Comprehensive Notes on the Phases and Consequences of the Industrial Revolution

Recap of Industrial Systems

• Cottage System (Domestic System): A pre-industrial phase where craftspeople would perform the entirety of the manufacturing process from start to finish within their own homes or small workshops.
• Factory System: The transition away from the cottage system where production is centralized in large facilities utilizing specialized machinery and a division of labor.

The Middle Phase of the Industrial Revolution

• Technological Innovations and Discoveries:
      * Rubber: The introduction and invention of vulcanized rubber.
      * Oil: The discovery of oil and the development of refined purposes for its derivatives, specifically gasoline and petroleum for machinery.
• The Agricultural Boom:
      * Development of a scientific understanding of how fertilizer works (move from simple application of horse manure to processed fertilizers).
      * Introduction of concentrated and processed fertilizers (though still natural/organic, they were refined for higher efficiency).
      * Increased food yields resulting from new industrial harvesting machines and advanced fertilizer application.
• Demographic Shifts:
      * Massive food production led to a long-term population move in Europe and the United States ($US$).
      * Population Growth: The population of the United States was doubling approximately every $5$ years during this period, whereas historical doubling usually took several hundred years. This reversed previous trends where populations had been shrinking.
• Industrial Espionage:
      * Emergence of industrial espionage as a lucrative business practice.
      * Shift in Competition: In the first phase of the revolution, national competition was about territory. In the second phase, it shifted toward achieving a business edge through technology.
      * Legalized Theft ($US$ Law): The United States established a law stating that if a citizen stole technology from another nation, brought it back, and was the first to patent it in the $US$, the government would recognize them as the inventor and grant them the patent and associated wealth.
      * International Comparison: The instructor notes that China has a historical reputation for recreating technologies from other nations, but identifies that the $US$ had codified this behavior into law during the industrial era.
• Economic Structures:
      * Rise of monopolies and powerful industrial magnates.
      * The birth of the middle-class investor and the growth of stock markets.
      * Speculation (Booms and Busts): High levels of speculation on where to get the "most bang for your buck" led to economic cycles where investors would put massive funds into the "next trade thing," followed by a "bust" where people would "lose their shirts" (lose all their wealth) when investments failed to materialize.

The Late Industrial Phase

• Industrialized Agriculture:
      * A shift from sustainability and agrarian societies to massive industrialized agriculture.
      * Primary focus was on maximizing production volume regardless of land health. The mindset was to produce as much as possible for approximately $5$ years and then move to a new location once the land was depleted.
• Imperialism and Global Status:
      * Industrialization and empire-building became the markers of a "Great Nation."
      * Nations were not considered great unless they had industrialized and taken over other nations either through physical conquest or business dominance.
• Sovereignty:
      * The Westphalian system and concepts of sovereignty, which had been building since the Treaty of Westphalia, finally solidified into the modern concrete nation-state system used today.

Case Study: The Guano Islands

• Definition of Guano: Bird excrement accumulated from migratory birds stopping on tiny ocean rocks. Over time, the buildup creates an entire island made of poop.
• The Guano Island Act ($1856$):
      * Federal law stating the United States could claim any discovered Guano island as part of the country.
      * These islands were not states and were uninhabited, but fell under the jurisdiction of the $US$ Navy/Admiralty.
      * Example: Havasu Island was deemed under $US$ jurisdiction under this act.
• Working Conditions:
      * Miserable conditions located typically near the equator.
      * Extreme heat, no permanent housing (only pop-up shelters), and no local food source (all food had to be imported).
      * Labor Practices: Due to the horrible conditions, workers were often "shanghaied" (kidnapped), placed on boats, and held at gunpoint on islands for weeks, months, or years to fill sacks with bird poop.
• Legal Case: Jones v. United States:
      * A revolt occurred on one of the islands resulting in injuries.
      * The shipping company attempted to bring in police to quell the rebellion, claiming sole jurisdiction over the island.
      * The workers argued that because the island was part of the United States, $US$ law and the Bill of Rights applied to them.
      * Ruling: The Supreme Court ruled that Guano Islands are under $US$ jurisdiction and the Constitution applies regardless of which company is harvesting there.
• Economic Necessity:
      * Before chemical fertilizers were invented, Guano was the only source for the massive amounts of minerals needed for industrialized agriculture, which naturally strips land of minerals.
• Modern Guano Industry:
      * Guano islands are still worked today, particularly in Peru.
      * Workers are often from impoverished tribes in the Amazon who view the work as a massive paycheck, despite the miserable conditions.
      * The work remains manual: shoveling dry, powdery guano into bags, leaving workers covered in bird waste within hours.
      * Global Demand: Due to a shortage of chemical fertilizers and the rise of the "organic" movement in America and Europe, Guano remains a high-demand, non-chemical fertilizer.

Dependency Theory

• Definition: A theory explaining how the Global North industrialized first and used that advantage to conquer Africa and Asia.
• The Cycle of Dependency:
      1. Industrialize a nation.
      2. Use technology to conquer colonies.
      3. Strip raw materials and resources (including people) from the colony.
      4. Ship materials back to the home country's factories.
      5. Produce finished goods.
      6. Ship products back to the conquered colony and sell them for a profit.
• Infrastructure Suppression:
      * Colonizers purposely keep colony infrastructure at a minimum—only building what is necessary to extract resources cheaply.
      * The colony never develops the ability to produce its own finished products, leaving them with only labor and raw materials to trade.
      * The Shovel Metaphor: If a colony has iron ore but no foundry to make steel or a factory to make a shovel, they must buy the shovel and pickaxe from the colonizer to dig out the ore, keeping them in a cycle of reliance.
• The Role of Power: Even though the colonizer becomes dependent on the colony's resources, they remain in charge because they control the guns, technology, and decision-making (e.g., King Leopold II of Belgium's atrocities in the Congo where astronomical resource quotas led to the amputation of limbs).
• Modern Context: Many argue dependency theory is still active through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund ($IMF$), which some believe prevent previously colonized nations from establishing their own infrastructure.
• Outsourcing: Modern first-world nations outsource manufacturing to countries like Vietnam (textbooks), China (pens), or Japan (watches) to keep costs low. While countries like India and China are moving up the global hierarchy, others remain at the bottom to be exploited by the system.

Urbanization, Sanitation, and Public Safety

• The Urban Migration: As industrial farms replaced small farmers with machinery, people fled to cities to find factory jobs to survive.
• Advances in Sanitation:
      * Modernization of medicine and sanitation (sewer systems and water filtration).
      * First Water Filtration System: Established in Scotland in $1804$.
      * Lagging Regions: Russia (due to Czarist control) and much of Africa (due to dependency theory) were slow to implement these technologies, often not doing so until much later than the rest of Europe in the $1900s$.
• Urban Challenges:
      * Overcrowded cities led to rapid epidemics and disease.
      * Ramshackle shelters were built without safety planning, leading to devastating fires in major cities (e.g., Chicago, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory).
• The Birth of City Planning:
      * These crises led to the creation of building codes, city planning, and Parks and Recreation districts (Examples: Longview, Woodland, Kalama).
      * Modern regulations regarding stove vents, fireplace vents, and electrical wiring all stem from these early industrial safety issues.
• Environmental Impact:
      * By the $1900s$, factories spewed waste into rivers with no regard for sustainability.
      * The Cuyahoga River: Located in the $US$, this river was so polluted with chemicals and industrial waste that it caught fire at least $15$ recorded times between $1890$ and $1960$.

Industrialization in Latin America

• The Paradox: While most Latin American nations were independent by the mid-$1800s$ and had connections to Europe, they failed to industrialize as quickly as the North or Japan.
• Reasons for Slow Industrialization:
      1. Social Control: Small landholding authoritarians used indentured servitude and slavery to maintain control over regions. For example, Brazil did not abolish slavery until $1888$.
      2. Resource Scarcity: The early and middle phases of the Industrial Revolution were fueled by coal. Latin America lacked high-quality coal, making it difficult to compete until the shift to electricity, hydropower, and oil.
      3. Investment Patterns: Industrialization requires long-term investment. In an era of "get rich quick" mentalities, foreign investors preferred the high profit and fast turnover of the export economy (natural resources) rather than building factories.
• Regional Divide: A similar pattern was seen in the United States, where the North (poor soil, no slave labor) industrialized quickly, while the South remained focused on agriculture.