NOTES CAPITAL 08/28/2014

1. sordid?

Karl Marx published his first volume of Capital in 1867, after the industrial
revolution. By this time, industrial capitalism was in full bloom. The
industrial proletariat was really suffering at this time. They suffered from
overcrowding in slums (as was seen in America after their industrial
revolution in the 1890s) This was due to a large population growth as well
as an agricultural growth. Stories like Oliver Twist and Les Miserables were
based off this horrible lifestyle during the 1820s-1840s, and onto the 1860s
when Karl Marx published his essays. Workers wages from 1800-1860 were
incredibly low and stagnated.

In the first 6 decades of the 19
th
century, 1800-1870, wages for workers who
toiled in the industrial slums after the Industrial Revolution were incredibly
low and stagnated, (compared to 18
th
and earlier centuries even.) This was
odd, because at the same time ECONOMIC GROWTH was ACELLERATING in the
first half of the 19
th
century decade. The capital share of the two countries
experiencing this phenomenon, Britain and France, were land rents, building
rents, and capital profits. This EXTREME inequality is what influenced Karl
Marx to write his volumes of Capital. The first World War made economic
changes that shocked this inequality. This quote pretty much sums up the
Industrial Revolutions effects on Britain and France:

Capital prospered in the 1840s and industrial profits grew while labor
incomes stagnated.

The inequality in the 1840s led to the formation of the first communist and
socialist movements. They thought, What was the good of industrial growth if
the masses and the proletariat majority was still upset?

2. What was the spring of nations of 1848, the revolutions that occurred
across the country?
3. Was the Father of Scarcity really David Ricardo?
4. When was the American Industrial Revolution?
5. When was the British/French Industrial Revolution?
6. What was Jean-Baptiste Says law?

In 1848, during the spring of nations (when revolutions broke across
Europe, just like the Arab Spring, oh wow) Marx published the Communist
Manifesto. In that essay, he said that communism/socialism was growing
popular in Europe. He also said a popular quote:

The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the
very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates
products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own
gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

Marx predicts the proletariat revolution.

Marx believed in the principle of infinite accumulation and scarcity. In the
principle of infinite accumulation, the rich industrial giants and owners would
continue indefinitely accumulating wealth until it threw the socioeconomic
and political equilibrium off balance indefinitely; this inequality of the rich
becoming very rich and the poor being very poor, and with the rich becoming
increasingly richer, would result in the famous proletariat revolt. With the
concept of scarcity, the wealth of a nation was limited. Pretty soon the rate of
return on capital would steadily grow smaller, there would be less
accumulation of wealth, leading to competition AMONG capitalists. So, in a
nutshell

Principle of Infinite Accumulation So much of the nations wealth
accumulated and continue to be accumulated, that it throws off the
socioeconomic and political balanceAKA most of the nations wealth belongs
to the capitalists, leading to super inequality, leading to the proletariat revolt. This
one is the most simple and most famous.

Scarcity Returns on capital will steadily diminish (because there is a
scarce, or limited, amount of wealth in a nation,) therefore less infinite
accumulation of most of the nations share of the wealth. This would lead to
violent competition among the capitalists.