Question # 3 - Over the long-run, the Industrial Revolution held the promise of lifting the urban and rural poor out of poverty. This becomes clear with the increase in real wages and life spans in the second part of the nineteenth century (see charts the after question). British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli noted this when he said, “The claims of the future are represented by suffering millions”.
The reality was the terrible working conditions and poverty presented a crucial social problem to economic thinkers and governments in the nineteenth century. This challenge created a division between the liberals (represented by Smith, Ricardo, Mill and Marshall) and radicals (represented by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx) that could be seen in the violence between radicals and liberals in the "July Days" in Paris in 1848. In essence, both the liberals and radicals laid claim to fighting for "liberty" - however, they had different ideas of what "liberty" meant.
Question - How was the conflict between liberal and radial economics over whether goal of "liberty" means that society should promote the "freedom to do as one wants" or if it should try to create "freedom from want"?
