful lives. His violence was, in his eyes, the only way to get done what he wanted. He wanted to gain control of a place quickly, and war was the fastest, and most effective way to do so. Marshal Michel Ney believed that Napoleon helped France. He said, “the emperor Napoleon, our sovereign, belongs alone to the right to rule over our beautiful country”. Ney was basically saying that France owes all their successes to the fact that Napoleon was their leader. Napoleon was very successful and although violent, he got done what needed to be done. Another reason many people liked Napoleon socially was because under his rule more citizens owned property, and education was much more readily available. Education was then, and still is today very important. That is why I believe Napoleon made such an impact socially.

Economically a lot of people liked the way he ran things. Napoleon wanted economics to flourish, so he did many things to make them. He controlled the prices of goods, so that everyone could afford them. He encouraged new industry, so more people had jobs. Most importantly he built roads and canals. That way people could more easily get from place to place. The new roads and canals encouraged trade, and definitely benefited the economy. People did not like that while Napoleon was helping others, he was becoming very rich. While he was gaining all that power, he saved a good amount of the money for himself. That was where the economics side of Napoleon gets tricky. Madame de Stael said that Bonaparte “would persuade men by force and by cunning, and he considers all else to be stupidity or folly”. That meant that Stael looked down upon Napoleon because he forced people to believe what he believed. Some of Napoleons followers did not actually want to like him. They were forced to by Napoleon himself. Even though some were  forced Napoleon had a vast amount of followers. He needed them in order to conquer what he did. he must have been pretty good because all these people fought for him. That makes his economic impact tremendous.

Politically most people hated him. The fact that he was able to take over so much land, and gain so much power made people despise him. There were people that ruled the land that he took over, and these were the people he angered most. They lost all their power to one man, and they did not like that. Although so many nobles did not like him politically, the people of France loved him for the most part. They loved him for the same reason so many people hated him. The people of France liked the fact that he took control of so much land. It made the people of France proud to be part of such a large empire. Politically Napoleon trusted no one but himself. Proof of that was in an article written by Thomas J.  Vance. He said, “It is only a genius of the most magnificent order which could handle men and materials as Napoleon did”. That quote showed you that even though Napoleon had so much power, he handles it as well as a man could. No other man could have done what Napoleon did, even being presented the same type of opportunities.

For all these reasons Napoleon had a huge impact on the social, economic, and political systems of Europe. He even redrew the map of Europe, until only Britain was outside of it’s empire. That just shows how much of an impact that one man had. He was able to conquer more land than any one man ever has.

Is a Classless Society Possible?

In class we did a representation of how over time Capitalism became communism. We tried to show this using starbursts. Most of the kids in the class got three starbursts, but some people got ten. We played rock, paper, scissors to bet for candy. There were no rules in this game, so students lied, cheated, and stole. That was a representation of capitalism because the people with ten pieces of candy were superior to those with less. The people who had more candy were chosen randomly, so it was like the wealthy people of the time were born into their wealth. They did not work for their money. At the end of the experiment the teacher collected and redistributed the candy equally. That was a representation of socialism. Socialism was the step in between capitalism and communism. It was when the government equally redistributes the wealth to all the people. The nobles and artisans did not like that because they lost all their wealth, but the common folk were happy because they got some of the wealth too. Likewise, the people who started with ten pieces of candy were not happy because they lost most of theirs. The people who started with three were happy because during the rock, paper, scissors a lot of people lost all their candy. The redistribution made it so these people got some too. As a class we made it as close to communism as it gets because everyone was happy, just having some candy. The reason true communism (which means having no government) has never happened is because there is always some greedy person who wants to keep playing rock, paper, scissors. This experiment was very fun because you got to eat candy at the end, but at times it was frustrating because although I started with three pieces of candy, I ended with seven pieces. I wanted I keep my seven pieces, but instead I had to give it up, and end with three pieces like everybody else.

I did not take part in the Socratic Seminar, but I observed the people who did. The people in the socratic seemed most focused on the fact that someone was always unhappy, no matter what type of government we had. For example, Catherine said that, “communism can never be reached because there will always be one greedy person”. Austin also brought up another interesting point, that “there was never any peace because every person was only working for themselves”. In our class there did not seem to be many alliances. Going back I would definitely align with some people because it would have been good for both of us. Also, that way you have one less person to worry about stealing from you.

Marx had a theory that the poor would help themselves. He thought if they changed the government from capitalism to socialism to eventually communism, that the poor would become equal with the nobles. Although his plan sounded good, it did not succeed. With capitalism the poor people were unhappy, so when the government redistributes the wealth the poor people were happy. This is good, but the nobles are happy with capitalism, so when the government redistributes the wealth the nobles were unhappy because they are no longer rich. The government stayed with socialism for a little while, but there was no drive to succeed, when no matter what you are going to be paid. With socialism why not have an easy job because you are paid the same as if you are the head or a major company.

Smith had a theory about an invisible hand, that would benefit the poor. His theory was that the government would stay out of all business affairs. That way the people could work it out on their own. The benefits of this were that the businesses could compete. When the businesses compete, the prices are lower. This means that the poorer people could afford the goods they wanted. The problem with this was that the bigger companies could afford to charge less than the smaller companies. When buying a product a buyer looks most at price, not quality. That was why although the smaller business would be much better quality, they were more expensive. Smith’s theory of an invisible hand brings us right back to capitalism. One business was superior to all the other smaller businesses. Smith thought that was okay because he was against communism, but many people opposed his ideas.

In my opinion Smith’s theory was much better than Marx’s. Marx’s theory was too unrealistic to ever be achieved. Smith’s theory although never fully achieved got much closer the a classes society than Marx’s. I like the fact that businesses could compete because it is people’s natural instinct to have a drive to compete with others. If I was to change our government, I would reintroduce the invisible hand.

Do You Support the Luddites?

The Luddites were skilled mechanics, weavers, and other artisans, that followed the mythical figure “Ned Ludd”. They attacked machines and factories in early industrialization because they believed that the machines were taking away many peoples jobs. With all this new machinery the machines could do the work that people had to do before. This resulted in lower wages because now all you had to do was run the machine, rather than craft something by hand. Below is a letter from a young girl named Lucy. She was a new factory worker at the time of the Luddite’s riots.

The mythical figure Ned Ludd that the Luddites were named after.

Greetings to my dear cousin Paul,

Have you heard about the Luddites? They are a group of men who are trying to get all of us factory workers higher wages! They go around and burn down factories to show the factor owners that they do not think it is fair that the machines are taking people’s jobs and that us factory workers are not paid as much as we deserve to be paid. Industrialization has had a huge impact on me. This is because before coming to work in the factories I was just a normal farm girl. I helped my parents on the farm, and got home schooled by my mother. Now, I am far away from my parents doing a new job. I fully support the Luddites because I believe that we should be paid more to do this strenuous work. The work I do, which is working a sewing machine, is not hard, but the days are very long. I am very tired by the end of the day and I deserve to be able to help my parents more than I am able to do now. They need my money, but sometimes I get sick, and have no extra money at the end of the month. If we were paid more then, I would not need to worry about being able to help my family, as much. I am thinking of joining one of the Luddite movements. I have heard that they are planning to raid a factory near me soon, so I think I might take part. What do you think Paul? Should I take part?

Sincerely,
Lucy

Do You Support Child Labor?

The people in Great Britain and the US wanted to industrialize and advance technologies. To do that they invented many new machines and ways to make the work they did every day more efficient and productive. This meant that one person could now do the work of eight in the case of the spinning jenny, for example. Although that sounds wonderful, now they needed someone to work for cheap. That was where the children came in.

         In Great Britain the orphans were forced to work because they were a free labor force. As long as they provided them with simple care, they could make the orphans do anything they wanted. The conditions were horrible for the poor children. They had boring meals and had to eat them while they worked. They were not allowed to take breaks and the jobs they had to do were dangerous. Many children died from injuries because of the machines they were forced to work at all day. They got very tired and made careless mistakes. If that happened, the overseer, "beats the little children if they do not do their work right" (Document D). That was a horrible phenomena because the children did not even want to be working in the first place.

In the US the conditions were not as bad. The largest industrializing town was Lowell. The young people that worked there were paid, not much, but enough to help their families. Although the machines were dangerous, the girls were allowed more breaks. These breaks and the fact that they had better meals contributed to the fact that there were less careless accidents. One girl who was part of the Lowell Experiment said, "I think that the factory is the best place for me and if any girl wants employment I advise them to come to Lowell" (Document C). There were definitely many accidents because no matter the precautions the masters took, they could not take the danger out of the machines.

Overall the conditions in the US were much better than the conditions in Great Britain. These new machines were very dangerous, but they were necessary in order for the world to be the way it is today. Although industrializing was very dangerous, it helped more people than it hurt. We would not have things, like steam engines, if the Industrial Revolution never happened.