The Meiji Restoration of Japan

The Meiji Restoration was a chain of events that occurred and led up to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure. It happened during the end of the 19Th century. The changes of Japan were a direct response to the witness of the Black Ships Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy.

The Black Ships was the name given to Western ships arriving in Japan, The name refers mainly to Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna. The word Black was given because it refers to the black color of the sails and the coal emerging from the ships into the sky.

Matthew Perry's military training put him a good position to negotiate a treaty allowing American trade with Japan. People usually refers to his strong negotiation skills toward the Japanese as "bullying" but he was simply verbally aggressive and forward, if you can call that "bullying then he did what he had to do. Before this Japan only traded with a few small groups for about 200 years.

From this exchange Japan realized that things where missing from there economy and they needed to catch up. Japan began by sending statesmen go to other countries such as Europe and north America and learn the views of life and how foreigners look at life and beyond. Japan decided to replace there feudal system with newer and fresher ideas such thus from western countries. An industrial change took place, factories and ships started to flourish and grow into a mass production industry. Japan soon turned into a great and modernized place in which now is the largest mass production country in the world.

Karl Marx and Communism

Communism: the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. The proletariat is a class in society which lives from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19Th century. There was one person who hated the treatment of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, and his name was Karl Marx.

Karl Marx despised capitalism, he envisioned a world where everyone could be treated equally and without favoritism between anyone. He wanted no social classes to exist, he wanted evey person to have the same amount of money, same amount of everything. Every public building was owned by the state or government, no privet ownership. Karl Marx believed that eventually governments would fade out because of the equal sharing and responsible society. Marx's idea in theory was a great one, but when laid out in plan as a society it failed to accomplish high expectations.

Marx believed that the good guys were communists and the bad ones were the people who wanted capitalism. He thought that his ideas were the ideas of the future, that was true for Russia for about 70 years until it could not keep up with capitalism demands. It was a good idea for a great utopia but laid out it would eventually lead the world into a negative one.

Karl Marx and the Industrial Revolution

Karl Marx was a Political economist and revolutionary. His ideas were radical, they went against the Industrial Revolution for many reasons. He felt that the Industrial Revolution was hazardous and political incorrect. He argued that workers should be in control of farms and mass production factories instead of high society landlords. He once shouted that workers of the world should unite in a "world wide revolution."

Marx believed that wealth should be equally shared between a Communist society, the word communist the abolition of power of people over people, "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs", said Marx.

One of the main things that stands out about the industrial revolution was the extreme poverty and the poor in which people lived. Marx did not like the way the revolution treated people who struggled to work. He wanted to change things for the better. He described Communists as those who best understood the class struggle. Marx thought that the lower class understood pain, struggle, and suffering which would get them united and a revolution unlike no other to cease the new day.