The Golden Age Of Capitalism

The economy began to recover in 1983 and was surging in 1984. Unemployment and interest rates dropped, allowing more Americans to buy homes and cars (Moss & Thomas, 2013, p. 236). Inflation dropped to four percent, the lowest since the early 1970s. Americans were earning more money, and oil prices were dropping, making fuel more affordable (Moss & Thomas, 2013, p. 236). “Economic growth generated 18 million new jobs and tripled the price of stocks by 1990” (Moss & Thomas, 2013, p. 236).

This was the first time the United States government enacted the wage and price controls since World War II. The prelude to Nixon’s actions was that the inflation had become a serious problem. Lyndon Johnson imposed a 10% income tax surcharge in 1968 to soak up purchasing power, but this had no effect on inflation whatsoever (capitalgainsandgames.com). Nixon desperately needed to keep inflation bottled up until after the election. Although the wage and price controls undoubtedly helped Nixon politically to win the reelection to the office, they also undermined the long term viability of the American market. Nixon’s act launched United States economy into a decade of unprecedented turbulence, punctuated by episodes of hyperinflation, shortages, high interest rates and stagnation. There was no other Presidential pronouncement since then that has so radically reordered the economic agenda both domestically and

Between 1945 until 1973, America underwent the Golden Age for the middle class. During this period, the country ended a major war and the great depression, which made the financial climate conducive for the middle class. A substantial increase

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.

From 1870 to 1900 era was called the Gilded Age, a time of immense growth in the United States in transportation, especially in railroads, American workers were paid higher wages than their peers in Europe. In this thirty year span the United States saw twelve million immigrants pass through her golden doors, 70% of these immigrants were English, Irish, and German. Crop failures (potato famine in Ireland), job shortages, and religious freedom were the motivations behind many immigrating to America. Newly arrived immigrants faced a harsh reality in America, employers took advantage of them, the men were often paid less than other native born men and the women were paid even less. Immigrants suffered verbal and physical abuse from employers and other employees because they were different. While researching my Italian heritage I learned that Italians, especially southern Italians were not treated well because they were hired as strikebreakers or scabs by mining and railroading companies. They were called derogatory names such as "dagoes or guineas". Newspapers of the time said the southern Italians were "intellectually inferior and having criminal tendencies" (Laura Teddy Turner, Demand Media n.d.) http://www.emmigration.info/us-immigration-tv

Twenty-five years of broad economic expansion and prosperity comes to an abrupt end in the 70s as it was replaced by crawling growth and inflation. This sudden shift was due two factors; a mix of long term processes and unexpected shocks. Many long term processes contributed to the economic drawback. Manufacturing was gradual declining in the United States relative to the rest of the world after World War II. In 1971, for the first time in the 1900s, the United States was in an export trade deficit. This was partly because the dollar was linked to gold making products more expensive abroad. Nixon took the United States off the gold standard to make American goods cheaper. Unfortunately, this was not very effective because other nations had significantly cheaper labor and raw materials. This growing competition put many firms out of business. This was especially hurtful for the manufacturing industry, which saw a huge decrease of workers. After success in the 50s and 60s such as pensions and paid vacations, many unionized workers also took a hit in 1970s. Many companies started eliminating high paying jobs and moving jobs to cheaper areas of

The economy was in trouble because the United States had poured in some 168 billion into the war. During 1962- 1965 there was low inflation, almost full employment, and a favorable balance of trade. President Johnson declared a “War on Poverty” through his “Great Society” programs while escalating the war in Vietnam at the same time. However, his decision to finance both “guns and butter” – a major war and the Great Society simultaneously, without a significant increase in taxes unleashed an acceleration of inflation, when Nixon came into office. Although the real reason for inflation was the high military spending for the Vietnam war, the stall of economic growth had produced a more important matter, economic recession, and high unemployment. Though he did act upon them, his policy

The market mechanism of the Gilded Age was laissez-faire capitalism, an economic system based solely on the law of supply and demand, driven single-handedly by the motivation of entrepreneurs to generate profit, regulated purely by the ruthless competition between companies and owners. Such an economic environment inevitably resulted in monopoly and encouraged illegal business practices to get ahead due to the lack of government intervention. In this free-market capitalism, large companies were able to lobby the government and hurt, or even prevent other businesses from kickstarting and competing, by controlling the nation’s political outcomes through financing its politicians. These robber barons running these billion-dollar companies extracted the maximum profits from labor by bitterly preventing their employees from organizing unions. Ultimately left with a monopoly, these companies were able to deceive their consumers about their products and were to set skyrocket prices without any competition for customers to turn to for cheaper alternatives.

living.” (Purvis 116). Because of this, the issue of inflation not only caused the rise of numerous,

Throughout history, America was faced with many problems socially, economically, politically, and technologically. But America has also experienced many great successes in these areas as well. Some opportunities were seized, while others were wasted. We can learn from our past failures and successes and take what we have learned from them forward with us into the future, to help build and maintain a better America. The Gilded Age, during the late 1800’s, was a time in America where we experienced explosive economic growth, serious social problems, new innovative technology, and the rise of corporations and corruption in politics. We have learned from some of these things that we went through in the Gilded Age and fixed them, but we are still facing some of the problems we faced back then, today.

Preceding the Progressive Era, the Gilded Age showcased a vast number of changes in the industrial, economic, political, and social aspects of developing America. These changes, such as the rise of competitive industries, the continuous diverge of social and economic classes, and government authority, were issues carried into the early 20th century. Resulting from these issues were those that emerged, causing a reform movement, the Progressive Era. These leaders included Woodrow Wilson, incumbent President William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, and Eugene V. Debs. These candidates in the Presidential Election of 1912 campaigns were dominated by the reform efforts. While the candidates had the similar desire to reform the nation, their plans contrasted in the aspects of the limitations of the government, control over businesses in accordance with the economy, and civil rights and service for the people.

Reagan’s policies and practices on planning required the administration as well as Reagan to set objectives and to determine what course of action would be needed to achieve those objectives. President Reagan’s term indicated to time when there were numbers of Americans living below the poverty level, his goal was to expand economic prosperity. In order to be successful in the economic expansion, the president had the strategic plan to input the largest marginal tax cut in American history that the media referred to as Reaganomics. Reagan deemed that a tax cut of this nature would finally spawn more returns for the federal government, thus “this new spending would stimulate the economy and create new jobs” (Reaganomics, 2008-2014).

1865 marked the beginning of the Gilded Age a time period known for its innovations, corruption, progress and violence. At the same time as the phonogram and automobiles were being produced the major corporations employed child labor and offered deplorable working conditions. Laborers soon rose together to form labor unions that would have a fair advantage when dealing with large corporations. One of the pros of being a Unionist was the great numbers of unionists in several states this facilitated international strikes and placed pressure on the corporations. Depending on social class and economic background the antagonist and protagonist of the era were either large corporations or their wage workers. Members of the middle class were unsympathetic toward the Unionist at strike and prominent members of society. For example, Henry Ward Beecher and Henry Clew both members of the middle class clearly expressed their discontent towards the strikers. Unionist, and their family members, defended their actions and the Pullman strikers and Samuel Gompers were their advocates.

One of the big aspects of Ronald Reagan’s tenure as President of the United States was his economic plan to combat inflation with the concept of Supply Side Economics (Brands, ch 31.5),

FDR also worked on the reform policies to slow GD down. By reforming industry and agriculture, ND was able to reincarnate previous stagnate sectors of the economy. The AAA set limits on production of farm crops and paid individual farmers subsidies for leaving land idle which led to increase in Gross farm income by half In 3 years. The reformation of the money and business sector helped rebuild American trust in failing banks and corrupt Stock market. FDR first step in bank reform was to take dollar off gold standard but it had no immediate effect so he tried Emergency banking act which closed banks for 4 days so that banks can stabilize and it worked because as soon as banks opened people after listening to “fireside chats” rushed into banks