Twentieth Century
Capitalism in the 20th century changed substantially from its 19th-century origins, but remained in place and by the end of the century was established as the world's most prevalent economic model, after the collapse of the USSR.
Several major challenges to capitalism appeared in the early part of the 20th century. The Russian revolution in 1917 established the first communist state in the world; a decade later, the Great Depression triggered increasing criticism of the existing capitalist system. One response to this crisis was a turn to fascism, an ideology which advocated state-influenced capitalism; other responses are, a rejection of capitalism altogether in favor of communist or socialist ideologies.
In the years after World War II, capitalism was moderated and regulated in several ways. Keynesian economics became a widely accepted method of government regulation; meanwhile, countries such as the United Kingdom experimented with mixed economies in which the state owned and operated certain major industries.
Other aspects of 20th-century capitalism include the rise of financial markets, quantitative analysis of market trends, and the increasing globalization of production and consumption.
Read more about this topic: History Of Capitalism
Famous quotes related to twentieth century:
“As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)
“The descendants of Holy Roman Empire monarchies became feeble-minded in the twentieth century, and after World War I had been done in by the democracies; some were kept on to entertain the tourists, like the one they have in England.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“In the middle of the next century, when the literary establishment will reflect the multicultural makeup of this country and not be dominated by assimiliationists with similar tastes, from similar backgrounds, and of similar pretensions, Langston Hughes will be to the twentieth century what Walt Whitman was to the nineteenth.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film.... You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“If the twentieth century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will be because there are among us men who walk in Priestley’s footsteps....To all eternity, the sum of truth and right will have been increased by their means; to all eternity, falsehoods and injustice will be the weaker because they have lived.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)