Chapter 14 Chapter 11 Industrial Revolution (Part 2)

During the 19th century, the Industrial Revolution gradually spread from Great Britain to continental Europe and even non-European parts of the world.At first, there were various barriers to dissemination.There was a law in England against the export of machinery, and the situation on the Continent was not conducive to industrialization, not least because of the power of the guilds and the unrest associated with the Wars of Independence and Napoleon.However, the war ended in 1815 and that law in England was repealed in 1825.Soon, the railroad craze that began in England in the 1830s spread to continental Europe.Furthermore, at this time, British industrialists were accumulating surplus capital and looking for opportunities to invest in the Continent.By 1830, between 15,000 and 20,000 British workers were employed in France alone to man the new machinery.

Once the Industrial Revolution began to spread, certain factors determined how it spread.Adequate supplies of natural resources, especially steel, and a freely mobile working population, unencumbered by guild restrictions or feudal obligations, were very important.Belgium fulfilled both requirements and thus became the first country on the European continent to be industrialized.This process started before 1830 and proceeded very rapidly, and by 1870 the majority of Belgians were living in cities, directly dependent on industry or trade.As early as 1830, Belgium produced 6 million tons of coal a year, but by 1913 this figure had risen to 23 million tons.However, other branches of industry developed so rapidly that, from 1840 onwards, Belgium had to import coal from England.

Belgium was followed by France, though at a much odder pace for several reasons.France's coal and iron resources were located some distance apart, and in 1871 the iron-rich Alsace-Lorraine region was ceded to Germany, further weakening France's position.French industry has traditionally specialized in luxury goods that are poorly suited to mechanization and mass production.In addition, labor supply was limited because of the powerful guilds and the reluctance of peasants to leave their land, especially after it had been allocated during the revolution.However, industrialization did gradually affect France, especially in the north of France—in Alsace-Lorraine and the surrounding areas of Lille, Rouen and Paris.The number of steam engines increased from 15 in 1815 to 625 in 1830, 26,146 in 1871 and 82,238 in 1910. The most rapid rate of industrialization occurred after 1870; in 1870, the value of French manufactured goods was 5 billion francs, and by 1897 it had grown to 15 billion francs.The fact remains, however, that by 1914 France was not as thoroughly industrialized as Belgium, England, or Germany.

Germany industrialized in a very different way than France.Due to political disunity, poor transportation, strong guilds, and a variety of other reasons, Germany started off very slowly.After 1871, however, German industry advanced at a colossal pace that outpaced all other economies in Europe.The economy, including the UK, is lagging behind. The establishment of the German Empire in 1871 contributed to this astonishing progress.At the same time, the acquisition of the Alsace-Green region added valuable iron reserves to Germany's rich natural resources.Germany also had the advantage of possessing new machinery from the outset that was more efficient than England's older equipment.Moreover, the German government helped enormously by establishing a network of canals and railways, providing tariff protection and subsidies where necessary, and developing an effective educational system that produced a train of well-trained scientists and technicians.These factors enabled Germany by 1914 to surpass all other European countries in the steel, chemical, and electrical industries, and to follow Britain in coal mining and textile industries. In 1914, the number of workers in German industry rose to two-fifths of the total labor force, while the number of workers in agriculture fell to one-third of the total labor force.

By 1914, several other European countries had also developed enormous industries, the most important of which were Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.Among overseas countries, the United States has advanced at extraordinary speed, while Japan, Canada and Australia have also made significant progress.The United States, in particular, has become the number one industrial power in the world by the beginning of the 20th century by virtue of the unique favorable conditions mentioned above.For example, in the production of iron and steel, in 1910, the United States produced 26,512,000 metric tons of steel, while its closest competitor, Germany, produced 13,698,000 metric tons of steel; Great Britain produced 292 million metric tons.

We can conclude that by 1914 the Industrial Revolution had spread far and wide from its earliest centers in the British Isles.In fact, the spread had reached such a colossal scale that Britain not only now faced formidable competition, but was overtaken by two other countries, Germany and the United States.Table 1 lists the powers in order of their industrial production, and it shows the changes that have taken place in the world's industrial balance. Table 1 One of the effects of the Industrial Revolution on Europe was to change the nature of capitalism. We mentioned earlier that the Commercial Revolution gave rise to commercial capitalism; it was called this because commerce was more influenced by capitalism than agriculture or industry. The influence of socialist organizational forms.Likewise, the Industrial Revolution produced industrial capitalism in its first phase from 1770 to 1870.This means that industry is more and more established on a capitalist basis and is gradually gaining control of economic life. After 1870, in the second phase of the Industrial Revolution, another change occurred in the main form of economic organization, this time with the emergence of finance capitalism.The striking feature of this new form is that of the investment banker; the investment banker begins to be the dominant figure in the economic enterprise.This happens because industrial production is reaching such a large scale that companies cannot raise the necessary capital.In most cases, the fulfillment of large orders requires credit to purchase raw materials and pay wages.Likewise, expansion or modernization of factories is often not possible without access to loans.At this time, banks met these financial needs by providing capital pooled from the assets of large numbers of savers and investors.In doing so, the bank can control many companies and can maintain its control by making small investments in voting shares.Thus, financiers began to displace industrialists in their decisive control over economic life.Or, to put it another way, financial capitalism replaced industrial capitalism.

To illustrate this change in economic organization, we may use the Ford Motor Company as an example of industrial capitalism.In fact, the company was an anomaly in the early 20th century because it thrived during a period of dominance in finance capitalism.The important point, however, is that Henry Ford was able to obtain the capital he needed from his unusually large and consistent profits and, therefore, did not need to rely on banks.In contrast to the independent Ford Motor Company, the giant U.S. Steel Corporation, founded in 1901, was as much a creation of steel entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie as banker J.P. Morgan.

Another effect of the Industrial Revolution on Europe was to enable unprecedented population growth.Despite the emigration of millions of Europeans during the nineteenth century, the continent's population in 1914 was more than three times what it was in 1750.The reasons for this population explosion are economic and medical advances.A substantial increase in agricultural and industrial productivity means an increase in the means of subsistence in terms of agriculture, food, housing and other necessities of life.Famine in much of Europe west of Russia is a memory of the past.Even if the crops failed, the new means of transport ensured ample supplies from the outside world.The growth of the population is also due to the progress of medicine, due to many public health measures.While there was little to no increase in the birth rate at the time, the death rate dropped dramatically as diseases were prevented or cured.Vaccinations, isolation of infected patients, protection of water supplies, knowledge of antimicrobial agents—all of these reduced the death rate in northwestern Europe from at least 30% per thousand in 1800 to 15% per thousand in 1914 about.Thus, the population of Europe rose dramatically from 140 million in 1750 to 188 million in 1800, 266 million in 1850, 401 million in 1900, and 463 million in 1914.This rate of growth in Europe was so much higher than in other parts of the world that it changed the world's population comparisons (see Table 2).

The Industrial Revolution also caused unprecedented urbanization of world society.Cities have existed since the Neolithic period; during the Neolithic period, the invention of agriculture led to a surplus of grain that could feed urban centers.Over the next few thousand years, the size of the city was determined by the amount of food that could be produced in the surrounding area.Thus, the most densely populated cities are found in watershed areas and floodplains such as the Nile, Fertile Crescent, and Yellow River basins.With the development of large-scale river and sea transport, cities can specialize in trade and industry, and thus enable their population to grow beyond the limits of their agricultural interior.

Much more important, however, is the urbanization of the modern world caused by the Industrial Revolution.As the factory system replaced the decentralized system of home processing, large numbers of people flocked to new industrial centers.Huge new urban populations are being fed by access to food from all over the world.Advances in technology and medicine made it possible to eliminate the plagues that had previously decimated city dwellers, and even to make city life more tolerable and desirable.Some of the more important of these advances include: an adequate supply of clean water, improved centralized drainage and waste

Table 2 World population estimates processing systems, ensuring an adequate food supply, and preventing and controlling infectious diseases.As a result, cities around the world grew at such a rapid rate that by 1930 they contained 415 million people, or one-fifth of the population.This is a huge social change in human history, because living in a city means a whole new way of life.Many countries in the West, such as Britain, Belgium, Germany and the United States, had the vast majority of their people living in cities by 1914. The rate and extent of urbanization during the nineteenth century is reflected in the figures presented in Table 3. Table 3 Population of selected cities (in thousands) * Greater London, ÷ Greater Sydney The Industrial Revolution efficiently utilized human and natural resources on a worldwide scale, making possible unprecedented increases in productivity.Great Britain was the first to be affected in this way, and increased its capital from £500,000,000 in 1750 to £1,500,000,000 in 1800, £2,500,000,000 in 1833, and £6,000,000,000 in 1865 .During the second half of the nineteenth century, the entire world was affected by rising productivity.New Zealand's wool, Canada's wheat, Burma's rice, Malaysia's rubber, Bangladesh's jute, and the steaming factories of Western Europe and the Eastern United States—all these resources are caught in the web of a vibrant, ever-expanding global economy .The figures in Table 4 show the rate at which industrial production developed in Europe and around the world during the second half of the nineteenth century. Table 4 Rise of Industrial Production (1913-100) In recent years, authorities have held widely divergent views on the distribution of wealth generated during the Industrial Revolution.While some believed that all classes, large and small, benefited, others insisted that the few gained enormous wealth while the many were ruthlessly exploited and their standards of living declined. Undoubtedly, in the early stages of industrialization, there was a great deal of exploitation and social fragmentation.Shareholders were driven from their homes, and weavers and other craftsmen were swept away by irresistible competition from new machine-made goods.These people, along with others like them, face the ordeal of moving to cities, finding work, adapting to unfamiliar surroundings and unfamiliar ways of living and working.They have no land, houses, tools, or capital, and are entirely dependent on their employers.In short, they become pure wage labourers, with nothing to offer but their own labour. When they get a job, they find the hours are long, and 16-hour days are by no means uncommon.When workers finally managed to secure a 12-hour day in two shifts, they saw the change as a blessing.If it were just long working hours, it would have been tolerable, because their working hours were no longer than those working at home under the family contract system.But there were real difficulties in becoming accustomed to the discipline of the factory and the monotony of managing the machinery.Workers go to and from get off work to the sound of factory sirens.They had to keep up with the running of the machinery and were under the strict supervision of always-on foremen at all times.The work is tedious—pulling levers, brushing away dirt, reconnecting broken wires.Employers naturally view their payroll bill as an expense that should be kept as low as possible.Thus, many of them.Especially in the textile industry, prefer to hire women and children, because women and children are willing to accept lower wages and are more obedient to orders.The exploitation of women and child labor has reached such a scale that many parliamentary committees have made alarming discoveries in their investigations. In 1842 a girl of eight years named Sarah Goode gave the following testimony to Lord Ashley's Mines Committee: It was circumstances like these that drove Jessie Bysshe Shelley to write his revolutionary poem "Song to the English People": However, there is another aspect to the question of the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the working class.First, some parliamentary committees only investigated industries such as mining and textiles; those industries fared the worst.The shocking testimony given to the committee by witnesses was based on facts, but those facts did not apply to British industry as a whole.Moreover, the plight of the workers in the early nineteenth century must be viewed by the standards of the time, not the present.The truth is that the former villages of these workers are in many respects as squalid and ridiculous as the cities.Mice and lice infested the straw mattresses, and the wind whistled through the thin thatch roofs and poorly plastered walls.Country laborers were so poorly paid that they continued to flock to the new industrial cities.Thousands of Irishmen also crossed to work in the new factories.Moreover, Britain's population exploded in these earlier days of the Industrial Revolution—a fact that belied the usual, unmitigated, debilitating scenario of misery.It is entirely possible that most workers in these early factories enjoyed higher real incomes than their ancestors.A British authority concluded in 1955 that "honest observers cannot agree whether things have become better or worse for the working people of the time." While we cannot be sure of the impact of the Industrial Revolution on working-class living standards in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we are absolutely certain that living standards rose considerably during the second half of the nineteenth century.The massive increase in productivity, together with the profits from huge overseas investments, gradually benefited even the lower classes of Western Europe. Unemployment caused a great deal of misery during the "Hungry Forties", but after that time workers in Western Europe enjoyed general prosperity and rising living standards until the First World War.The figures in Table 5 show that between 1850 and 1913 real wages in England and France almost doubled. Table 5 Growth of real wages, 1850-1913 (1913=100) Of course, a significant increase in national income does not mean that all classes benefit equally.Some of the gains from general prosperity do trickle down, but most of it is absorbed at the top.In Great Britain, for example, between 1911 and 1913, 4.93 per cent of people over the age of 25 owned more than 60 per cent of their wealth.Similarly, in Prussia, the average wealth of 3,425 people in 1911 was 5,321,400 marks, while the average wealth of another 1,608,050 people was 23,295 marks.This difference implies a corresponding inconsistency in lifestyle.Although the poor no longer starved, they did live in overcrowded housing, subsisted on uninspiring food, and were confined to churches or hotels for entertainment and rest.The middle class, by contrast, can afford better housing and food, go to the theater and concerts, and educate their children adequately.At the top, the rich enjoyed town and country estates, art collections, well-publicized entertainment, and foreign travel; their lives were almost incomprehensible to those at the bottom.Benjamin Disraeli, later prime minister of Great Britain, emphasized in his novel Sybil how different and unrelated the lives of these classes were: This money-based class division has largely shaped the landscape of European politics.In the next chapter we shall examine the details of European politics, but it should be noted here that an examination of economics or class explains why the rich generally prefer the status quo and why the middle classes only need political reforms sufficient to make They can participate in political life, why the working class needs radical political reform and social reform in order to get a fairer distribution in reaping the fruits of the industrial revolution.More specifically, the wealthy tend to be conservative; the middle class tend to be liberal; and politically conscious workers tend to be socialist.It should be added that this kind of working-class socialism falls primarily into the pacific or revisionist category: while workers are dissatisfied with class inequality, they also appreciate rising living standards. In the period before 1763 the European powers had only a few footholds in Asia and Africa, and their main holdings were in North and South America. After 1763, they controlled politically most of Asia and almost all of Africa.In North and South America, though, they can do a lot more than that.They took advantage of the relatively small population of the Americas to truly Europeanize North and South America.This cannot be done in Asia and Africa, where the indigenous population is too numerous and highly developed.But in North and South America, and especially in Australia, Europeans transplanted their civilization in its entirety—ethnic, economic, and cultural. The Industrial Revolution was largely responsible for this Europeanization.We have seen that productivity growth and medical advances led to a dramatic increase in the population of Europe in the nineteenth century.The resulting population pressure is finding its way out through overseas migration.Railroads and steamships efficiently transported large numbers of people across seas and continents, and persecution furthered migration; the flight of 1.5 million Jews from Russia to the United States in the fifteen years preceding World War I was a major example of this. example.The combination of these factors has led to unprecedented large-scale migration.With every passing decade, there has been a huge increase in the flow of population migration. In the 1820s, a total of 145,000 people left Europe, in the 1850s, about 2.6 million people left Europe, and between 1900 and 1910, the number of immigrants was as high as 9 million, that is, nearly 1 million immigrants per year .Tables 6 and 7 illustrate the sources and destinations of European migrants. Before 1885, most immigrants came from northern and western Europe; after that time, most immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe.Generally speaking, British immigrants went to the Dominions of the British Empire and the United States; Italians to the United States and Latin America; Spaniards and Portuguese to Latin America; Germans to the United States, and a small number of them to Argentina and Brazil.From the perspective of world history, the significance of this extremely large migration is that, except for a large part of people flowing into the Russian region of Asia and a small part of people slowly flowing into South Africa, the destination of the migration is completely facing America and Oceania.As a result, North America and Australia were almost completely Europeanized ethnically.Although the Indian inhabitants of South America managed to survive, only a few survived.In other words, the colonial offshoots of the period before 1763 had become several new Europes alongside the old ones during the nineteenth century. Table 6 Main sources of European immigrants, 1846-1932 *2,250,000 people went abroad; 7,000,000 people emigrated to the Russian region of Asia by 1914; 3,000,000 people emigrated to the Ural Mountains, Siberia and Far East from 1927 to 1939; 2,000,000 people.The voluntary and forced migration of Russians east of the Ural Mountains from 1939 was the largest population migration in the world. The above is only between 1920 and 1932. North and South America and Australia were Europeanized not only racially but also economically. Before 1763, European colonies on these continents were largely confined to the coasts.But in the next century the interior of the continent was traversed.The Industrial Revolution made invasion by land possible by providing the necessary machinery and technology.Without roads leading inland from the coast, without canals connecting rivers, without transcontinental railroads and telegraphs, without steamboats traveling up and down great rivers and coastal waterways, without agricultural machinery to mow prairies, without subjugation of the native peoples The wilderness is impossible to conquer.These mechanical devices for the conquest of vast areas of the continent were as essential to Latin Americans and Australians as they were to the American frontier dwellers.An Argentine, for example, wrote in 1878: "The military power of the 'Indian' savages was completely destroyed, because Remington had made them realize that an army could cross the entire pampas and make the ground Covered with the corpses of those who dared to oppose it." Table 7 Main destinations of European immigrants The colonial and economic development of the New World also naturally led to the transplantation of European culture.Granted, culture changes during the transplant process.Culture is not only adopted, but also changed.Today, Canada, Australia, and the United States are not identical to Great Britain, nor is Latin America an exact replica of the Iberian Peninsula.The fact remains, however, that the language is essentially the same, although American slang fascinates the Brits and old French Canadian dialects intrigue the French.The same goes for religion, although there are campfire revivals and Mormons.Literature, schools, newspapers, polities—all have roots that can be traced back to England, Spain, France, and the rest of Europe. Of course, there are also cultures in North and South America and Australia that did not originate in Europe.Negroes in America retain a certain remnant of their African background.The surviving native peoples, especially the Indians of Latin America, contributed to a mixed culture. Nor should one forget the influence of the wilderness; it left an indelible mark on European settlers and their customs.All of these forces explain why New York, Melbourne, and Toronto are so different from London, and why Buenos Aires, Brasilia, and Mexico City are so different from Madrid. From a global perspective, however, the similarities appear to outweigh the differences.During their westward expansion from their homeland in the Middle East, the Arab peoples spread across North Africa to the Atlantic coast.Today, Moroccan culture differs from Arabian Peninsula culture much more than American culture differs from British culture or Brazilian culture differs from Portuguese culture.However, Morocco is now seen as part of the Arab world, and no doubt, it sees itself as such.In the same sense, North and South America and Australia are now part of the European world. The Industrial Revolution was not only the main reason for the Europeanization of the Americas and Australia, but also the establishment of huge European colonial structures in Asia and Africa.The building of this empire proceeded steadily in the decades following the great colonial settlement of 1763.Indeed, at the beginning of the nineteenth century there was much anti-imperialist sentiment in certain groups in Britain and France.Advocates of free trade believed that the colonies had only minimal economic value, and England's experience with the 13 colonies seemed to support their opinion.However, the fact remains that Britain and France continued to acquire dependencies during those decades.For example, Britain acquired the Cape Colony and Ceylon in 1815, New Zealand in 1840, Hong Kong in 1842, and Natal in 1843.Likewise, France conquered Algeria between 1830 and 1847, Cochin China between 1858 and 1867, and, in 1862, tried unsuccessfully to gain a foothold in Mexico.However, these gains were insignificant compared with the great wave of empire building after 1870; after 1870, the "new imperialism" made a large part of the earth's surface the appendage of a small number of European powers. The colonies could serve as markets for an increasing number of manufactured goods; the close connection between neo-imperialism and the Industrial Revolution can be seen in the growing desire to acquire colonies. Several European and overseas countries that began to industrialize during the 19th century soon competed with each other for markets and, in the process, raised their own tariffs to boycott other countries' products.Before long, it was argued that every industrialized nation should have colonies capable of providing its manufacturers with "markets free from foreign competition." In 1898, Republican Senator Albert J. Beveridge stated this view representatively to a group of businessmen in Boston: The Industrial Revolution also produced surplus capital, which in turn led the great powers to seek out colonies as a place to invest.The more capital is accumulated at home, the lower profits fall, and the greater the need for more profitable investment markets abroad.In fact, the great powers, notably England, France, and Germany, invested heavily in foreign countries.Britain, for example, had invested 4 billion pounds abroad by 1914, equal to a quarter of its national wealth.At that time, France had also invested 45 billion francs abroad, or about one-sixth of its national wealth.Although Germany is a latecomer and has been using most of its capital for domestic industrial development, it has also invested 22 billion to 25 billion marks overseas, which is about one-fifteenth of its national wealth.Thus, by 1914 Europe had become the banker of the world.During the first half of the 19th century, most of these overseas investments were in North and South America and Australia—in a white world.However, in the second half of the nineteenth century, most of these overseas investments were in non-white and relatively unstable countries in Asia and Africa.The thousands of small private savers and some large financial organizations that provide capital are naturally concerned about the security of their capital.They would rather have "civilized" administration in the regions where their investments are made, preferably by their respective governments.Thus, the need to invest surplus capital promotes the new imperialism. The Industrial Revolution also created a need for raw materials to feed machines.Much of these raw materials—jute, rubber, oil, and various metals—come from "uncivilized" parts of the world.In most cases, substantial capital expenditures are required to adequately produce these items.Such investments often lead to the imposition of political control, as we have seen. The origins of the new imperialism are not exclusively economic; nor are they solely associated with the Industrial Revolution.At the time, various other factors were at play.One factor is the desire for strategic naval bases like those in Malta and Singapore to enhance national security.Another factor was the need to acquire another source of manpower, as the French did in North Africa.A further factor was the influence of missionaries, who were particularly active in the 19th century.These missionaries had been trying to convert the natives, and they were sometimes mistreated and even killed by the natives.While the missionaries themselves may be willing to tolerate such dangers as acceptable for the sake of their cause, public opinion has often demanded a counterattack.The Government therefore knows that such incidents can be used as a pretext for military intervention.Finally, the popularity of Social Darwinism and its doctrine of the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest naturally led to the idea of ​​racial superiority and the idea that whites had a "responsibility" to rule the "inferior" colored peoples of the world.The eminent empire-builder Cecil Rhodes was quite candid on this subject.He said: "I insist that we are the first race in the world; that the more places we inhabit in the world, the better it is for mankind. If there is a God, I think, what He wants me to do is, Put as much red as you can on the map of the British in Africa." The net result of these economic, political, and ideological-psychological factors was to lead to the largest land grab in the history of the world, a land grab unmatched even by Genghis Khan's conquests.In the 30 years between 1871 and 1900, Great Britain added 4.25 million square miles and 66 million people to its empire, France added 3.5 million square miles and 26 million people to its empire, and Russia added 5 million people in Asia square miles of land and 6.5 million people, Germany has increased by 500,000 square miles of land and 13 million people.Even tiny Belgium managed to acquire 900,000 square miles and 8.5 million inhabitants.These conquests, together with the original colonies, produced a strange and unprecedented situation: a small part of the world dominated the rest. Table 8 Overseas colonial empires in 1914 (including colonies and non-adjacent territories) The industrialized European powers did not only own these huge colonies outright.It also controls economically and militarily weak areas that are not actually compatible for various reasons.China, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia are examples; all nominally independent, but in practice, were often plundered, humiliated, and controlled by powerful states in various ways, both direct and indirect.Latin America was also an economic appendage of the great powers, but in this region European military action suffered setbacks due to the Monroe Doctrine.However, the Monroe Doctrine did not prevent the repeated armed intervention of the US Marine Corps to "restore law and order".The Great Russian Empire was also largely under the economic control of Western Europe, but at that time, the military power of the Tsarist regime was strong enough to prevent external economic influence from expanding to other areas. Thus we see that European control extended not only to its vast empire, but also to its equally vast dependencies.In fact, more European capital was invested in the dependencies than in the colonies.These investments were made through a variety of means and political and economic pressures—such as: military missions to train local armies, financial missions to monitor and often control local finances, special privileges to Europeans who lived in or did business in these areas. extraterritoriality and arrangements related to extraterritoriality - and are protected.There are always marines in the Americas or gunboats in the Eastern Hemisphere as a last resort if necessary. The details of the relation of the great powers to the various colonies and dependencies will be examined in subsequent chapters.The purpose here is only to describe the general pattern of these relationships.This pattern clearly shows that, by 1914, most of the earth's surface and most of the world's population were under the direct or indirect domination of a few European countries, as well as Russia and the United States.This development is unprecedented in human history.Much of the chaos in the world today, in the middle of another century, is the inevitable reaction to this European hegemony. Why should the great expansion of Europe in the late nineteenth century be called a new imperialism?Imperialism is nothing new after all.If imperialism is defined as "the direct or indirect political or economic domination or control of a state, nation or people over other similar groups", then imperialism is as old as human civilization.There is no doubt that the Romans were imperial because they conquered most of Europe and the Near East and ruled those areas for centuries.Moreover, before and after the Romans, there were many other empires in various parts of the world conquered by various peoples. However, the term "neo-imperialism" is quite justified, since this expansion of Europe in the late nineteenth century was completely unprecedented in its impact on the colonies and dependencies.Although Rome exploited its colonies simply and directly by plunder, by collecting tribute mainly in the form of food, its exploitation did not particularly affect the economic life and structure of the colonies.The colonies continued to produce almost the same food and crafts in the same way as they had in the past.Comparing this imperialism with that which later invaded and transformed entire continents is like comparing a shovel to a steam excavator.Traditional imperialism involves exploitation but not fundamental economic and social change.贡物仅仅归于某一统治集团而不归于另一统治集团。相形之下，新帝国主义迫使被征服国家发生彻底的变他这与其说是一种经过深思熟虑的政策，不如说是西欧的生气勃勃的工业主义对非洲和亚洲的静止的、自给自足的农业政权的不可避免的影响。换句话说，欧洲的工业资本主义太复杂、太扩张主义了，不能说是与殖民地的一种简单的贡物关系。 开始时，欧洲征服者肯定毫不迟疑地进行掠夺和征收贡物。英国人在印度就曾这样做过，就象西班牙人早先在墨西哥和秘鲁所做的那样。但是，经过这一最初的阶段之后，欧洲的生气勃勃的经济开始以各种方式包围和改变殖民地的经济结构和社会结构。发生这种情况是因为如我们已知道的那样，工业化的欧洲需要为它的剩余资本和制造品获得原料来源和市场。例如，英国曾用船把大量组织品和资本运到印度，资本主要是用于铺筑铁路。到1890年，印度已铺筑了约1700O哩铁路，大致与英国的铁路网相等。但是，从1890至1911年，印度的铁路网大约增加一倍，达33000哩，而在这同一时期中，英国的铁路仅增加了300哩多一点。 应该指出，铁路和其他大项目如灌溉工程和港口设施是用英国资本换来的。换句话说，印度并不是必须待到它积聚起足够的资本时才发展其经济和增加其出口商品。因而，在这早期阶段，印度的经济发展因与英国的联系而得到促进。但是，重要的一点是，印度的经济不仅受到促进，也得到重建，并在后一阶段中归于无效。英国的纺织品非常便宜，这时能通过铁路网而分配到全国，从而，象在早一个世纪时使英国工匠破产那样，无情地使土著工匠破产。不过，这两种形势之间有一个极其重要的不同之处。英国工匠到城市中雨后春笋般地发展起来的工厂里去做工，印度工匠却由于他们的城市里没有出现工厂而无处可去。英国人自然并不希望在印度建立一个相竞争的工业结构。他们喜欢印度的经济补充他们自己的经济，而不喜欢印度的经济与他们自己的经济竞争。因而，印度供应原料给英国，作为回报，印度得到制成品和建设项目所需的资本。 这是一种自然的、可理解的安排，但是，它深深地影响了印度人民。他们以往历来是通过农业和手工业谋生。而这时，工匠须削价与竞争者抢生意，没有可替换的生活来源。农民也不能不受到影响，因为他们中的许多人开始卷入为英国工厂生产黄麻和其他商品的过程中。这意味着他们不再仅仅供养他们自己和附近城镇的人们。这时，他们已成为世界经济的组成部分，受世界经济的波动和危机的支配。欧洲还通过传入医学科学和种种卫生措施而从根本上影响了印度，因为医学和卫生措施导致人口急剧增低这种情况早先在欧洲也发生过，但是，欧洲有数百万人进入城市或去了海外，而印度人却做不到这些。因此，最后结果是人口增长、经济发展受阻。 这就是新帝国主义对殖民和附属地的影响的性质。印度已用作这种影响的一个例证，但是，在其他地区，一般格局是相同的，只是自然地带有一些地方的变化。这一格局应当记住，因为它说明了为什么今日的世界被划分成发达世界和不发达世界，为什么这两个世界的生活水平有着如此惊人的差异，为什么不发达世界的人民在获得政治独立之后，其首要目标是成为发达世界——尽可能迅速地达到西方的经济水平。 不应该得出结论，说新帝国主义对于世界，甚至对于诸从属殖民地民族，是十足的灾难。按照历史的观点，新帝国主义无疑将被看作是世界的一大进步，正如工业革命是欧洲人的一大进步一样。实际上，新帝国主义的历史作用在于将工业革命推进到其逻辑上必然的结局——使工业国家即工业资本主义能以世界性的规模起作用。这导致了对世界物力人力资源的远为广泛、协调和有效的利用。无疑，当欧洲的资本和技术与不发达地区的原料和劳动力相结合、首次导致一个完整的世界经济时，世界生产率无法估量地提高了。事实上，世界工业生产在1860至189O年间增加了三倍，在1860至1913年间增加了七倍。世界贸易的价值从1851年的64100万英镑上升到1880年的30240O万英镑、1900年的404500万英镑和1913年的784000万英镑。 对于蛋糕的体积增大所带来的好处，人们没有不同的意见。更确切地说，争论集中在蛋糕该如何切开的问题上。诸殖民地民族已感觉到，过去，他们所得到的少于他们应得的份额。他们所得到的总的量已明显增加，要不然，他们的日渐上升的人口就无法得到供养。例如，有位英国经济学家指出，1949 年，在矿物丰富的北罗得西亚从事开矿的欧洲公司将他们的产品总共卖得8670万英镑。这笔钱中，他们花费在北罗得西亚的仅为1，250万英镑；这意味着，有三分之二的钱给转移到国外。而且，花费在北罗得西亚的1250万英镑中，有410万英镑是支付给在那里生活、工作的欧洲人。3670万英镑中，只有200万英镑是给了在矿井里干活的非洲人。然而，这些工人平均一年得到41英镑，而殖民地每个成年非洲人的平均收入是一年27英镑。 在这些情况下，可以理解，诸殖民地民族对增长了的生产率或外国公司付给的工资，印象并不很深。他们印象较深的是自己的可怜的生活水平，尤其是在与西方的生活水平相比较时。他们对于让自己担任干苦活者的角色这一点也很不满；甚至在有着工业发展所需的人力物力资源的地区，也是如此。 显然，在西方工人对工业资本主义的反应与殖民地民族对新帝国主义的反应之间，有着一个相似之处。两者都对自己的命运不满，而且，两者都支持旨在引起根本变革的运动。但是，又有一个基本差别：诸殖民地民族并不反对自己民族的皇帝，而宁可说，反对外国统治者。因此，至少在最初阶段，它们的反对运动并不是社会主义，而是西方的一系列政治学说——自由主义、民主主义、尤其是民族主义。 我们接着将考察这些主义，它们构成了欧洲的政治革命。了解这一革命对世界历史来说，和了解工业革命一样，是必不可少的。正如我们将看到的，这世界不仅受西方的棉织品、铁路和银行的影响，而且还受西方的思想、口号和政治制度的影响。