Subject:
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A piece of U.S. history (was: Re: Libertarian SPAM (Propaganda))
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 16 Jun 2001 13:37:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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1304 times
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Whew! What a long post. I've been typing for almost an hour. So careful,
great ramble ahead, and the footnotes are almost as long as the post itself. ;-)
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> Fascinating! Do you have a cite for that? Should be interesting reading.
Matt already found some stuff for you and all, I just wanted to say that I
didn't really have a cite except for my history book ("Pathways to the
Present"). I also encountered that fact once or twice while researching my
junior thesis (1)... but I don't remember where.
I can tell you this much, though:
The conversion to automated factories created an employee-saturated,
cheap-labor market in the early 1800s, and the situation seemed to worsen as
more immigrants and more factories came in. The Lowell Mill girls, for
example, were replaced by Irish, and later by other groups (I can't remember
ATM). This was *the* era of merciless child-labor, all those stories you
heard about 10-14 hr. workdays at starving prices - this was the time.
Attemts to unionize and strike or bargain with employers all failed
miserably. The Gilded Age (about 1850-1900) was dubbed that (2) because it
all looked great on the outside, employers were getting rich and the economy
was "better than ever" but in truth, the gap between the rich and the poor
was enormous.
As for the mandatory schooling - that requirement was attempted to be pushed
by reformers all around, both for reasons of education and getting kids out
of the market, with the latter being much stronger. It was Horace Mann who
first tried to radically reform (well... more like, create) the public
school system, here in Mass, in the late 1800s. The progressivists, early in
the 20th century, were the ones who got mandatory schooling passed (in
individual states, IIRC) - and, seriously, most of the population was
against this move. Think about it: families needed the extra couple of cents
(rarely more than a dollar) per week that the kids could bring in, to make
ends meet... while employers knew that their cheapest labor source was
slipping away. It was a lose-lose situation for all players... in the short
term.
Here's the biggest beef I have with Libertarianism. History repeats itself,
right? Well, the Gilded age was exactly the time of least government
interference in market businesses. No minimum wage or maximum hours, no
insurance required by law, and the discrimination (in the North, mind you)
was mostly limited to "who will take the lowest wages". Unions could
organize (3) but employers could do anything they wanted to to stop them.
And the result? I just described it to you in this post, but I'll expand:
* No minimum wage, no maximum hours; people were getting paid *literally
pennies* (4) for hours upon hours of work.
* No insurance; people hurt by factory accidents would get no compensation
at all, and it usually meant that they could not work anymore... this could
be completely devastating if the hurt person was a main bread-earner in the
family. Accidents were so frequent that they stopped being news - oh great,
another kid died in a factory accident, who cares?
* No union recognition; rich factory owners hired replacement workers for
strikers, hired private guards to beat strikers up, fired anyone who
demanded collective bargaining, etc. E.g. the Homestead strike of 1892
against Carnegie Steel; Henry Clay Frick, a partner of the company, tried to
cut wages; when workers went on strike, camping at the company and burning
some tires, he hired what was called "the Pinkerton police" (a private
police force) to shoot the strikers, who shot back. There were people dead
on both sides. (5)
* Many times, people lived on company premises (as Matt mentioned - scary
stuff there); often, employers would raise the price of food and rent while
keeping salaries the same, or cutting the salary while keeping prices the
same. The best example of this was the Pullman Strike (1894), in which
George Pullman, a sleeping-car maker, slashed the wages of his workers by
25%-40%, while keeping the prices in their worker-city. A delegation of
workers came to protest this to Pullman; 3 were fired, and he refused to
negotiate. The strike that followed led to the death of 12 people. (6)
* As for discrimination, like I said, it was limited to who will take the
lowest wages; the result was that each time a new ethnic group arrived to
the U.S., employers would rush to fire people and take in the new people who
could afford to work for less. E.g. the Lowell mills, as I mentioned above.
Also, the Pacific railroad company hired only Chinese workers since they
could pay them the lowest prices. This gave rise to groups like the
Know-Nothings, who favored "nativists" and campaigned against immigrants. (7)
None of this was fixed because the government did not interfere. Free
market! Great. I don't buy it.
There are worse evils and lesser evils. I don't think that in our world,
with the "values" most people hold dear (like the value of their bank
account and stocks), we can acheive a truly "good" system. Capitalism and
Communism at their extreme utopias would probably *both* work well, but
guys, we don't live in a utopia. I'm an idealist and all, but lately it
seems to me that people are too greedy to be able to play nice. And both
systems in their ideal require a lot of civility, IMHO.
Dream on,
-Shiri
(1) "The Orphan Trains: Transporting Small Working Hands From the Eastern
Cities to the Western Frontier". A rarely-told chapter of U.S. history. My
teacher (an extremely smart and knowledgeable teacher, IIDSSM) had never
heard of it before I brought it up. I was a finalist for the "Kennedy Prize"
at my school for it. :-)
(2) By Mark Twain.
(3) At first. Unions were declared against the law in 1864 (see (6)), and
remained that way for a few decades.
(4) And even at those days' prices, that was not a lot.
(5) BTW, anarchist Alexaner "Sasha" Berkman tried to assasinate Frick while
all that was going on, but was unsuccessful. The public associated the
murder attempt with violence and the unions, which generated negative
attention and increased the general fear of unions. I read an interesting
book last year, the autobiography of Emma Goldman, who was Sasha's good
friend (and lover, at some points of their lives). They made quite a few
headlines in their days. That personal insight on all that was going on at
the time helped me in history class. :-)
(6) I concede that the government *did* interfere in this specific case, on
Pullman's side. Since 120,000 railroad workers went on a sympathy strike,
and the mail wasn't getting through, the Federal government used Sherman's
Anti-Trust Act (8) to send troops against the strikers. This was when the
federal court forbade union activity.
(7) This anti-immigrant sentiment remained deep-rooted for a long time, and
was reflected by the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924. Even though the caps
and quotas placed then were lifted in the 60s, that sentiment is still
sometimes present in the U.S. today, more under the surface perhaps, but I
think it's still there.
(8) Which was supposed to be against companies, not unions. Whoever made use
of this was one heck of a clever attorney/politician.
P.S. I *have* been checking my notes to recall some of this, it's not all
from memory. But most was, except for the specific examples (I didn't
remember the names or the years of the events).
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