OCC CIV NOTES 12/7

Board shit
1776 Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (Industrial rev. has begun in britain)
american revolution (colonial independence in americas)
disputes= re property, taxation, representation, standing army, quartering of soldiers
discourses of republicanism + liberty + virtue vs tyranny
-'liberty, property, rule of law, representative-made law against tyranny + political slavery
tom paine- 'common sense' 1776- 150,000 + copies/ vs hereditary monarch + aristocracy

some for redistribution of property (paine, jefferson) citing sparta
but humer -vs equality of property as unnatural (hamilton, madison, etc)
debates re participation in franchise (taxable property/ inhabitants/ oath takers) (women - wollstonecraft rejected in america for the vindication of the rights of woman
quakers vs slavery-- james otis (rights of the britis colonies asserted (17644))- 'the colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, black or white'

industrial revolution 1760s
-steam power/factories/mills/urbanization/huge movement of population from rural to urban
-task-oriented, time disciplined
-sustained economic growth, concentrations of capital, technology, sense of 'progress'

LECTURE SHIT
in many ways, the industrial revolution ends many of the ways of looking at the world we've talked about in this term
england
-plentiful economic growth
-lots of mechanization, increasing division of labor, etc
-more food yay!
1776 ended an era, essentially
-not only american revolution, also adam smith, whole confluence of all sorts of shit
-arguments for rights for some required compromising rights for others (rights for americans comes without rights for american women or blacks, etc)


in general, membership to the british empire is seen as advantageous to the colonies until the 1760s
-1760s on, british start to exert more and more pressure on colonists' lives
-late 1760s- opposition grew, more changes demanded
-much of opposition actually drew from the success of the 7 years' war
-now, there was this huge debt to be paid off, a huge army based in the americas still existed
-this meant taxes, increased administrative control
-cutoff of smuggling
-stamp act, tea act (last straw, that one)
-these actions were taken by parliamentary action in london, without any input from american colonies
-in practice, in england during 18th century, about 1/5 of the male population could actually vote
-in american colonies, soooooo much more franchise
-argument was that those who were denied of representation were therefore 'enslaved', and since the white male population of the colonies were FREE, this was unacceptable
-'political slavery'
-increasing desire in the colonies for a redesign of the british empire, into something like a federation of autonomous republics or something like that
-franklin looked at british standard of living, applauded it
-looked at all other british colonies, saw that they really sucked (scotland, ireland, northern england lived 'worse than savages')
-looked at america, saw something better than every single other country on earth (except maybe the netherlands? what?)
-colonists saw themselves as hot shit
-colonists saw that they did a huge amount of work during the war
-mass, n.y. pretty much bankrupted themselves giving money to the war effort
-but parliament, england thought that the war was undertaken to defend the colonies, so the colonies should pay for it
-british were strongly opposed to granting america legislative autonomy

strong tradition of republicanism in the british republic
-machiavellian standpoint in the 'discourses'
-stressed that monarchies naturally tended to be tyrannical
-this tradition was only strengthened in the british civil war
-govts, courts became corrupt as they gained too much power
-there were calls for civilian militias to form to check gov't military power
-everybody gets the right to bear arms from this
-people spoke of america as destined to be a republic
-americans saw british actions as right on target with the predictions of tyrannical shit
-locke took a more cautious tack with the monarchy
-monarchy was tyrannical in its actions, rather than intrinsically
-tom paine was perhaps most influential, with 'common sense'
-argued against everything and anything british
-monarchy was corrupt, unnecessary, harmful
-hereditary monarchy and aristocracy was disgusting, no sane person would agree with them
-the colonies and america specifically were treated like a war horse or elephant by britain
-americans' simplicity was a virtue, avoided the decadence of british
-essentially an ode to american virtue while attacking the shit out of the british
-there were other traditions as well, some more socialist than others
-jefferson, for instance, argued for giving land to every white male
-many states demanded the resale of royal lands in tiny parcels, in order to give land to everybody
-locke's arguments were more conservative, believe that the government is there to protect all property, even if distributed unequally
-hume was cited as attacking sparta as an 'unnatural' arrangement, equality in property was 'unnatural'
-in many colonies, there were land requirements for franchise (in all but one state)
-even though franchise was limited, there was still ~80% franchise among white men, because america was so land-rich
-franchise was also denied to women, nobody besides paine argued for women's rights
-woolstonecraft's arguments were rejected in the US
-education was opened up for women, however
-indians, women, simply denied all rights
-treaty of paris granted americans the rights to all land east of the mississippi river
-indians fought the americans off pretty decently, so americans looked to negotiation and deal-making to get the indians off the land
-slavery was an established institution in all 13 colonies
-~200,000 slaves in delmarva, ~100,000 in SC
-really not too much opposition to slavery
-there is some, from quakers, etc
-most northern states took actions against the slave trade, slavery
-EVEN AFTER emancipation in the north, americans were still reluctant to give blacks the franchise
-in the south, slave #s increased, etc
-american constitution protected slavery

Industrialization and the Industrial Revolution
-1776- publication of adam smith's 'wealth of nations'
-industrial revolution usually dated post 1760 in britain
-even in britain railroads, electricity, etc, didnt get too widespread until 19th century
-even the tiny amount they had was enough to revolutionize the economy
-steam power was massively beneficial to productivity, production
-companies used to just bring work to people's homes
-now, spinning, weaving are done on machines in factories rather than weaving at home
-mills were HUGELY important
-now people worked for others, worked for wages, rather than for profit
-this created huge towns and cities
-NOW we have massive urbanization
-people shoot over from rural to urban areas
-in 1700 in england, 80% of work force was in agriculture
-in 1800- 40%
-wow
-until industrial revolution, people worked in a 'task economy'
-how hard you worked depended on the weather, season, etc
-when its nice out, you farm the fields, when its shitty out, you fix tools, etc
-you define your own work schedule, how hard you work
-industrial rev. changes all this
-now you work for wages
-now one's work becomes basically just one task. all year. wow this sucks
-you dont work very hard during one season now, but hard all year
-the work was declared as 'unskilled'
-although much shittier for the worker, its soooo much more efficient
-economy grows more rapidly and more sustainably than ever before
-where early modern europe was seen as a zero-sum game, now there is the prospect of PROGRESS
-industrial revolution makes commercial expansion less important than capital expansion and formation