The Industrial Revolution coincided with a massive push by European colonizers to colonize more land. Trade with colonized countries was central to industrialization.
Colonial colonies provided domestic industries with raw materials for production. This included ore, spices, sugar and coffee.
Over many years, this concept has permeated specialized literature.
What Was the Industrial Revolution?
The Industrial Revolution marked a shift in human economic history from agriculture and handicrafts towards factories and machine production. Beginning in Britain, its influence spread throughout Europe and eventually America.
It also resulted in the shift from rural to urban living conditions. Cities offered new employment opportunities with higher wages than farming could offer, drawing many from rural homes and villages to look for work in factories - increasing population density while creating poor living conditions, including inadequate housing, dirty water supplies and overcrowded streets.
Technological advances during the Industrial Revolution enabled goods production at substantially reduced costs than ever before, due primarily to coal's three times more energy than wood as an energy source and factory systems' use. Other key innovations during this period were steam engines, assembly lines, telegraphs, combustible engines and sewing machines.
The rapid pace of change during the Industrial Revolution remains contentious and remains contentious today. Some pessimists maintain that most people experienced marked improvement in their standard of living before 1840s or 1850s; most optimists contend that standards were rising by 1820s-1830s.
At this time, most governments began imposing tariffs on foreign imports to aid domestic industry and promote growth within their borders. This had an enormous effect on industries like steel production while simultaneously contributing to modern infrastructure of roads and railroads.
Karl Marx did not propose a theory of colonialism per se; however, he did argue that capitalism would always seek new markets to exploit. According to Marx, the formation of colonies was simply part of this process and could not be stopped by local or national boundaries.
What Was Colonialism?
Colonialism refers to the systematic exploitation of people and resources by groups from more advanced or powerful regions over less developed or weaker ones, often for expansionist imperial purposes. Colonialism dates back centuries and still occurs today, though less visibly than before. Colonialism played a central role in European empire expansion during the industrial revolution as new markets for their products created due to industrial growth created a surge in raw material demand; empires turned towards their colonies in Africa and Asia to meet this need by using cotton, rubber, minerals etc for raw material supplies that could supply empires' expansion needs; to fulfill this demand they turned towards their colonies in Africa and Asia for access to cotton, rubber and minerals supply sources from which European empires could then expand further.
Colonizers used their power to dominate and exploit these territories, holding conquered societies and populations inferior in legal, administrative, social and cultural terms. Furthermore, they monopolized political power to manage economies in their colonies while suppressing democracy and free markets in those regions.
Colonialism came in many forms and its motivations varied widely, from economic expansion (such as France and Britain's competition for territory in the 18th and 19th century Pacific and Indian Oceans ) to transport colonialism which did not result in displacement of indigenous populations but did cause profound shifts in local economies and cultures.
In other cases, colonialism was used to assert dominance over a territory and its indigenous peoples. Tongans' expansion into eastern Fiji in the mid-19th century, for instance, was motivated by ambition and competition between King George Tupou I and Ma'afu for greater spheres of influence - this form of colonialism is known as settler colonialism.
The East India Company was an example of this type of colonialism during its heyday during the 1700s. This colonial enterprise extracted immense sums from colonies by restricting crops that could be grown and where and at what price they could be sold; this helped increase profits but simultaneously crippled centuries-old Indian textile industries that relied on them. Furthermore, heavy taxes were levied on Indian workers for working at one of their plantations farms.
How Was Colonialism Created?
Colonialism involves outsiders exerting power over both land and people within an occupied region. This control often involves permanent imposition of culture, language and religion upon those living in that region as well as taking resources and exploiting its people - classic examples include European dominance in Americas, Africa and India during Colonial Eras.
Colonialism was often justified on religious or nationalistic grounds. For instance, Catholic doctrine held that colonizing foreign nations to civilize them was divinely required; other Christians saw colonization as essential in spreading Christianity around the globe. Furthermore, some nineteenth-century liberal thinkers such as Alexis de Tocqueville believed colonizing Algeria would increase France's status within Europe while simultaneously increasing economic efficiency; John Stuart Mill held that foreign governments often lack insight into local conditions thus leading to despotic rule of their territories.
Different forms of colonization arose. Some were state-sanctioned, such as US annexations of Texas and Hawai'i; others involved private companies or filibusters usurping indigenous territory illegally. While some colonizers desired to bring civilizational benefits to those being colonized, others only sought an edge in trade or resource exploitation.
Still today, colonialism's legacy lives on. Many of the poorest nations around the globe continue to suffer environmental degradation caused by industrialization and colonialism; such as Canadian tar sand mining operations or Native American reservations' use of hydraulic fracking technology that results in high levels of air pollution for instance.
Capitalism's globalized economy continues to fuel colonialism. It operates under the assumption that Western societies can extract natural resources from any country and that Earth will regenerate itself, leading countries like United States and Canada to utilize colonial practices such as profiling, resource theft and economic discrimination in order to keep their economies growing. Therefore, in the future it is crucial that we find means of dismantling this destructive system so all nations have equal chance to flourish as they see fit.
How Was Colonialism Dismantled?
The Industrial Revolution created an enormous demand for raw materials. Europe required colonies to provide cotton, rubber and other commodities. Therefore, European powers engaged in colonizing North America, Africa and Asia for these resources.
As a result, racial and ethnic identities in these colonies were formed by their dominant colonizing society, and were determined by an ideology of hierarchy created by colonizers that elevated white male population over black population and subordinated blacks as subservient workers in society. Such hierarchies also affected how they interacted with each other as well as with their surroundings.
Hierarchies enabled colonizers to impose Western cultural values and norms upon colonized populations, controlling society from above and determining how people dressed, spoke and believed.
Colonialism allowed for the exploitation of natural resources like gold, silver, and coal that were then used to power industrial economies in conquered nations.
Industry led to an explosion of world trade. This was mostly because industrialized nations needed raw material supplies beyond what could be obtained domestically - for instance, Great Britain needed cotton that couldn't be produced locally; colonizing North American plantations was therefore necessary in order to supply this need.
Colonial states were also able to use their colonies as captive markets, benefitting both exporters and colonists alike. Cotton from American colonies fed British textile mills while providing employment to many African workers locally.
Finally, colonial states were able to maintain control of their colonies through strict production regulations that prevented competitors from entering the market and ensured colonists could produce goods profitably.
An understanding of colonialism's workings is vital to the decolonial movement, since ignorance of its construction would impede actualizing significant change and enable anticolonial activists to blame colonial institutions for problems that would have arisen anyway.
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