These other causes are all political social and economical factors which helped to free the serfs. And had the Tsar taken a more liberal view on his rule the emancipation may never have happened. Firstly there are many political causes for the emancipation of the serfs. The bankruptcy of nobles who were the tsar’s main supporters was, caused because of the inefficiency of using serfs to farm lands, which meant most nobles were losing money and by 1860 over 60% of serfs were mortgaged to the government meaning they were “unofficially” no longer tied to their land. This meant serfdom was already coming to its own natural end, and for Alexander II to support his nobles he had to emancipate the serfs so they could go start increasing their wealth and get out of debt.
Witte believed the only way to modernise Russia and play catch-up with the West was through State Capitalism (control of the economy by the government). The country needed to raise capital for investment in industry, which he did in several interlinking ways: large foreign loans which brought money into the country; heavy tax and interest rates in Russia which brought more money for the government. While bringing money into the country, Witte protected the small developing industries of Russia by limiting imports (but risked other countries doing the same to Russian goods in retaliation) In 1897, he put Russian currency on Gold Standard. This created financial stability and in turn encouraged huge foreign investment in Russia. Conversely, the higher-value rouble helped increase the prices of goods.
Due to businesses like these integrating vertically big businesses were made easier to grow. By 1913, 14.7% was what the US produced units relative to the world in 1880 became 32%. Another point is the fact that through the work of Carnegie, steel has become a major product of the US, this increased the steel production thus providing lots of employment. This results in a massive growth in the economy . Due to big businesses like one of Carnegie’s, small companies which were less profitable were ruined, this resulted in the economy benefiting from monopolies.
It is questionable as to whether these improvements directly affected the urban workers, as there was little reward of their hard work. The urban workers also enjoyed the benefit of the Stakhanovite program under Stalin as it gave way to incentive, allowing workers to move up the ranks and gain from the benefits. One could argue that this program was simply a façade to keep workers in check through indirect repression. Lenin’s establishment of the NEP in 1921 allowed for private ownership of small-scale industry. On the other hand, conditions worsened for the urban workers Stalin’s Five Year plans as harsh and unprincipled methods were used.
Witte believed that the construction of this railway was crucial to the economic growth of Russia, because it would make it possible to take advantage of the economic potential of Siberia. Witte hoped that the expansion of the railway would encourage the migrations of workers from the East to the West, but this didn’t happen. Instead, it improved communications and increased the amount of exports Russia made by making transportation of materials easier and faster. However, the growth in population was much larger than the national output, indicating less production per person, therefore production in Russia wasn’t very efficient. In addition, the railway cost the country a lot of money and a lot of time to build, so it can be argued that the railway was not even worth building in the first place as that money could have gone to other important industrial plans or improving conditions for workers.
To what extent were the social and economic policies of one of the following successful: Mao, Nasser, Stalin? During Stalin’s government he made a lot of changes in the social and economical policies in Russia. He made drastic changes in collectivization, which was a total failure from a social perspective. Stalin also created the Five Year Plan where he also made changes; some changes were successful, however others failed economically and socially. From a women’s perspective, Stalin made positive changes, giving women more economical and social independence, however there were also some problems with that.
Industrialization had a major impact on American society. It was a time of growth and expansion for the nation as a whole as it brought about new ideas and resistance to reformation. In many ways industry was helpful to America’s economy, but it was also a hindrance for the vast majority of the population. People like Sam Patch, otherwise known as the working poor, did not have much opportunity to advance in society, so as time passes there’s more resistance and protest to letting the rich get richer. The messages sent from the famous jumps of Sam Patch were the beginning of a new of democracy, and a fulfillment to the true meaning of the word equality.
Other than Witte the only Russian Leader to have made such a big of an impact on Russian industrialisation is Stalin and his five year plans. His time in power saw the narrowing of the gap between Russia and the west which surely was a sign that Russia was on the right path, but it’s important to remember the Wall Street crash of 1929 sparked a worldwide depression, which allowed Russia to catch up in a sense since the depression prevented the west from experiencing any type of growth. Since Industrialisation became a key focus point for each leader, a main issue which had to be dealt with was the creation of large population of inner city workers, who would primarily work in the cities. Before Witte’s Great Spurt the percentage of the population who were workers made up around 0.75% of the population, during and after his Great Spurt this figure rose to approximately 1.25%. This is in stark contrast to the west where the average percentage of the population in work was much higher.
From the railroads in the past, we have learned that faster transportation is better. Everything we need travels by boat or train or plane because we understand that is one of the most successful forms of transportation. Bye replacing home-based workshops with factories we have been able to grow our production rates which in the long run put our selling rates high. By switching from hand tools to large machines we have also been able to cut our jobs down, which allows for more money in the pockets of the business men. The industrial revolution has helped the nation and economy grown so much over the time but we know, nothing is perfect.
This can be demonstrated through the examination of urbanization, the rise of new classes, theories (by Smith, Malthus and Ricardo), and factory conditions. The industrial revolution began with tinkers introducing new inventions that were going to dramatically improve the way people produced goods. These new machines (such as the water frames, cotton gins, power looks, and the spinning jenny) enabled different industries (like the Textile industry to produce products in mass quantities. In consequence, these new methods of production made other approaches such as the cottage industry obsolete. These new techniques may have allowed for ample production of goods and prices of goods to drop, ultimately increasing consumerism; inevitably though, it had a destructive effect on the old-fashioned methods of production.