The Past And The Future

In society, many make a living by working for others to get the necessities they need. Workers face many struggles such as wage cuts, horrendous work conditions, an increase in hours, due to these conditions they are labeled ‘wage slaves.’ These individuals have no choice but to work in these conditions. The growth of industry in the United States made corruption easier and made employers richer while the poor stayed poor. The employers justify their actions by arguing that the employees have a choice to go and work for someone else. However, workers do not have the choice to work for others since most employers were using the same method to make a profit. Workers are treated unfairly, but they use many effective techniques such as strikes

Many laborers do not have enough money to support their family. The goal of the owner contradicts the goals of the laborer because the owner desires the maximum amount of labor with the minimum amount of pay, but the laborer desires the maximum amount of pay with the minimum amount of labor. Hence, capitalism paves the way for employers to control laborers.

As a New York businessman in the early 20th century launching into a new era of industrial growth in business, maximizing profits is a top priority. Employing as many workers as possible, with as little pay as possible is the goal. Company’s can do this because the new implementation of machines in their factories is on the incline, putting unskilled labor at the bottom of the pay scale. Why pay top dollar for a worker to do the same job a machine can do faster and for less? Unskilled labor in big factories were now the only job people can get, forcing them to accept pay that is next to nothing. Children are being put to work now by their families to help bring home

Slavery was a system of forced labor popular in the 17th and 18th century that exploited and oppressed blacks. Slavery was an issue in the US that brought on many complex responses. Slave labor introduced to the United States a multitude of issues that questioned political, economical, and social morals. As slave labor increased due to the booming of cottage industries with the market revolution, reactions to these issues differed between regions, creating a sectional split of the United States between industrial North and plantation South. Historiographers Kenneth Stampp, Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, and Eugene Genovese, in their respective articles, attempt to interpret the attitudes of American slaves toward their experiences of work as well as the social and economic implications of slave labor.

It is important to understand where American colonies started during their settlement. Capitalism wasn’t created out of thin air by the Americans, and they certainly didn’t start out with the system from the beginning. In fact, the first American settlements in the early 1600s were set up with a communal stock of foodstuffs and with all land being publically owned; settlers were to take what they needed from these stocks of food and return what they could return, while the food was supplied by land worked on by all. However, this system rapidly decayed its subjects, leaving the colonies with no food. This is because when there is no incentive to work - more food, profit, land, et cetera - people do not work. And if one will gain the same

The factory system in the United States began to grow before the American Revolution with shops that made wares to order (Clark 14). In the mid seventeen hundreds, farmers and plantation owners would give raw materials like cotton or wool to other families to turn into things like thread and yarn for a share of the profits. This was called the “domestic system” (Sands 4). With this, private capitalism, or the idea that you get to keep what you earn, developed and reinforced the want of cheap labor.

Capitalism fosters greed that when left unchecked can push people to their moral and physical limits in order to make a profit from others. This led to many people entering a cycle where they could not leave the factories and cities because they had no way to support themselves besides working in terrible conditions. This is illustrated in real life instances and in The Jungle. “Many Americans feared that the great industrialists were reducing ‘freemen’ to ‘wage slaves’”(Rise of Unions). This quote exemplifies that even though the workers of the factories were not slaves they were

The 1% owned all the factories that the rest of the people worked in/for, and because of low government regulation they underpaid their workers. This underpayment relates back to the cycle of overstock, where, because the workers are underpaid, they cannot afford to buy products. These products, in most cases, especially for those in the lowest percentile of society, were essential to life. Paul Blanshard, a reporter for The Nation, wrote an article including a member of this low class. “My husband and I go to the mill at seven. He… gets $12.85 a week. You know he’s runnin’ four jobs ever since they put this stretch system on him and he ain’t getting [paid] any more than he used to get for one… I get $1.80 a day. That’s $9.95 a week for five and a half days… It takes about $16 a week to feed us. We get nearly all of it at the company store with jay flaps… the slips the company gives you for buying groceries… after you’ve worked all day… I make… all my own clothes… I send all the washin’ to the laundry. It costs nearly two dollars a week… Our rent in this house is only $1.30 a week…” (Doc 7). This interview provides valuable insight into the lives of the low class people living under the 1%

Ans -The study of labor in the United States has a tendency to lean towards a myopic analysis of the battle between corporations and unions. Working-class organization struggling against industrial titans understandably dominates any modern labor discussion, but the sources of these conflicts in the US are older than the nation itself. The labor system in Colonial America established the pattern of labor exploitation witnessed and discussed continually throughout US history.

“A Week in the Mill” an article from the Lowell Offering, did not shift my opinions on the concept of working in a factory in the 19th century. The thought of working in a factory from dusk till dawn has never appealed to me. Whether it was the idea of repeating the same mechanics for hours on end, or having little to no breaks. I never envied those who had factory jobs in centuries past. From my experience through class lectures and reading about the Market Revolution, I learned even more so that the United States quickly shifted from a self-reliant country to a country where the people became enslaved to currency.

“Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains” (Engels and Marx). Peter Georgescu, author and chairman of Young & Rubicam wrote the article “Capitalists, Arise”. Capitalism is a political system famously known for letting individuals own things such as businesses and property instead of the government. In his article, Georgescu tries to inform the readers about the widening wage gap. He also explores the idea that big businesses need to improve wages for workers so that the standard of living can improve for everyone in capitalist America. He does this through tone, diction, and rhetorical devices.

“The population of unemployed and underemployed explodes. There is a vicious circle here. Because so many seek work, wages are very low. Because one wage cannot support even a small family, more and more family members must seek employment. This move adds to the pool of labor and further depresses wages.” (Syracuse U. Press) Further, if wages begin to rise in one country, other countries seize the opportunity and lower their wages even further. With this cycle of falling wages and more and more people needing jobs, poverty increases drastically. With wages so low, the owners of these large companies get richer and richer—the vast majority of wealth in a country becomes concentrated in one small group of people. While this is good for those few, the vast majority of citizens are shorthanded. Capitalism is an excellent system for the elite and for increasing efficiency, but as far as providing for the needs of all of its citizens, it falls short. Thus, capitalism is a system that causes and perpetuates poverty, and exploits its lower class.

Just like the slaves in slavery and the serfs in feudalism, the wage-laborers are exploited tremendously. Capitalism, under the disguise of fair exchanges, carries its exploitation nature from previous economic systems.

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,

The current issues of Capitalism in America is a grave concern to Americans. There is even a declared democratic socialist running for the Democrat nomination right now and garnering a lot of support. Specific issues this candidate is discussing that are facing Americans are issues of income inequality where the top .01 percent makes an average of 27 million per household whereas the bottom 90 percent makes an average of 31,000 a year, free college, and relations with harmful countries. This could all be related to the ideas of Karl Marx in the communist manifesto like a class struggle, or whom should own means of production, or relations with horrid countries.