The industrialization of Europe and North America felt an urgent necessity of expansion of their markets where they wanted to sell their goods, machinery, factory equipment, steamships, etc., and to make investments. On the other hand they needed raw materials from all over the world for their industry. The Industrial Revolution demanded a new type of rapid shipping, new type of fast communications, the railroads spread inside continents and countries. Most of the industrial giants opened their offices throughout the world. Slavery was completely abolished since slaves were not necessary any more, but the demand of low paid working force emerged to one the first places. The Industrial revolution, along with the new technologies and goods, brought to the countries in the West more military power so they were able to conquer new territories and countries.
The subject of their ambitions was the big land empires in the Orient, full of raw material resources, different religions and cultures, and big population. India surrendered under the British rule, but China and the Ottoman empires did not. Both, Chine and Ottoman Empires, had more internal problems than external. Nevertheless they succumbed to the seduction of modernizing their way of living, having railroads, trains, steamships, new technologies, but the societies in these countries remained as closed as before the invasion of the West world. The Opium wars were a flamboyant example for the pressure that was exercised over them.
The Russian Empire that had many similarities with the Ottoman Empire at the time, managed to become a world power after the War with Napoleon. A group of authors, researching the history of the world at that period write: “In 1812, when Napoleon’s march on Moscow ended in a disastrous retreat, the European image of Russia changed.” (Bulliet, R., Crossley, P., Headrick, D., Hirsch, S., Johnson, L., 536) It was also under the pressure of the West to modernize and to become a source of raw materials, but being already a power and its presence in the international summits, required a special attitude.
In the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century a significant change in the economic systems of the West took place. The Mercantilism, an economic system where the country attempts to accumulate wealth through the positive balance between import and export, was changed by the doctrine of liberalism, an economic system that favors the free market and the gold standard, called laissez faire. The rumors tell that the origin of the expression laissez faire originates from a meeting between Mr. Colbert, the French finance minister and Mr. Le Gendre, a French businessman. On the question of Mr. Colbert what the government could do to help the commerce, Mr. Le Gendre answered in French laissez faire or “Let us do what we want to do.” The liberalization of trade was cordially accepted and applied to the international trade but some intervention was necessary to be performed as in the case of the so known corn-laws.
As a conclusion it can be generalized that the liberalism in the economics of a state is a premise for the development of the trade relationships, but a small intervention made by the state is necessary to regulate the diversions if there are any.
Bibliography
Bulliet, R., Crossley, P., Headrick, D., Hirsch, S., Johnson, L., The Earth and its People, 2011, Brief 5th Ed., Cengage Learning, ISBN 978-0-495-91313-9, Print
