Economic Systems
Economic systems took many forms during the Russian Revolution and its upcoming. Over all two systems were widely debated. Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations laid the foundation for modern day Capitalism. While Karl Marx paved the red road with his book, The Communist Manifesto and for what we know today as Communism. Capitalism focuses on keeping freedom of privately owned businesses. This allows open market competition, and with that follows a class struggle. This is because competition for profit leads to unequal economic classes. Socialism is an economic philosophy that takes out all class struggle by taking out competition of business. All means of market competition is removed, therefore removing any class struggle that would follow. While the autocratic leaders of Russia lived their luxurious and extravagant lives, the poor and peasantry remained poor and peasant. This was the long and winding fuse of the Russian Revolution.
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This is important to our unit because the brewing of these economic systems and there debate is one of the main influences and causes of the Russian Revolution.