The Interaction of Capitalism and Industrialization America and China A Comparison

The Interaction of Capitalism and Industrialization

Capitalism is one of the oldest economic systems in the world today and is founded on the concept of private ownership: what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours. It is also founded on the private ownership of all aspects of production, such as investment capital, land, and labor that is employed to create profits. Many scholars view capitalism as being synonymous with the free market system. Some have argued that capitalism is the protection of individual rights and property rights.[footnoteRef:1] Industrialization is a term very closely connected with the industrial revolution. Industrialization refers to the journey/procedure via which a region or local economy metamorphosizes from one founded on the dependence of agrarian pillars (such as farming) to one that is founded on the manufacture of goods. Via industrialization, manual labor on the small scale is replaced by mass production through mechanized means, and lines of people working in an assembly replace individual crafts people. While not perfect, industrialization is often connected to things like an economic boom, the division of labor in society, harnessing technological innovation as a means of solving problems, rather than keeping a primary focus on using individual control or strictly human-centered solutions. This paper will examine the interaction between capitalism and industrialization in America comparatively with these forces in China and discuss why the manifestations were so different. [1: Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands, 2001. Retrieved from http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Politics_Capitalism.html]

In America, there was a very clear relationship between capitalism and industrialism: the two supported one another in a symbiotic way. They both helped spur one another’s growth and development. Even though industrialization can exist within any economic system, in America in the late 1800s, the economic system in place was capitalism, one which is very individualistic and which corresponded well to the pioneer spirit and the belief of forging a better life for oneself through grit and determination. As the textbook clearly states, entire new industries helped push the economic growth forward, and more and more regions and were able to export crucial raw materials to America for use in their rampant industrialization.[footnoteRef:2] Working symbiotically, these two forces were able to reinforce one another, making direct contributions to one another’s development. However, these forces weren’t perfect, and not all their repercussions were desirable. Both industrialization and capitalism created massive inequalities among regions of America, particularly in industrialized versus unindustrialized areas. With great changes in society, typically great anxieties come as well. Economic fluctuations also brought uncertainties that brought many people out of work. This also intensified resentments among people in society, as cities become crowded, as more people from the country flocked there in hopes of finding work. Also, with the boom of industrialization, the need for work, the anxiety during jobless times, and lack of inadequate childcare also meant that industrial capitalism helped enable evils like child labor: “In the canneries of Baltimore… children are permitted to work for long hours, even though they may be very young”[footnoteRef:3] [2: Robert Tignor et al.,Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World from the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present. The Mongol Empire to the Present. Volume Two. (New York, WW Norton, 2008) 668.] [3: “Child Labour in the Canning Industry” Accessed April 20, 2018 http://www.loc.gov/pictures/static/data/nclc/resources/images/canneries3.pdf]

With any new mode of life come anxieties, but also fresh perspectives on society and the human condition. In America, this gave birth to the modernist movement in art, with writers, fine artists and architects finding new modes of expression, based on the benefits of this new age, and the inherent drawbacks present within the era. In America, these two forces interacted the way they did bringing growth and uncertainty, development and crowding, optimism and anxiety because nearly every new force or movement historically has a good and bad side to it. The modernist movement reflects these aspects of light and dark.
In China, on the other hand, one could argue that these two forces of capitalism and industrialization interacted with greater anxiety. China rejected capitalism initially, so one could argue that capitalism in the West pushed China to cling even closer to socialism. China was slow to embrace industrialization, and when it finally did, it did so with great anxiety, with a close eye on the west. For example, in 1958-1961 the Great Leap Forward was Mao Zedong’s intent to overtake the west in terms of industrial development. It was a backwards attempt to play catch up on a movement they were slow to join, and it ended up being a failure. As a result of the fact that Zedong encouraged the people to stop growing crops and instead to start melting steel at home is what directly contributed to the death of around 30 million people. Hence, the way that industrialization and capitalism interacted in China is a bit more nebulous, as the government is firmly communist, but the people embrace the tenets of capitalism via business, as that has precisely been what has allowed the economy to grow so much since the economic reforms of the late 1970s. Mao Zedong appear to be open to the influences of capitalism of foreign nations, but wanted to do so with caution: “We must absorb whatever we today find useful, not only from the present socialist or New-Democratic cultures of other nations, but also from the older cultures of foreign countries, such as those of the various capitalist countries in the age of enlightenment. However, we must treat these foreign materials as we do our food…we should never swallow anything raw or absorb it uncritically.”[footnoteRef:4] [4: Mao Zedong, Selected Works, in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 2, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 422–23. ]

Thus, one can conclude that in the West, industrialization and capitalism intermingled in a way that was purer and less unfettered by the influence of what other countries around the world were doing. In China, industrialization was a movement that developed as means of “catching up” to western nations, with a desire to overtake them (one which backfired). Industrialization wasn’t able to intermingle purely with capitalist business norms until the late 1970s, but when it did, China was able to ascend from being one of the poorest nations in the world to one of the wealthiest.

Bibliography

Landauer, Jeff, and Joseph Rowlands. \\\\"Definition of Capitalism.\\\\" Importance Of Philosophy. Last modified 2001. http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Politics_Capitalism.html.

Loc.gov. \\\\"Child Labor in the Canning Industry of Maryland (Library of Congress).\\\\" Home | Library of Congress. Accessed April 30, 2018. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/static/data/nclc/resources/images/canneries3.pdf.

Zedong, Mao. Selected Works, in Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 2, edited by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Richard Lufrano (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), pp. 422–23.

Tignor, Robert, Jeremy Adelman, Stephen Aron, Stephen Kotkin, Suzanne Marchand, Gyan Prakash, and Michael Tsin. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World from the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present. The Mongol Empire to the Present. Volume Two. WW Norton, 2008.