Question

On the Evolution of Capitalism, you should now be familiar with the technological, organizational, and legal revolutions that occurred in the 18th through the early 20th centuries.

1. Briefly reflect on how things have changed technologically since then -- that is, in the last 100 years or so.
2. Do you think this has had an impact on the organization of economic activity in the 21st century beyond the use of the technologies themselves? If so, how?

Answer 1

Capitalism refers to an economic system in which the trade and industry of a country are controlled by the private players for profit instead of the state owing them. Thus, a capitalistic economy has its focus on private property, capital accumulation, competitive markets and profit as the basic economic activities. In such a system, the prices of goods and services are determined by the competitive practices that occurs in the economy of the nation. Depending on the variations in the free market mechanism, it occurs as free market capitalism, welfare capitalism and state capitalism.

  With the development of the concept of capitalism, many changes were introduced in the social structure from the mis 18th century, which has impacts on the economy even today. The major change that occurred was the introduction of the Industrial revolution which was able to bring many changes in the technological progress of the society and affected the economic organization of the globe. With the introduction of industrialisation, the industrialists began to replace the traditional manufacturers and it lead to many technological innovations in the manufacturing sector which was able to induce huge leaps in the economic activity across the world. The following are the major technological changes that occurred since the introduction of capitalism

· Huge advancements and innovations were made in the power technology like steam engine, waterwheel, windmills etc which helped in better production capacities with increased output and efficiency.

· Development of electricity and concerned sectors

· Introduction of many mechanization and automation products and processes

                                      The above were the basic technological advancements that were introduced in the economy as a result of the rise in capitalism and the industrial revolution that was generated on a global scale. Thus, on analysis, it can be seen that these activities have profound impacts on the organizational structure of the economy even today. The following are the major effects of technological progress on changes in organizational structure of an economy

· With capitalistic economy and introduction of technology, many private players began to establish their market on a global scale.

· International trade became simpler with modern technologies and innovations.

· The traditional markets began to be replaced with many industrial markets with a focus on profit maximisation

· With the introduction of the concept of globalisation, the world was reduced to a single big market which made big impacts on the trade activities across the globe. These have impacts on the organizational mechanisms of economy across the world even today.

· The introduction of technology replaced the workforce structure from having a set of traditional skilled workers to those workers who can handle the technology in an industry. This has lead to many changes in the workforce reorganization patterns across the globe

· The effects of privatisation is clearly visible in the 21st century market system. Today, most of the market system are controlled by private technological giants with profit as the prime motive.

· Technological advancements of the 21st century like robotics, artificial intelligence etc are nothing but continuations of the technological advancements that were made in the mid 18th century

                                                 The evolution of capitalism has made many changes in the economic organization across the globe as discussed earlier varying from the changes that have bee made in the basic workforce structure in an economy to how the international trade has been affected. This impact has affected the economic activities since then and there is no doubt that the 21st century advancements that have been made in technology and the organizational patterns of the economy is a continuation of what happened by the mid 18th century with the introduction of the concept of capitalism.