Europe in
the late nineteenth century experienced a remarkable boom of industrial,
technological, and educational advancement as well as significant electoral
progress. These transformations
primarily came about as a result of the Second Industrial Revolution and the
important social changes which occurred in its wake. The three decades proceeding the turn of the
twentieth century, however, planted the seeds for a wave of cultural malaise,
social tensions, and movement away from traditional liberal ideals. These downsides primarily occurred due to the
sudden and abrupt manner of the changes.
The economic progress which began in
the late nineteenth century was primarily associated with the still young
capitalist model, wherein all members of society competed for economic benefits
in a free and open market. This model,
however, had serious detrimental effects on some of the most vulnerable classes
of society. This age of capitalism led
to the creation of large chain-stores which put independent small business
owners, almost exclusively confined within the lower-middle class, out of
work. These individuals, who had owned
their own businesses often for generations, were now forced to become wage
labors for the very corporations which put them out of business.
Technological innovations also
created a victim class, this time in the present society. Improved mechanization of agriculture and
transportation of foodstuffs drastically cut down on the price of agricultural
goods. While this greatly benefited society
as a whole, it punished the poor peasants who could no longer sell their crops
for enough money to sustain themselves.
They were forced either to become workers for the newly emergent large
corporate farms or head into the growing cities to seek employment in the
industrial sector.
These two trends created an
exceptionally unhappy lower class in European society. Their livelihoods had been snatched away from
them, destroying their way of life while the rest of society seemingly
benefited profusely. These downtrodden
citizens rejected the popular liberal ideology of individual rights and
liberties for the simple reason that they had more pressing matters to concern
themselves with; namely, where their next meal would come from. Liberal thought, it seemed, was best suited
for the well-off in society who did not have to worry about such things. The lower class rejected liberalism and
sought to find economic security.
One aspect of the late nineteenth
century wave of change which did benefit this lower class was the extension of
suffrage rights to nearly all men. With
the right to vote, the political voice of the downtrodden could now be
heard. These people who suffered at the
hands of the Second Industrial Revolution sought to return to the past when,
while their lives were not perfect, they were better off than in the
present. This notion, conservatism, soon
attached itself to another growing ideology:
nationalism.
Nationalism promised to grant the
lower classes a new community since their ancestral ones (small towns,
villages) were destroyed by the Second Industrial Revolution. A largely imaginary notion, a nation
consisted of all the people who shared common identity markers and traditions. Nationalism and its growing base proved to be
a significant threat to liberalism and its ideals. Whereas liberalism appealed primarily to
upper-class, well educated individuals, nationalism took advantage of growing
literacy rates to diffuse information to the general populace, who began to
distrust liberalism.
The extension of suffrage to nearly
all men by the turn of the century created a new concept in electoral
politics: mass politics. Whereas once those seeking office only had to
appeal to a narrow population of well-educated citizens, they now had to appeal
to the masses. One of the main ways politicians
did this was to tap into the nationalistic fervor sweeping the continent. As they took advantage of nationalism, the
rhetoric relating to foreign bodies began to grow toxic. Nationalism offered not only a sense of
community, but also a dense of superiority over other nations. This inevitably began to incorporate new
pseudo-scientific concepts such as Social Darwinism, which, once attached to
nationalism, preached that nations are in a constant conflict with each other
and only the strongest could survive. As
this theory planted deep roots in the psyche of citizens, politicians began to
take advantage of it by blaming domestic problems on “outsiders,” who were
almost always Jews, although occasionally Catholics were blamed in some
Protestant countries.
While the second wave of the
Industrial Revolution undoubtedly benefited the vast majority of European
society, it also founded social and cultural tensions which would build during
the early twentieth century before exploding across the continent in a series
of conflicts which would forever change the face of Europe on the international
stage.
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