French Revolution
Absolute monarchy was first started by King Louis XIV. From then on, the king should not be restricted by any law, which means that the king can do anything without the restriction of the law. During the 18th century, there were three estates; the First Estate includes clergy, the Second Estate includes nobility, finally, the Third Estate includes all the generality. The First and Second Estate didn’t have to pay taxes, in other words, the Third Estate had to pay all the taxes and labor.
While King Louis XVI was the king, France France
Scramble for Africa
A process of invasion, attack, occupation, and annexation of African territory by European powers during the New Imperialism period. The partitioning of Africa may be seen as a way for the Europeans to eliminate the threat of a Europe-wide war over Africa.
This picture shows that the European countries are trying to conquer all the countries in Africa.
From the beginning of the Age of Discovery, in the 15th century, European explorers started sailing across seas to explore new lands for their country. European exploration of the African interior began in earnest at the end of the 18th century. By 1835, Europeans had mapped most of northwestern Africa. In the middle decades of the 19th century, the most famous of the European explorers were David Livingstone and Serpa Pinto, both of whom mapped vast areas of Southern Africa and Central Africa.
The 1870s, European states still controlled only 10 percent of the African continent, all their territories being near the coast. The most important holdings were Angola and Mozambique, held by Portugal; the Cape Colony, held by the United Kingdom; and Algeria, held by France.
Weeks February 14 ~ February 18
Population
The world population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Black Death around the year 1400. Annual births have reduced to 140 million since their peak at 173 million in the late 1990s, and are expected to remain constant, while deaths number 57 million per year and are expected to increase to 80 million per year by 2040. Current projections show a continued increase of population with the population expected to reach between 7.5 and 10.5 billion in the year 2050.
19th Century in Economics
There are three realities in economics: capitalism, socialism, and “third-way” solutions. Capitalism started in the 18th century during the Industrial Revolution. The main point of capitalism is that all profits go to those who own the means of the production. The basic thesis of free enterprise is best explained by Ludwig von Mises’s “Human Action”. In the book, Ludwig wrote that the consumer is the king. In free enterprise, price is determined by no specific group of sellers or buyers. The market is basically controlled by the “invisible hand”. The invisible hand creates complex relationships to meet all the society’s needs and it makes changes to meet the changing needs under a changing circumstance.
If you own many capital and you get more profits in return, then you’re a perfect capitalist. A perfect capitalist owns all the means of production and gets all the profits. This idea came from Karl Marx. Perfect capitalism is capitalism without a free market.
Human participation can be counted as a capital. Participation can be in many different forms, such as sharing risks of ownership, coming up with ideas…etc. Human capitalism happens when sharing profits based on the level of participation.
Participatory economics includes Big business, Big labor and Big government. These three categories are very large opponents in participatory economics.
Human participation can be in various forms, for instance, creativity and information. With these elements, we can meet the needs of the market and create the most amount of wealth.
Weeks February 21~ February 28
Rough Draft
Capitalism and socialism has many differences and similarities. They both gave people all the power to be shared equally. However, capitalism is where free competition and free market takes place; socialism is when all power is being shared equally. Since the 19th century, both capitalism and socialism exist and they were used in different countries.
The similarities between capitalism and socialism are they agree with free enterprise, they allow having all the power to be shared equally. They both give companies a free market, which means that they won’t be involved in the economy; it is also called the “invisible hand”. They also give enterprises the opportunity of free competition.
Capitalism is when private enterprise owns their own private profits. They don’t need to share with others nor give it to the government; only do they need to pay a fixed portion of their profit. Business owners can have the direct profit and workers can have wages depending on how much they have put effort into the business. Socialism is happens when everything is equal. Enterprises still have to pay a fixed portion of tax, but the “fixed portion” is quite a lot. When all the money goes to the government, the government will give all citizens a high quality living environment. They will have good welfare such as getting a lot of money after retirement and children can go to school for free till college.
People who are more justice and who will feel bad if people are treated unevenly will be more likely to like socialism. These people are usually from the middle class or lower. Though they don’t earn as much money as the upper class or people who make more money than they do, they want the same benefits the upper class has. Other people who gravitate toward capitalism are the people who are in the upper class or people who are wealthy. These people are usually satisfied with what they have and own, they deserve to get the good welfare since they paid more tax than others.
In conclusion, “free” is the main similarity between capitalism and socialism; “equality” is the main difference between them. Both of these economic systems are used since the 19th century till now, no matter how good or bad it is, they are formed by our ancestors’ wisdom.
