Topic 5.7

📍Topic 5.7 Economic Developments and Innovations

📖 AMSCO p.325 - p.331

Main Idea

Key Timeline

Image Courtesy of Siya

Things to Know

Effects on Business Organizations

• A new way of organizing businesses, known as corporations, emerged during the Industrial Revolution.
• Multiple people or groups, known as stockholders, owned parts of a corporation
  • This lessened the effects of financial loss.
• Some of these corporations became so powerful that they turned into monopolies.
• Markets with One Seller:
  • Alfred Krupp used the Bessemer process to create a monopoly in the German steel industry.
• Companies Working Across Boundaries:
  • Cecil Rhodes invested in a railroad project to connect all of Britain’s colonies in Africa. This project was a means to extract as many materials as possible, while paying laborers close to nothing. 🚂
  • Transnational companies, like Unilever Corporation, were created across boundaries, gaining more wealth and influence. 🧼
  • The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was a British-owned transnational bank in Hong Kong. 💵
• Corporations
  • Corporations have less risks and are more flexible than other forms of business, which makes them safer and more attractive.
  • Critics say corporations undermine individual responsibility, but corporations still gained great economic and political power.
• Banking and Finance:
  • Another way to reduce risk was through insurance
  • Banks increased as entrepreneurs looked for reliable places to deposit money.

Effects on Mass Culture

• As leisure time increased among the working class of Britain, more consumption of products led to increased advertisement. This led to mass consumerism.
• After a safer bicycle was invented, companies encouraged their workers to participate in athletics as they believed it taught them self-discipline. 🚲
• Demand for public culture was commercialized through constructing music halls and public parks. 🎵
  • One aim of mingling the social classes was for the lower class to see more civilized and rational behavior.

Terms to Remember