ECONOMIC

Economics: 1815-1848

//Thomas Malthus:// a neat sort of fellow who agreed with most of the ideas of capitalism father Adam “Laissez-Faire” Smith. However, he noted that food is necessary (a brilliant one, this), and that people will always…reproduce. So, he theorized, or “ergo” if you want to sound more intelligenter, eventually the population would grow so high that the earth would no longer be able to provide enough sustenance for everybody. For those literacy challenged, he believed that the population would eventually outgrow the resources and, ergo, the government //has// to help avoid that somehow.

//David Ricardo:// invented that lovely, humanitarian thing called the “iron law of wages”. He believed that the only way to stop the poor from having children was to lower their wages. A lot. Here’s a crazy surprise for you: Davey was a member of the upper class. Imagine that! Ergo, Dave’s “iron law” was used by greedy industrialists in order to justify keeping their workers’ labors super crazy low.

By 1815, **Britain** produced ⅔ of the world’s coal, ½ the world’s cotton, and ½ the world’s iron. Their GNP (gross national product, of course), rose 350% from 1800 to 1850, and their per capita income doubled in those fifty years as well. (cue: whoa!)

In 1834 **Germany**, the //Zollverein// was invented: a free trade zone between the German states that joined (which was most of them). The tariff on British goods, therefore, was pretty darn massive. Ergo, economically the German states were beginning to unify.

>>Tariffs were invented in order for countries to keep their OWN industries safe.

//Mercantilism:// an economic principle adopted by most countries before capitalism was invented. The basic principles were that governments were to compete for oversea colonies, and protect industries with high tariffs. Mercantilism depended on favorable balance of trade; greater exports than imports and import gold and silver (aka “bullionism”) //Capitalism:// replaced mercantilism as countries’ leading economic principle. Invented by Adam Smith, capitalism suggested that the “invisible hand” guided economies instead of the government; governmental favoring of free trade, instead of tariffs, laissez-faire (translated as “hands off” in French), government not regulating industries, and personal economic freedom. //Socialism:// kind of invented by Thomas More and Karl Marx, almost red socialism believed in the collective control of means of production and distribution of goods; lands, resources, and jobs controlled collectively; the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few; and fully opposed capitalism and private property. //Corn Laws:// Tories-controlled Britain passed said law in 1815 with the goal of protecting their agricultural economy. Meant to keep agricultural trade strictly within their own boundaries, it set tariffs on all imported goods. This gave the British distributors the ability to charge terribly steep prices for the supply that was inwardly available. However, absolute obedience was not observed as there were several ‘black market’ trade ports. >>In 1819, pro-liberals gathered to listen to anti-corn law speeches and were attacked by the police (resulting in 11 deaths, 400 wounded). After this incident the government established stricter control over the citizens and outlawed mass meetings for the “safety of the people”.