Women were another vulnerable group because they were always paid at a lower rate than men. There was no safety net for people who fell into poverty other than resorting to the ‘workhouse’ which had been established to deal with cases of extreme poverty in Trade unions had little power as the Taff Vale Incident of 1901 showed and Friendly Societies could only provide a limited amount of help. Attitudes to poverty in the early 20th century were quite unsympathetic many politicians from both the Liberal and Conservative party felt that poverty came from personal laziness. Both parties had an attitude of “laissez-faire” i.e. non interference from the government.
As the government had strict censorship on books and journals when information did get through it would usually be made even more powerful as the government had attempted to ban it. Also due to the fact that free speech was denied political parties were driven underground and led the political activists to extremism. Also with the use of the Okerana as a secret police force many people were unsettled by the government using them against their own people. With the programme of industrialisation creating factories and jobs in cities many peasants moved there in a hope of a better life. However what they found was poor pay, poor housing and with trade unions being banned they had no one to help them.
As Strayer, Gatzke, and Harbison state in their textbook The Course of Civilization states “The basic trouble was that very few inhabitants of the empire believed that the old civilization was worth saving… the overwhelming majority of the population had been systematically excluded from political responsibilities. They could not organize to protect themselves; they could not serve in the army… Their economic plight was hopeless. Most of them were serfs bound to the soil, and the small urban groups saw their cities slipping into an economic decline.”(DBQ 2, Doc 1) What these men mean is the majority of the people (which were poor serfs) were excluded from political responsibilities. In addition, they could not protect themselves or serve in the army mainly because they were too poor (in order to be in the army, the people had to be wealthy) and the urban patricians saw their city fall into an economic downfall. What also led the downfall of the Western Roman Empire were the rise of Christianity and the large size
Before the Revolution, France was divided into three different social and political estates: The First Estate (the clergy and catholic church), The Second Estate (the nobles) and The Third Estate (the commoners). One of the main causes of the French Revolution was the imbalance of benefits given to each estate. The First Estate, which contained only 1% of the French people owned 10% of the land; The Second Estate which included 2% of the people who owned 35% of the land, but The Third Estate, which included most of the people (97%) owned only 55% of the land (Doc.2). Moreover, the taxing system was very unfair: while the first and the second estates paid low taxes or didn’t pay at all, the third estate had to pay very high taxes (Doc.1). The poor people hadn’t even had an ability to pay for bread; needless to say they couldn’t pay taxes.
There were two aristocrat brothers (Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus) acknowledged this growing problem and proposed a solution to this growing problem. The plan was to urge the council to take back public land held by large land owners and to redistribute it to the landless Romans. Senators were furious by this proposal and had the two brothers assassinated further after. There was absolutely no voice for the plebes in the roman republic. And the only aristocrats who stood up for change were assassinated by corrupt senators.
However, due to the fact that the Hispanics only worked during harvest, they did not earn enough money to live comfortably. And when they did work they were paid extremely low wages. A Hispanic worker would only earn around $1,378 a year and thus would have to live in terrible accommodation such as low quality rented flats or in some cases makeshift tents of cars. Many Californians believed that the Hispanic workers were poor because they were lazy; this therefore led to them getting very little to no help at all. Therefore, the Hispanic workers were forced to set up organisations and campaign for their economic rights.
Once all the main factors are evaluated, it becomes clear that the life of the peasants did not improve so it remained uniformly bleak throughout the period of 1855-1964. For majority of the period, the living conditions for the average peasant remained uniformly bleak. Especially when considering 1917, under Nicholas II, accommodation was often a low standard as demand outstripped supply following an influx to the cities, such poor living conditions had a detrimental effect in their quality of life which was also the same under the communist leaders, where living conditions remained in an equally bad, if not worse when compared to the Tsars. Some may suggest that Nikita Khrushchev did try to improve the living conditions by building more social housing but he was more interested in competing in the Cold War than improving the living conditions of the peasants. Therefore, lack of care led to his housing policy to be unsuccessful and proving that live of the peasants under Khrushchev did not improve.
Landholders found in the nobility weren't taxed much. The landholders found in the commoners were taxed heavily. There was lack of bread. The price of bread was a lot higher then someone could pay which caused great misery for the people of France. Most of the money was spent on wars.
Consequently, he locked all the sea-ports of Europe as well as English goods. To make matters worse, he punished with fights all the countries which would not accept his system. At this moment, Napoleon´s oppression turned society against him. So, his determinations began to fail (Harding, 2012). Conclusion The main conclusion to be drawn for this paper is that the French Revolution was characterized mainly by war, famine and depression, which were caused by the failure of King Louis XVI at managing the finance of the notion properly.
• Illness (if a worker was ill he/she could not earn money). • Irregular work. • Little help for the elderly, sick or unemployed. Why Did the Liberal Government Introduce Reforms to Help the Young, Old and Unemployed? Changing Attitudes For much of the nineteenth century, most people believed that people were poor because they wasted their money.