After that, our 2 Essential Questions for today were:
1) Imperialism - Why did the industrialized countries create empires... again?
- The revolutions got rid of a lot of the European colonial powers... but they have industrialized, and now... they're baaaaaack...! As a country industrializes, its population grows and the demand for more resources (food, better products, raw materials, etc) goes up. European countries that became industrialized went to Africa and Asia to find these things and began to trade with these countries. However, European businesses realized that these other countries had very few (if any) laws about child labor, minimum wage, etc, and they began to build factories there. Eventually, they took these countries over. Other European countries tried to compete for these foreign lands, and they eventually fought over them and drew their own borders, creating many of the modern countries we see today in Asia and Africa. Sometimes, a country in Asia or Africa will have multiple ethnic groups and languages and they fight amongst themselves.
2) What were the economic ideas of Adam Smith?
- Adam Smith was basically an economic theorist who came up with the idea of Laissez-Faire Capitalism. He believed that this was the best way for a country to run its economy. He believed that 3 things were natural & necessary for developing a good economy:
- Law of Competition (Competition forces us to make better products)
- Law of Self-Interest (We are here on this Earth to benefit ourselves and make our lives better... this will help us improve our businesses and economies)
- Law of Supply & Demand (Demand is what consumers want.... Supply fulfills the consumers' desires)
