Pros And Cons Of Industrialization

Following the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, government leaders met at the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) to redraw the boundaries of Europe. In Central Europe, a confederation of thirty-eight German states replaced the long-standing Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved through Napoleon’s conquests. In the prelude to the Revolutions of 1848, the political, economic, and social orders of this new German Confederation became subjects of great debate and varied opinions among those living inside it. Politically, debate revolved around whether or not the thirty-eight states should unify into one nation. Economically, discussion centered on the merits versus the drawbacks of industrialization. Socially, questions arose to …show more content…
Nobles generally wanted to preserve the traditional social class system of status based on birth, with privileges extended to the aristocracy. Such is the goal of Joseph von Radowitz who advises the Prussian king to use the anger of the masses against middle class revolutionaries in Document 8. For nobles, the middle class posed the greatest threat because most members of the bourgeoisie wanted to see status based on wealth rather than birth, a threat even more menacing during the Industrial Age as middle class numbers grew. The individual wealth of middle class citizens often times exceeded that of nobles whose income was usually still tied to agrarian estates. Of course, neither the nobles nor the middle class had much empathy with the poor, who would not hold high status under either structure. Radowitz only shows interest in the poor to the degree the aristocracy can manipulate them against the middle class who he sees as the true threat. And in Document 4, a middle class industrialist says that he wishes the masses no “distress,” but ultimately concludes helping the poor will simply create a culture of dependency and laziness among them. One can take this as Hansemann’s true feelings since he is writing in a private letter that would not have been intended for public consumption. Of course, the sentiment is what one would expect from an industrialist of the age anyhow, as socialist programs and interventions would threaten his profits. There were some who cared about the poor, however. In Document 7, Bettin von Arnim describes their plight in vivid detail, going so far as to indicate the King of Prussia has a moral responsibility to intervene, as her book title suggests. Unlike Hansemann, who wrote privately, von