The Pros And Cons Of Greed In The 1800's

In the 19th century, the Gilded age was this period of time when America looked like this massive productive country. What people do not know was that in the inside they were this suffering country that had massive poverty and thousands of people without jobs. America was filled with industrialists which are also called Robber Barons. Robber Barons were these people who basically stole fortunes by having their employees work 12 hour days, 7 days a week and getting paid about 15 cents an hour. Andrew Carnegie was a really wealthy businessman who made steel. Carnegie made millions of dollars but in the end he still paid his workers very little. His employees worked long hard days and at the end of the day they got paid hardly nothing. These workers also worked in bad conditions and some of the workers were kids and they were having them do some of the really hard dangerous work. According to a US history author “They received no health benefits, no vacation, and suffered from periodic layoffs because of downturns in the business cycle( The Gilded age pg. 1) The 19th century during the Gilded age most of the big business men where these guys who had massive amounts of money and yet they pay their workers really low wages with bad conditions.

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.

While being a greedy person can be bad, it can be good as well. For instance, in the gilded age greed helped multiple things like the economic, political, and social issues going on from 1860-1890 mainly during the industrial revolution. During these 20 years, many industries took off like the iron horse railroad, patents were increased by 28x over, and multiple groundbreaking electronics that would soon help to better communication developed. The gilded age was an important time for america's development and helped it establish what it is today.

Greed can be a powerful motivating force, evident through the positive impact it had on Industrialization in America during the Gilded Age. During this time new inventions became plentiful, but where there were new inventions there also had to be new businesses to back these inventions up and allow them to be successful. Wealthy business owners were able to help in this regard. They already had the capacity to help facilitate the creation of these new inventions, but it did not stop there. This is where greed came in. Greed is the intense and selfish desire for wealth, and it was this that empowered the rich during this time to expand upon their already successful businesses to become even more rich and powerful than they were before. This led to a surge of businesses in the country, and it was all due to greed. It was this desire for more that led to an increase in productivity in the country that helped with the spread of technology throughout it which made it more enticing for immigrants coming to America.

Greed takes over many peoples lives today and it seems that the world revolves around money, wealth and other things and it controls many peoples lives. For example, the four children that own walmart made over 29 Billion dollars a year for owning walmart but they pay their 1.4 million workers so little that they can’t support themselfs. This example should really be addressed because even though they make so much money a year that they could just burn most of it and still be rich when their workers struggle to make a living. On the other hand Walmart started from nothing and grew to where it is.

In Documents B, C, and F, the contributions of the industrialists were recognized to show the good they did for society with their wealth and power. Document C did a great job of explaining the duty they have to help out the less fortunate by not showing off and offering guidance to the people. Sometimes, though, actions portrayed that were unfair, like a Robber Baron. Many industrial leaders made employees work under conditions not suitable for man only to become wealthy off of it, this was displayed in Document A. Sources A and E showed how people became greedy from wealth and used it for personal enjoyment. Just like in reality, no one will never be perfect and be nice all the

Greed during the Gilded Age was not good, but was still very evident in strikes and lockouts, politics, and monopolies. Greed is an intense and selfish desire to be better and have more than others and it can often cause people to get hurt and be put into dangerous situations. During the gilded age, economy was expanding and most people were motivated by wealth and their own greed. While greed may be good for the greedy, it is not good for those who are in the way of the greedy and those who just simply are not greedy.

Greed is a wonderfully horrid thing. A necessary sin, it has the capacity to bestow great wealth and power, as well as tear it away. It can power an economy or destroy it. And the frightening part? Greed lives within each of us, making us want more, and work as hard as we can to get it. Capitalism both nourishes and feeds from this beast, much like a cow does a farmer. Our supply and demand economy benefits the consumer greed by giving us what we want, yet also benefits the producer, allowing them to take what they want in order meet the consumer’s hunger. No other system in the world supports the human nature as much as capitalism. Yet, many capitalist countries find themselves in debt. Why would such a seemingly perfect system have this glaring flaw? The answer is again greed. In order to get more out of consumers for what they want, producers feed the greed of outside countries for cheaper parts, cheaper labor, and looser morals. Of course, this benefits the consumer because our hunger for the new and flamboyant is fed much more quickly, and even more cheaply, by this system. Greed is as American as a hotdog (made with pig scrap so the shop owner can get it to you for under a buck, of

During a time with corruption being at an all time high during the Gilded Age, with a mass influx of new immigrants from Eastern and southern Europe, such as Scandinavians or Italians. Corruption as seen through political machines as seen through Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed; along with mediocre presidents during the time period. Art being one of the many ways people could express their true feelings in a time where corruption was at a high point. George Bellows with paintings like, “Cliff Dwellers” depicting life in an urban city with an influx of new immigrants in urban areas like New York. Along with the harsh conditions in the dense urban areas such as

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.

During the first Gilded Age that occurred in the late 1800s, economic growth was at an all-time high. At this time, the wages that were given to American were at an increased rate compared to that of the wages that were given in Europe. Due to this, an abundant amount of European immigrants came over to the United States because of this inflated wage. These economic advances were due to that of several technological advances that had come about in this time. The industrial production skyrocketed, which, in turn, made for increased economic wealth for Americans.

There is an essential question: is greed good? Greed is an intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food. It seems like it’s a very self-centered term that is unfair to other peers surrounding one or ones who are filled with greed. Now when relating back to the Gilded Age and Industrialization of America, we understand that things were off to a good start as businesses were beginning to bloom and boom, as the price of basic raw materials was down, overall production was up, and the regular American was able to work and earn a wage consistently. This was great, but things weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

We are talking about whether greed is good, or not. Things were easier back in the 1900s. The price of raw materials was low. Businesses were exploiting their workers. Consistent wages led to improvement for Americans.

Greed is what drives everything in society, whether that be thousands of years ago or today. The reason we have advancements in our world is greed. People want to live forever, have a legacy that lives forever, or they want to have the most money. People have a natural desire to have the most stuff, whether that be money or physical good, and they will go to the ends of the earth to get it. And because this is human nature, unfortunately, it isn’t stopping anytime soon.

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”.