Fast Capitalism And Its Effect On Organizations

Capitalists are more characterized as robber barons because of the corruption involving their industries and field. Andrew Carnegie, a steel tycoon, made a fortune through a method called “vertical integration”, which is the arrangement in which all the phases of manufacturing is owned by the company. That way they could improve the efficiency by making supplies higher quality and eliminating

An American writer, Susan Sontag, stated that capitalism is, “the ideology [which] makes us all into connoisseurs of liberty—of the indefinite expansion of possibility”. From 1850 to 1907, there was a mass immigration to America and the rise of ‘Gilded Age’ which the United States population and economy grew quickly. Capitalism is a social and economic system where both the means of production and any associate trades are privately owned. During 1850 to 1907, there were a number of factors which contributed to the rise of Capitalism such as: significant entrepreneurial figures such as Henry Ford; mass immigration and cheap labour; and Railway and telegraph lines expansion to transport goods to be sold.

Near the last decades of the 19th century, America’s industrial economy skyrocketed. As these industrial leaders like Carnegie and Rockefeller not only lead the expansion through their respective industries, but revolutionized businesses while crushing free-market competition in the process. As

With an increase in business, the firm recruited widely. The firm, which had employed 2,000 people in 1982, tripled to 6,000 people by 1987.” Due to excessive focus on generating revenues, one insider put it as, “competing fiefdoms replaced interconnected businesses.” and “Making money was mostly what mattered.”

In the late 1700s-early 1900s utopian idea and industrialization changed social life and influenced government. This was by the cause of three main topics Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism. It influenced the government each time within the end results not as how they predicted. Adam Smith is a Scottish economist laid the foundation of capitalism. Also, the evolution from Utilitarianism to socialism. Lastly, about the Karl Marx idea of the best and a fixed mind set on things. Utopian idea and industrialization led to development progress in social life and positively influenced government from the late 1700s-early 1900s through abusive capitalism, idealistic socialism, and realistic communism.

The post-Civil War era was an era filled with political corruption, economic industrialization, and social urbanization largely due to an great surplus budget. With this being the case, the industrial capitalists, such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and others, were leaders in this societal boom. However, it would be appropriate to say that most industrial capitalist could be accurately characterized as “robber barons” for they often unethical, self-interested, and corrupt.

Horace Taylor puts his opinion into prospective with this political cartoon. Businesses became more powerful than the government itself, which was too afraid to interfere in the exploitation. One such exploitation was the creation of corporation. Corporations were designed to limit the liabilities of its shareholders and thusly minimize the loss of capital by criminalizing only the legal entity, rather than its underlying workers. Thusly, legal suits and such became nearly useless against the incorporated. Additionally, as corporations grew unchecked, they found other ways to control competition. The railroad industry, the first big business of America, used pools and rebates to maximize profit but decrease competition – a principal not part of capitalism. Progress was slowed by the lack of competition, but the pursuit of wealth helped maintain it or a time. The trust was similar to a pool, but trusts were far more hierarchal and were used by corporations rather than regions. Having all the power in the world, businesses could grow and do whatever they wanted without worrying about the government ceasing their progress.

This onslaught of capitalism directly revolutionized modern industrialism as well as the industrial city. Machines morphed the predominately agricultural nation to a herd of factory and corporate workers. Swarms of people, both native and immigrant, flocked to major cities. “The present century has been marked by a prodigious increase in wealth-producing power. The utilization of steam and electricity, the introduction of improved processes and labor saving machinery, the greater subdivision and grander scale of production, the wonderful facilitation of exchanges, have multiplied enormously the effectiveness of labor.”(George, p.20) The major problem with this newfound industrialism was the way in which the workforce was treated. Capitalism was supposed to provide a way out, a way ascend the financial and social staircase, if you worked hard enough. This however was not the case, if you were a loyal, hardworking employee you simply got to keep your job, and if you were in any way injured or incompetent you were fired.

The laissez-faire, or “hands off”, attitude of the government at the time did encourage incredible economic growth. Business men and entrepreneurs had the incentive of large profits to expand on their innovations and grow their businesses. The political injustices of the time allowed the large industrialists of the time, men such as Andrew Carnegie, William Henry Vanderbilt, JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller to create and control monopolies. These monopolies affected not just business by destroying any competition, but all aspects of life for the exploited workers, earning these men the negative title of “Robber Barons” (Tindall and Shi, 640).

The authors also correctly identified the inferior culture of the US bureaucracy in comparison to more agile commercial firms. While performing relatively slowly, rigidly, and inefficiently, the bureaucracy would continue as normal until it finds itself outmaneuvered and outgunned by more agile threats. Moreover, within the US bureaucracy, the few leaders who are capable of revolutionary thinking are often marginalized and buried by the more conservative thinkers. Successful commercial firms, on the other hand, have proven to perform more quickly and efficiently through the correct allocation of resources. This can be seen in the most successful firms to include Apple, Google, and Amazon with a much more streamlined and less risk averse as well as profitable cultures.

Throughout the entirety of the book, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, author Eliyahu M. Goldratt focuses on demonstrating the importance of the Theory of Constraints and what corporations should do in order to increase profits. A major term used throughout the novel is “throughput,” which according to the text, is “the rate at which the system generates money through sales” (Goldratt 60). Once a bottleneck machine in a production process is identified, there are multiple ways to increase throughput without expanding the physical capacity of the machine.

Not Business As Usual is a documentary that explores the beginnings of “conscious capitalism” and its unintentional price of success. The film offers an alternative view of businesses by tracking the movement of a few entrepreneurs that aspire to include social and environmental considerations in addition to seeking profit in their businesses. A free market for goods and services, capitalism is substantial. It drives innovation, progress, and prosperity. However, should “profit” be the only metric to measure success?

The article by Thomas Cassidy, points out the instrumental role that greed plays in the modern corporation. Modern Economists have always seen greed as not only a necessary element in the corporate environment, but as also a vital part of the successful evolution of a public company. As the article points out, “Economists from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman have seen greed as an inevitable and, in some ways, desirable feature of capitalism. In a well regulated and well balanced economy, greed helps to keep the system expanding”.

As citizens of the United States, we are members of the leading capitalist economy in the world. Our production and distribution is mostly done privately and we operate in a “profit” or “market” system. The capitalist system has been a target for criticism throughout the last three hundred years and is being discussed now more than ever due to the recent recession and financial crisis (Shaw and Barry n.d., 1). Its effects,

Capitalism started up as a system of investing and sharing money in order to increase the value of resources in the future. Capitalism was just an economic system, but then soon turned into a complex system of ethical practices. Harari defines capitalism as, “a set of teachings about how people should behave, educate their children and even think” (Harari 314). This economic system evolved along with the people that were endorsing it. Capitalism enables the rich to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. There are many benefits to capitalism, but there are downfalls as well, and these downfalls tend to be masked because of the rapid speed capitalists grow at. Harari first presents a definition for capitalism, and soon goes into great detail on why capitalism, while fast paced and unforgiving, is able to stand unwavered while other productions fail.