Verisoph story dossier
The Wealth of Nations, free trade, Keynes, the welfare state, the neoliberal turn, and the critics from anarchism to Occupy.
The Wealth of Nations, free trade, Keynes, the welfare state, the neoliberal turn, and the critics from anarchism to Occupy.
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Adam Smith publishes An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, arguing that free markets and the division of labor create prosperity. It becomes the founding text of classical economics and economic liberalism.
Mary Wollstonecraft argues that women are not naturally inferior but denied education, and demands their treatment as rational equals. The book becomes a founding text of feminism.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte delivers lectures in French-occupied Berlin calling on Germans to see themselves as one nation with a shared language and destiny. The addresses become a founding statement of modern nationalism.
Giuseppe Mazzini founds Young Italy in exile to fight for a unified Italian republic. His model of conspiratorial national movements inspires nationalists across Europe.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon publishes What Is Property?, answering that property is theft and calling himself an anarchist. It is the first major work of anarchist theory.
Britain repeals the tariffs protecting domestic grain, splitting the Conservative Party under Robert Peel. The repeal marks the triumph of free-trade liberalism as British policy.
Revolutions sweep France, the German and Italian states, and the Habsburg Empire, demanding constitutions and national self-rule. Though nearly all are crushed, liberalism and nationalism emerge as the driving forces of European politics.
also in Freedom movements: how the colonized won their independence
The first women's rights convention adopts the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the Declaration of Independence and demanding the vote. It launches the organized women's movement in the United States.
John Stuart Mill publishes On Liberty, arguing that society may restrain the individual only to prevent harm to others. The essay becomes a core statement of liberal political philosophy.
also in The rise and fall of Prussia: the soldier-state that made Germany
Wilhelm I is proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors after Prussia's victory over France. German unification is nationalism's greatest triumph of the century and reshapes the European balance.
The Hague Congress of the First International expels Mikhail Bakunin after his long struggle with Marx over state power and political action. The split permanently divides anarchism from Marxist socialism.
also in Freedom movements: how the colonized won their independence
Indian lawyers, journalists, and reformers found the Indian National Congress to seek a greater voice in British rule. It grows into the mass movement that leads India to independence.
A bomb kills police at a labor rally in Haymarket Square, and four anarchists are hanged after a trial widely seen as unjust. The executed become martyrs of the labor movement, commemorated in May Day.
also in Anatomy of a superpower: the American state
Congress outlaws trusts and conspiracies in restraint of trade, the first federal law against monopoly power. Largely dormant at first, it later breaks up Standard Oil and AT&T and anchors American competition law.
Peter Kropotkin publishes The Conquest of Bread, setting out anarchist communism as a society of voluntary cooperation without state or wages. The book becomes anarchism's most influential constructive program.
also in Feminism and the fight for women's rights, Forms of government: how societies rule themselves, Freedom movements: how the colonized won their independence, State, law, and coercion
New Zealand becomes the first self-governing country to grant women the right to vote in national elections. The victory becomes a landmark for suffrage movements worldwide.
also in Israel: ancient roots to modern state, Religion and ideology, The story of Judaism
Theodor Herzl convenes the First Zionist Congress, which founds the Zionist Organization and calls for a Jewish home in Palestine. Political Zionism becomes an organized movement.
Henry Sylvester Williams convenes delegates from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States at Westminster Town Hall, with W. E. B. Du Bois among them. The meeting launches Pan-Africanism as an organized movement.
also in Curriculum, programming, and propaganda
The anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots President William McKinley, who dies eight days later. The killing caps the era of propaganda of the deed and provokes crackdowns on anarchists worldwide.
also in Production and labor, The corporation
The U.S. Supreme Court finds Standard Oil an illegal monopoly and orders it split into 34 companies, among them the ancestors of Exxon, Mobil, and Chevron. It remains the landmark antitrust action in business history.
Tennessee's ratification makes the Nineteenth Amendment law, barring denial of the vote on account of sex. American women win the franchise after a seven-decade campaign.
also in The wandering center of money
Share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapse on Black Tuesday after days of panic selling. The crash helps trigger the Great Depression and a decade of financial retrenchment worldwide.
also in Keynesian economics: demand, depression, and the fight over full employment, The welfare state
Franklin Roosevelt takes office amid the Depression and drives through a wave of relief, recovery, and regulatory legislation in his first hundred days. The New Deal redefines the state's role in a capitalist economy.
also in Keynesian economics: demand, depression, and the fight over full employment
John Maynard Keynes publishes The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, arguing that governments must manage demand to prevent mass unemployment. Keynesian economics dominates Western policy for the next four decades.
After defeating the military uprising in Barcelona, the anarchist CNT-FAI leads the collectivization of industry and land across Catalonia and Aragon. The experiment is rolled back after fighting among the Republican factions in May 1937.
also in The welfare state
William Beveridge's report proposes a comprehensive system of social insurance to defeat want, disease, ignorance, squalor, and idleness. It becomes the blueprint for the British welfare state.
also in The Chicago School and the rise of neoliberalism
Friedrich Hayek publishes The Road to Serfdom, warning that central planning leads toward tyranny. The book becomes a founding text of the postwar revival of free-market liberalism.
also in Hinges of history, Money and finance, The IMF, the World Bank, and the developing world, The wandering center of money, World order: the transnational forums
Delegates from 44 Allied nations meet in New Hampshire to design the postwar monetary order. The conference pegs currencies to the dollar and creates the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Delegates including Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta meet in Manchester and demand an end to colonial rule in Africa. The congress turns Pan-Africanism toward mass anticolonial politics.
also in 1947: the postwar order is built, The Chicago School and the rise of neoliberalism
Friedrich Hayek gathers 39 economists and intellectuals, including Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises, to defend classical liberalism against collectivism. The society becomes the seedbed of the neoliberal movement.
also in The welfare state
Britain's Labour government launches the National Health Service, providing medical care free at the point of use. It becomes the centerpiece of the welfare state the Beveridge Report proposed.
Simone de Beauvoir publishes The Second Sex, analyzing how women have been made into the Other throughout history. The book becomes the foundational text of second-wave feminism.
also in The passing of the torch: how the American century replaced the British one
Gamal Abdel Nasser announces the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company in a speech in Alexandria, defying Britain and France. The act makes him the hero of pan-Arab nationalism at its peak.
Then, in July 1956, Nasser challenged the legacies of colonialism by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company, the corporation created by the British and the French to run the Middle East’s man-made maritime trade route.Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Egypt and Syria merge into the United Arab Republic under Nasser, intended as the first step toward a single Arab state. Syria secedes in 1961, and the union's failure marks the limits of pan-Arabism.
Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring, documenting the damage pesticides do to ecosystems and human health. The book ignites the modern environmental movement.
Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique, naming the dissatisfaction of American housewives confined to domestic roles. The book helps launch second-wave feminism in the United States.
also in Freedom movements: how the colonized won their independence, Regional pacts and communities
Leaders of 32 newly independent African states sign the OAU Charter in Addis Ababa to promote unity and complete decolonization of the continent. The date is celebrated as Africa Day.
Some twenty million Americans join demonstrations and teach-ins for the first Earth Day. The event turns environmentalism into a mass movement and precedes a wave of environmental legislation.
also in 1971: the dollar unchained, The humanitarian conscience
Canadian and American activists in Vancouver charter a boat to protest US nuclear testing at Amchitka, Alaska, founding the campaign that became Greenpeace, the global direct-action environmental organization.
also in Hinges of history
In 1971 Richard Nixon unpegged the dollar from precious metals and ended the international gold standard. This introduced the floating currency system that has dominated the world economy since.
Richard Nixon’s decision in 1971 to unpeg the dollar from precious metals entirely, eliminate the international gold standard, and introduce the system of floating currency regimes that has dominated the world economy ever since.Debt: The First 5,000 Years
also in Hinges of history
President Nixon suspends the dollar's convertibility into gold, ending the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. The world shifts to floating currencies, reshaping global finance.
Chicago-trained economists under Pinochet's dictatorship impose sweeping privatization, deregulation, and spending cuts. Chile becomes the first large-scale test of neoliberal economics.
The Conservatives win the British general election and Margaret Thatcher becomes prime minister on a program of privatization, union curbs, and monetarism. Her victory begins the neoliberal turn in Western politics.
Ronald Reagan wins the US presidency promising tax cuts, deregulation, and smaller government. With Thatcher's Britain, his administration anchors the free-market resurgence of the 1980s.
Economist John Williamson coins the term Washington Consensus for the package of liberalization, privatization, and fiscal discipline urged on developing countries. The label comes to stand for market-oriented globalization.
Francis Fukuyama expands his 1989 essay into a book arguing that liberal democracy and market capitalism may be the final form of human government. The thesis captures the triumphant liberal mood after the Cold War.
also in The world trade and money order
The WTO begins operation under the 1994 Marrakesh Agreement, replacing the GATT framework with a permanent organization to govern world trade rules and settle trade disputes.
also in The bankers, The wandering center of money
The investment bank Lehman Brothers files the largest bankruptcy in United States history, turning the subprime mortgage crisis into a global financial panic. The crisis reshapes banking regulation worldwide.
Protesters occupy Zuccotti Park near Wall Street under the slogan We are the 99 percent, denouncing inequality and finance-driven capitalism. The movement spreads worldwide and puts inequality at the center of political debate.