Tuesday, November 27, 2007

The Meigi Restoration of Japan

Japan, is an archipelago due to the fact that it's made up of many islands. Before 1853, Japan was a country of isolation. This meant that Japan had no contact or tried to make any contact with other countries outside of Japan. They believed that they were superior to any other race in the world. What they did not know was that they were behind everyone in technology. It took over two decade for Japan to finally stop the isolation of their country.
In 1853, the U.S. and Japan finally signed a trading treaty. It wasn't easy at first but U.S. Commendore Matthew Perry took steamships to Japan in order for the Japanese to open their ports for trading. The Japanese were shocked of the technology that the Americans had. They were shocked to see that the Americans had technology such as steam to power their ships. They were also shocked to see the rifles and cannons that the Americans had. The U.S. believed that the Japanese ports would be great for American ships to stop and reload in food, water, and coal.
During the Meigi Era many new reformations had taken place. Japan overthrew the whole feudalism system. In 1868, Emperor Mutsushito took back his thrown. He believed that the only way to be equal in economic and political ways of the West was to adopt new ways. Many scholars were sent to the West. They were sent to learn as much from the West and bring back what they had learn. The Japanese began to modernize by adopting the ideas of industrialization. They began to build railroads for the use transportation. They began to build factories to produce goods for trading. They caught up in the Industrialization ways in less then 50 years.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Karl Marx and Communism

Communism is a way of the government in which the state makes all goods equally shared by the people. This idea of government goes way back to the time of Karl Marx who was the first to come up with these ideas and the form of government. Karl Marx believed that the whole world should run under communism. He came up with the idea of Communism so the whole world can change. He believed that their should'nt be social classes were some people owned lands or had the most money. He visioned that all the people should all be the same. All the people would be the same in political rights, money wise, and social wise. No one would be different, no one would stand out. Marx wanted communism to take over the world for many reasons. He visioned his time period to be the same as the time of Fuedilasm. He viewed that in the time of the Industrial Revolution the people who were in higher social classes had the power over the people in low social class. He believed that it wasn't fair for many workers to keep struggle day by day to make little money while the factory owners & business men just stood back and waited for the money to get to them. He viewed the higher social class "Bourgoeisie" was in controll of everything. That class was made up of the factory owners, business men, and merchants. This class had all the money and power. The low social class was the Proltariat which was made up of workers. These workers worked in factories day and night makeing little money for themeselves but a lot of money for the factory owners. This is how Karl Marx viewed his time period. He believed that the people with money & power were the "bad guys" and the people with no power and very little money were the "good guys".

Friday, November 9, 2007

Karl Marx and the Industrial Revolution

Karl Marx felt that the Industrial Revolution was bad for mankind. He believe that the world was heading back to a world of feudalism. He was viewing that people who had the most money had the most power so social class were divided into two. These divided classes were the Bourgoeisie's and the Proletariat's. People who had power were under the Bourgoeisie's class which were factory owners, merchants, and business men. The people with little money basicly had no power at all. So the workers with little amount of money were under the Proletariat class which were factory workers. He viewed the world as a feudalism because of the fact that the higher class owned everything. He also viewed that workers would sell themeselves to work in factories for life to makemoney. He believed that the rich people would continue getting richer and the poorer people would just continue getting poorer.
Marx believed something had to change for the sake of mankind. He believed that their should'nt be social classes were some people owned lands or had the most money. He believed that everyone should all make the same amount of money, own the same amount of land, etc. He began to tell many workers to revolt against the Bourgoeisie's class. This all lead Marx to come up with the idea of Communism. He came up with the idea of Communism so the whole world can change. So that in the world no one would be different in political, social, and income wise. Even though he visioned all these ideas, his ideas never really hit reality.