The Present
The past and the future are constantly battling over ownership of the present. The influences of tradition and culture keep current times rooted in history, while technological breakthroughs and the hope of improvement keep humanity looking to the future. This same struggle stretches to the realm of societal morality, where the past insists upon the existence of God, while the future demands that civilization exist without the influence of divinity. In Friedrich Nietzsche’s book, The Gay Science, one of the characters argues that the purity of traditional morality has given way to the imperfect and immoral ideals of human nature and societal progression.
Friedrich Nietzsche lived from 1844 to 1900 in the country that was
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When the American colonies separated from the British Empire in 1776, United States citizens were filled with an ardor for nationalism, freedom and selfsufficiency that has remained in the hearts of Americans to this day. One of the fundamental policies adopted due to this appreciation for selfrule and liberty is the economic system known as capitalism. And although the United States government set out on a mission to spread propaganda in the 1940s in order to highlight the superiority of capitalism over socialism, our beloved laissezfaire system has a major darkside (Picture). “According to the United States Department of Labor, over 50% of U.S. garment factories are sweatshops.1012 hour days, six to seven days a week are the regular hours that garment workers toil in the United States” (Homeworkers Under the Fair Labor Standards Act 1). Capitalism runs on selfinterest, and encourages the exploitation of the people who are the most vulnerable – women, children and migrant workers (Mayday). Under the capitalistic form of economy, powerful individuals are encouraged to take advantage of their workers in order to gain profit for themselves. This system puts the disenfranchised at the mercy of the controlling
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
“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.
“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.
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.
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
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.
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%
Throughout the formation of the United States of America, populations and cities grew and developed, which required a great necessity for labor to ensure the continuation of progress. As time elapsed the evolution of labor also took place and slowly but surely advanced to meet the needs for the powerful and developing young nation. While labor changed, people started to realize the more present form of the wage labor system as unfair and not an appealing way of life. As result, free labor ideology was introduced as an alternative and a blueprint to fulfillment, this idea embedded the principles of temporarily being a wage worker for a given amount of time until a worker had enough money to save up and move west to claim land and work freely
“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.
Very few citizens hint at change, but their ideas are dashed immediately. They have no say as labor commodities whose work supports the power of the capitalist class. Capitalism: A Love Story suggests that the capitalist ruled socio-economic stratification in America keeps the economically suppressed as though they have low value and so deserve no say. The working class labors in sub-standard conditions with inadequate pay and benefits as they watch the rich get richer. The American people have an unconscious fear of reform and have been subliminally given notice that there may be repercussions if they suggest
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 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,
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.
A vast amount of media outlets and critics focus on the inhumane and unhealthy conditions that sweatshop workers have to undergo. Several anti-sweatshop activists go as far to petition and even boycott the consumption of items produced by sweatshops, which, in my opinion, is perfectly understandable. However, what many activists and media outlets overlook is the many benefits these "sweatshops" offer to the working citizens in third world countries. For instance, while many sweatshops offer poor "non-monetary compensation", or health benefactors for the working public, the alternative occupations any third world citizen could take would be even more underwhelming. In fact, many other occupations that are offered in third world countries would