Blog #7 - What obligations do wealthy nations have?

"Coketown... was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next."

Charles Dickens, Hard Times.


As we're studying the social impact of the industrial revolution in Europe, the chapter brings up some interesting ideas about the social impact of the huge expansion of industry upon a rural society. Among the major things that happened in Britain between 1760 and the mid 1850s were:


1. Many farmers were kicked off the land they'd farmed for generations, so they moved to the cities to find jobs where living conditions were horrid;

2. Many jobs were dangerous, dehumanizing and boring - no longer was there any variety with regards to the seasons or weather, changes to due to chance or innovation, but just repetition;

3. In some of the poorest places in Britain, children as young as 5 worked in mines and other dangerous places;

4. Wages were low because much of the profit was reinvested by the owners / managers into newer and improved machines (which could, in the foreseeable future, put the same workers out of work);

5. Since power sources were continually improved (but Britain had practically used up all of its charcoal - trees), coal-burning engines led to pollution which covered the land, air and water.

The British aristocracy didn't feel obligated to help the poor, and so many people fell through the cracks. When America, France, Germany and other European countries industrialized, they made many of the same mistakes that Britain had done. Could they have benefited from Great Britain's wisdom and experience as the leader of the industrial revolution?

As one of the world's leaders in industry and technology, the United States and many of the western nations can help China and India benefit from their experience. But should they? Are they obligated to do so? Why? Here's a few questions to consider when answering this question:

1. What are the benefits from helping out China and India install greener energy sources (than we had used when we industrialized 50-100 years ago) compared to not helping them out? Each country has 4-5x the population of the U.S. which equals that many more consumers, polluters, energy consumers, etc. The world is already running out of oil...

2. Why should we help the competition? Both countries can each produce more engineers and doctors in one year than the U.S. can in ten just based on the size of the population. Plus, American companies outsource work to India, so we want to help them be better because...?

3. Can the United States continue to risk its financial and military security by being so dependent on foreign oil (specifically going to war in the Middle East to protect the biggest source of the stuff in the world)? On the surface, this might not seem like it deals with China, India and other developing nations, but we're all competing for the same energy sources. Importing so much oil from this region forces us to make hard choices about our future. Can we continue to risk American lives b/c we haven't developed alternative fuel sources yet?

4. What happens if either of these countries develops a new source of energy first (much like the steam engine was invented back in the 1720s and perfected in the 1760s by James Watt)? Would they be willing to share or sell it if we had been stingy? Would the western nations be left out of the new revolution in green technology while China or India or both leapfrog ahead of us?

5. What is the moral thing to do in this case? Or, in other words, what is the right thing to do? For the sake of the planet's health, what should be done?

Use at least 3 of these questions to help you answer the "should wealthy nations feel obligated to help out other nations who haven't industrialized yet?" concept.

150 words minimum due Monday, December 7th.