Injustice - Developers Among Us (SciFiDevCon 2024)
The rise of capitalism
1. The Rise of Capitalism
Carnegie, Rockefeller, Marx, Spencer,
& Labor Unions
2. TN Curriculum Standards:
Standard 1.0
>Understand how industrial development affected the United States culture.
>Understand how the influx of immigrants after 1880 affected the U. S. culture.
Standard 2.0
Investigate how the modernization of agriculture and capitalist industrial development affected
the economy of the United States.
Standard 5.0:
>Investigate the dynamics of the post-Reconstruction era and the people and events that
influenced the country.
Standard 6.0
>Appreciate the diversity of various cultures and their influences on the U. S. Investigate the
effect of big business upon the lives of farmers and wage earners.
4. The Economy
“Laissez-fare”- French phrase that refers to a hands-off approach by the
government.
Capitalism- theory that COMPETITION determines the price of goods and salaries.
Supporters of this approach believed in limited interference by the government
unless t deals with protecting private property and maintaining peace.
They believe that government interference hurts the economy and increases
prices overall.
6. The Economy
Supporters also believe in letting the rules of supply and demand
regulate the economy.
If three companies are selling the exact same product for three
different prices, customers are going to generally flock to the
store that has it for the cheapest price.
In this case, the government did not have to force the other two
companies to lower their price, the loss in sales would cause them to
do so automatically.
8. Big Government?
• Opponents of this argument believe that the
government has to involve itself in the affairs
of private businesses to prevent everyday
workers from being taken advantage of.
• They believe(d) that the only way to keep
corporations/business owners from taking
advantage of their workers was to impose
regulations (rules) on those businesses.
9. Who reaps the benefits?
This is one of the main
arguments in our politics
today in 2013.
As it stands, the CEOs of
major corporations have
seen their profits triple
while the average
worker has not seen a
substantial increase in
pay in 10 years (with
inflation).
Opponents of laissez-
fare government will say
that without
government interference
“big business” will
continue to profit while
the common man
struggles to meet their
basic needs.
10. Let’s Check for Understanding
• Supporters of______
believe that the
government should not
interfere in the economy
other than to protect
private property rights.
A. High tariffs
B. Laissez-fare
C. Industrial regulations
D. High taxes for private
individuals
12. Rags to Riches
• Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish immigrant who came
to the U.S. at the age of 12.
• He began work in a textile factory where he earned
$1.20 a WEEK. He worked his way up to
Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
• He used the money that he earned from his
supervisor’s salary to invest in companies that served
the RR industry ( iron mills, sleeping car factories, and
locomotive factories).
• By the time he reached his 30s, he was earning
$50,000 a year.
13. Carnegie & Bessemer join forces
• Carnegie met Henry
Bessemer in Europe.
• Bessemer told him about
his new product for
producing steel cheaper
& faster.
• Carnegie was so
impressed with Bessemer
that he bought a steel
company and began using
the Bessemer process.
14. We’re in the $$$$
Carnegie was able to increase his profits by using vertical integration. He bought
all of the companies that owned the resources that he would need to create his
products.
This cut out the middle man and allowed him to make and sell his product
cheaper than any of his competitors.
Carnegie was extremely generous. He gave the vast majority of his wealth away
to charities.
For EXTRA CREDIT, you can research and find at least three charities that he gave
freely to. Also, find the amount that he sold his company to J. P. Morgan for. Be
sure to cite your sources!!!
17. Check 4 Understanding
• Laissez-fare relies on
A. The government to
regulate wages and
prices.
B. High taxes and
government debt to
fund businesses.
C. High tariffs on foreign
goods.
D. Supply and demand to
regulate wages and
prices.
19. Rockefeller & Standard Oil
• John D. Rockefeller was an extremely shrewd
businessman.
• He used horizontal integration and bought out all
of his competitors. People that refused to sell
and become a part of his corporation were run
out of business.
• Rockefeller made deals with the middle man (to
sell their products higher to his competitors) to
make sure that other companies couldn’t
compete with him.
20. Rockefeller & Oil
• Rockefeller owned about 90%
of the nation’s oil refineries.
• He had a monopoly on the oil
industry (monopoly- a single
company achieves control of
an entire market).
• For example, When Verizon
was the only service that could
be picked up in the McKenzie
area, residents there had to
become Verizon customers. At
the time, Verizon definitely
had a monopoly on cell phone
coverage.
21. Ida Tarbell
Ida Tarbell (nicknamed the “terror of trusts”)
launched a life –long crusade to Expose
Rockefeller ‘s corrupt business practices.
Her dad was a former oil refiner that
Rockefeller had run out of business with his
shrewd business practices.
23. The Philosophers
Herbert Spencer promoted the idea of SOCIAL DARWINISM.
This is a “survival of the fittest type of mentality”. He believed
that only the fittest businesses, people, and nations will survive.
Proponents of this argument believed that people were poor
because they just weren’t “fit enough”.
Business owners loved this way of thinking. It gave them an
excuse to exploit their workers. They also believed that
having wealth was a sign of being a good Christian.
25. “Spreading the Wealth”
• Karl Marx (German philosopher) believed in the
opposite of Herbert Spencer’s theory.
• He believed in having an equal distribution of
wealth in a society. He felt that this would put
everyone on an equal playing field. His line of
thinking became known as “MARXISM”. It is most
commonly aligned with Socialism & Communism.
• During the 2008 and 2012 Presidential election,
President Barack Obama was repeatedly accused
of being a Marxist.
26. Image circulated during 2008 of German
Philosopher Karl Marx with a Obama
“change we can believe in” pin
27. Theory vs. Real Life
• A popular message during the 19th century
was that everyone had the ability to succeed
in an economy driven by free enterprise and
opportunity.
• By the early 1900s, workers were beginning to
have their doubts.
28. The Working Poor
Work conditions were terrible in the late 1800s. Wages were low and the hours
were long (the average pay for a white male was $1.50 a day or about $500 a
year).
The standard of living for a family of four was about $700 a year ( so the avg.
family was already in the hole at least $200). Everyone in the family worked
(including women and children- although there are reports of them earning as
little as 10 cents a day).
Workers often worked 12 hours a day (sometimes 7 days a week). Work
conditions were unsafe. There was no workmen’s compensation (if you got hurt
or maimed, you were just out of luck). By 1900, there was an estimated 35,000
deaths in industry alone. Jobs in the RR industry were the most dangerous.
29. No Rest 4 the Weary
Between 1890
and 1917, there
was an estimate
of 230,000
casualties and 2
million injured in
jobs related to
railroads.
In the West, many
of these groups
were Asian
immigrants (this
labor group built
most of the RRs in
the West).
Workers often
held jobs that
caused them to
inhale toxic fumes
in unsanitary
conditions. They
also worked with
heavy machinery
without any safety
regulations.
In n effort to
improve their
working
conditions, they
tried to unite and
form labor unions.
30. Conflicts and Unions
Workers routinely went on strike
to protest their working
conditions. While the strikes
weren’t necessarily new, the
level in terns of numbers and
destruction was new.
Between 1878 and 1900, there
were tens of thousands of
strikes involving millions of
workers.
Cleveland & Ohio were almost
completely burned to the
ground. Large sections of
Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and
NY were also destroyed. The U.
S. Army had to be called in to
put out strikes regularly.
31. 2 Types of Unions
• The main 2 types of labor unions were
Mainstream & Radical.
• Mainstream unions wanted: pay raises, shorter
hours, and better working conditions.
• They believed in using a process called collective
bargaining. This simply meant that instead of
everyone who worked for the company going in
to complain to the boss about what they were
upset about, they sent in representatives.
32. Samuel Gompers-
AFL• The representatives
would negotiate for all of
the workers.
• Samuel Gompers was the
founder of this technique.
He was a part of the
mainstream union
American Federation of
Labor (AFL).
• It was labor adopted by
other unions (still used
today).
33. The American Federation of Labor
(AFL)
The AFL had 3 main goals:
• It tried to convince companies to recognize
unions and to agree to collective bargaining.
• It pushed for closed shops (tried to force
companies to hire only union members.
• It promoted an 8 hour workday.
34. Radical Unions
• Radical Unions: argued that capitalism
created exploitation of the masses (believed
the rich kept getting richer while the poor
kept getting poorer). Many advocated for
either a Socialist/Communist economy that
would be fair to everyone and help to create a
more socially equal structure.
• Mainstream unions hated the way radical
unions operated.
35. The Wobblies
• An example of a radical
union would be the IWW
(Industrial Workers for the
World) or Wobblies.
• They advocated the
Communist system and
often used arson and mail
bombs to scare capitalist
judges who ruled against
them in labor cases
(involving workers who had
been arrested for violence
during demonstrations).
36. Trouble on the homefront
The labor movement had a number of problems
within their own structure like: ethnic and racial
conflicts, jealousy over membership, and sharp
divisions between skilled and unskilled labor
Most unions excluded women industrial
workers.
