The Spread of Nationalism & Socialism During the Industrial Revolution

Soon after the French and American revolutions had put liberal philosophies of democracy and free market capitalism into real-world governments, nationalist and socialist theorists formulated alternatives to free market capitalism that were quite popular among the politically active in the 19th and early 20th century. While it is sometimes as difficult to make a distinction between regulated capitalism and moderate socialism as it is between ÒradicalÓ and ÒnormalÓ nationalism, these alternative ideas were, at least in the abstract, solutions to what their inventors saw as the problems with capitalism.

Theories of radical nationalism and socialism became popular in the 19th century because it was at that time that the Industrial Revolution had first started to really change things in Europe and in other Western countries. Although society had changed a great deal during the 18th century, it was changing more quickly and more completely by the 19th century. This created enormous social tensions and dissatisfaction among many

Not everyone was pleased with these changes. Some felt that their countries were not liberalizing quickly enough. When the growing middle and working classes felt that society was not giving them enough, they were apt to rebel and take what they wanted. Workers, realizing that the wealthy had the most to gain from free market capitalism, turned to other ways of modernization including communism and socialism. They wanted a bigger "piece of the pie" and these ideologies, if implemented, were ways of getting it. Those who believed that they could achieve what they wanted by gradual reform of the existing political structure were socialists while those who believed that the old order needed to be completely replaced by force were communists.