Napoleon's Impact

    Napoleon Bonaparte was the greatest general of his time. He conquered vast amounts of land in Europe and set up new reforms throughout the continent. But what exactly were Napoleon's impacts on the social, political, and economic systems of Europe?
     Napoleon made many allies as well as enemies during his rule. One of his enemies was Madame de Stael, a member of the nobility. When Napoleon took over, she lost her social status, along with many other nobles. This made them extremely upset. Another person who was close to Napoleon was Marshall Michael Ney, an officer and one of Napoleon's most trusted generals. He say Napoleon as the legitimate dynasty of France and the sovereign to the country.
     When Napoleon conquered Europe, he put in many new reforms. He controlled prices and made new industry, and sold Louisiana to the United States. He reworked the entire map of Europe. Napoleon stole vast amounts of artwork from other countries. Also, he abolished serfdom and ended special privileges of the Church. When he invaded Egypt, he changed the government and founded the Institute of Egypt, which studied their ancient history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon

A Bite of Communism

    In a recent class activity, we learned about Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism by using an activity that involved Hershey's Kisses. Every student was given 2 pieces of chocolate, although 3 students were given 8 to begin with. Then, everyone got up and played rock-paper-scissors with another student. If you lost, you gave one piece to the person you played. If you won, they gave you a piece. Once you ran out of chocolate, you were out. The game stopped when there were about 5 people left who had all the remaining candy. This part was meant to represent Capitalism, where you take a gamble to try to make money, and you can make it big or get broke. The people who had no candy, meant to represent the poor, felt that it was unfair that only certain people had lots of candy. So, all of the candy was taken back, and everyone was evenly distributed the candy between everyone. This part was meant to represent when the poor would rise up against the rich and demand reform and money equality. This represents Socialism, where economic equality is achieved. We were then asked who would risk playing rock paper scissors again, and few people would. This means that in society, a classless society would be achieved, where nobody would risk trying to become rich because the poor would rise against them. They would agree to share all the resources, and since there is no government needed to regulate anything, this leads to Communism. This is Carl Marx's theory on Communism.
     Marx's theory on how the poor would help themselves is, in breif, that the poor would eventually rise up against the rich to try and make things more fair. After econmic equality would be reached, people would not accept sharp economic divisions anymore. Thet would create a Communism. However, another man at the time named Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, a capitalist book. Smith is recognized as the father of Capitalism. He used the metaphor "The Invisible Hand" in his writing. His theory is that people would to become rich by working, and by doing this, the country would also benefit. The government would not be needed in the economic stage because the invisible hand would guide people. This is very different fron Marx's theory.
    I personally believe that Smith's theory on the economy is better. It does not require a huge revolt after a long period of poverty, like Marx's does. Smith's plainly states that if you work hard, you will not only help yourself but you will help your country as well.

The Lowell Experiment

     America and England are in the midst of a new era of production and innovation. The industrial revolution has come to both countries, but there are many costs. The factories that have been set up have extremely poor working conditions. In both American and British factories, there was a very high risk of death. The machines could end up being fatal if you weren't paying attention, and there was one case where somebody was even chopped in half. There also wasn't very clean air to breathe, as dust particles and cloth bits floated throughout the air. In the factories, it was extremely easy for a disease to go around, since many people were working close together. The workers were young women, or children, so death was even more of a possibility.
     Neither country had it much worse than the other, even though the English established their factories first, thus getting poor working conditions first. The factory owners wanted to maximize production, so they did not prioritize the healthy conditions. However, if a death occurred in a factory in America, it was much harder to replace that worker, since in England they had orphanages where they could just get new workers from. They did not have those in America, so they had to rely on farm girls to come to Lowell.