History
According to contemporary critics of capitalism, rapid industrialization in Europe created working conditions viewed as unfair, including: 14-hour work days, child labor, and shanty towns. Some modern economists argue that average living standards did not improve, or only very slowly improved, before 1840.
Early socialist thinkers rejected capitalism altogether, attempting to create socialist communities free of the perceived injustices of early capitalism. Among these utopian socialists were Charles Fourier and Robert Owen. In 1848, Karl Marx and Frederich Engels released the Communist Manifesto, which outlined a political and economic critique of capitalism based on the philosophy of historical materialism. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon a contemporary of Marx was another notable critic of capitalism, and was one of the first to call himself an anarchist.
By the early 20th century, myriad socialist tendencies (e.g., anarcho-syndicalism, social democracy and Bolshevism) had arisen based on different interpretations of current events. Governments also began placing restrictions on market operations and created interventionist programs, attempting to ameliorate perceived market shortcomings (e.g., Keynesian economics and the New Deal). Starting with the 1917 Russian revolution, Communist states increased in numbers, and a Cold War started with the developed capitalist nations. Following the Revolutions of 1989, many of these Communist states adopted market economies. The notable exceptions to this trend have been North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela, the latter instituting a philosophy referred to as "Socialism of the 21st century".
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of Capitalism
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)