The Early Business Leaders Of America
In the early stages of the industrial changes in America, many regulations such as the Insider Information law was not in place and a lot of successful business leaders seized that opportunity to dominate the early 20th century American society. In mentally and physically, these dominating business ideals held a strong believe for the workers in the factories that if they had worked hard enough, they will soon become the next Rockefeller. The business world was dominant with Wall Street owners and that power eventually expanded towards the political party. With Morgan saving the National economic crisis twice one.
With this in mind, it makes me wonder on how much power a company can have that does not interfere with the government and congress decisions. For examples, many of the politicians being elected into the congress often side with the economical powers on Wallstreet because they had simply benefited from these regulations. Such as turning a blind eye on the trust funds, and via vertical or horizontal integrations. All this is a concern of whether, during this period of time, was the American business entrepreneurs doing things and seeing the future for America's future economical benefits or solely for themselves?
To answer the question you posed at the end of your post, I think it could be argued that people were very much fighting for themselves and their future. They did not really take into account those that they had to step on (i.e. the factory workers) to get rich. I believe that most of the big business men did not care about those under them in status and only did things for themselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point here. People back then were pretty selfish when it came to money matters and they were ruthless when it came to getting what they wanted. I feel like this is the part of the reasons why the majority of the people can't get out of the poverty area. People keep taking from others and never giving back, therefore only the most powerful survives, as Social Darwinism describes.
DeleteI think that your post refers to the ideology of Social Darwinism in the late 19th century. Many poor Americans had the mindset that if they worked hard enough, they could have a rags-to-riches story after striking it rich in the business world. Although there are many laws preventing monopoly nowadays, many Americans do still hold this mindset of becoming rich using good business strategies and outsmarting your competitors. It is likely that this mindset sprung from the actions of Carnegie, Rockefeller, JP Morgan, the Vanderbilts, and other businessmen from that time period.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the main points here is that these companies had too much power over how the country was run. You mentioned it by mentioning Morgan saving the US economy. This was very important because it alerted the US public to how big some companies were getting.To answer your question, I believe that these business owners were solely concerned about there own well being and their own income.
ReplyDelete