Tuesday, September 15, 2015

The Gilded Age

What themes stood out most to you in the assigned readings and lecture this week?  What questions did the lectures and readings raise for you?  Please post your responses in the comment section below.

13 comments:

  1. What stood out to me from the readings and the lectures this week was the discussion over how people defined the poor and rich, and how they felt the poor became poor and the wealthy became wealthy. You have many differing views when you look at publications by Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, Henry Demarest Lloyd, and Henry George because you have some that say the poor are poor because they are deficit in some way, while others see them as people that did not take advantage of the chances they were given. A question that came up to me while reading Henry George's speech was about the quote that read, "All that is necessary is to divide up the income that comes from the land. In that way we can secure absolute equality." What would absolute equality look like in society?

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  2. Today's lecture focused on Social Darwinism--through natural selection, the fittest will survive and the unable ones will be eliminated. It says that people's poverty resulted from their individual deficiency, instead of systemic factors. It discounts race, gender, class and other factors that could contribute to the outcome. It reminds me of meritocracy and White privilege. Many people have a hard time thinking about White privilege, because it seems to disregard the hard work and effort they put in. I think that White privilege doesn't ignore the effort, but points out that there is certain social construction that benefits Whites but not the others.

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  3. What stood out to me was the contrast between the ideas of Social Darwinism and systemic poverty. Systemic poverty means that the way the economy is step up means that there are bound to be extremes of wealth and poverty. Many who supported that idea believed that should be changed, and that help needed to be given. Social Darwinism, however, was a completely different train of thought. It claimed that the most able men are the ones who strike which, which meant that the lower class was just not smart enough to make ends meet. It was a way to excuse the lack of assistance given to the needy and to justify earning an exorbitant amount of money.

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  4. A new sense of extreme greed came with America's new economy. The new "get-rich-quick" mentality was seen in many individuals. A civilization "based on competition", as Henry Lloyd describes it, where no one cares about anyone or anything except themselves and getting money came about. The new scope of wealth people, such as Carnegie and Vanderbilt, were experiencing also brought different ideas about how society should handle this new economic reality. Carnegie thought wealthy people had an obligation to be philanthropic, Sumner believed we simply owed each other rights, the mutual opportunity to acquire land, to earn, etc. It is obvious new social thought had to be developed as a result of this new economy.

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  5. What I thought was the most interesting aspect of the Gilded Age was the ever-increasing bond between those in politics and those in the economy. While the early 19th century United States often featured huge divisions between political activity and the largely agrarian economy, the manufacturing boom of the later stages of the 1800s created a new relationship between lawmakers and American enterprise. Nowhere was this more present than the overlapping corruption of events like the Credit Mobilier scandal under the Grant administration and the presence of railroad executives on the Interstate Commerce Commission. A question I have over this time period is how do the ideas Social Darwinism and systemic divisions of wealth and poverty eventually lead to the social reforms of the Progressive Era in only a few years?

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  6. What stood out to me this week in lecture was the stark contrast in beliefs over Social Darwinism vs. Systematic Factors in contributing to the income equality that characterized the late 19th century and today’s society. My question is, is it really only one of these, Social Darwinism or Systematic Factors, that have contributed to this issue that still persists to this day, or rather a combination of the two?

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  7. In today's lecture the topic and theme of Social Darwinism stood out to me. This belief that in our society the rule of 'survival of the fittest' applies is something that is certainly regarded as controversial at the present time. The part it played in policies of the Nazi's and fascist groups in the 20th century as well as many other examples have led to it being treated this way. I wonder the effect to which the theory still plays a role in society today; whether it still holds true that only the fittest survive and achieve success, while those unfit are undoubtedly doomed to fail.

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  8. My question about the bimetallic standard - using gold and silver as our currency backing - regards labor. Is the silver abundance in the American mines 16 times greater than gold, leading to the 16:1 ratio? Even if this ratio is close to correct, there must be more miners working toward acquiring silver. A new labor force. With our government requiring more mining for silver, we pose more dangerous threats to our miners. At what cost? How did this debate enter into the political realm, with Greenbackers taking on more control in the political arena, candidates, etc... With Silver a forefront issue in 1896 with William Jennings Bryan, was the issue with silver and its increased labor and health, safety issues a talking point?

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  9. I believe the most interesting part of the lecture was when we discussed the idea of Social Darwinism, particularly when discussing the speculation that being poor is a crime, and that the rich have an obligation to the poor. It is interesting that wealthy people like Andrew Carnegie, who owned business empires, believed that it was their duty to provide for those less wealthy. In a way, this sentiment is still present today. Those who "run the world" are wealthy for the most part, and in a way they are providing for the less wealthy, be they middle-class or otherwise, by operating businesses, services, countries, etc. Questions I am left with are how did society as a whole react to Social Darwinism during that time period, and hiw has it affected certain political and social decisions since then?

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  10. The underlying theme is captured well within Mark Twain's name for the time period: the Gilded Era. It is a time of vast differences between the top of the social ladder and the bottom. From an outside perspective, the United States is absolutely booming at this time period, allowing for individuals like Vanderbilt to build 250 room mansions for themselves. However, underneath this thin layer of extreme wealth is also an extreme layer of poverty, as increased urbanization contributes to the growth of slums which capture the poverty stricken residents of the era. The main theme of this chapter is the vast difference between those at the top of the social spectrum, and those who are trapped in systemic poverty at the bottom and the problems that emerge as a result (leading into the progressive movement).

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  11. I thought the prevailing theme in the lectures this week was the class division and conflict that arose throughout the Gilded Age. Mass amounts of wealth in the hands of the few, in addition to the systemic factors that caused the rich to be rich and the poor to be poor, raised tensions between the social classes. This conflict also arose between debtors and creditors over the issue of "hard" or "soft" money. The one question I have is, is there any way that these class issues could have been avoided? It seems to me that things like low wages and the structure of the modern corporation were necessary to make the United States a leading industrial power, and the cost could not have been avoided.

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  12. To me, the prevailing theme and what stuck most in my mind was the idea of social darwinism and the class division that brought about its beginnings. The differences in ideological thinking were fascinating, with wealth and poverty being systemic factors, or products of individual ideas and perseverance. The triumph of the strong over the weak, and the weak's oppression seems to be a recurring theme throughout time, and particularly this era. The gilded age was a time of immense wealth, and the demonstrations of that wealth were everywhere. However, I perceive it as something rotten being gilded with gold. The gold being the rich and the industrilaization they brought to the United States, and the rot being the systemic poverty and slums that their work brought about. My question is, how can one resolve the ever broadening separation between wealth and poverty? Is there a better option than simply, "spreading the wealth" as Marx would suggest.

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  13. In the reading and our classes this week, I found the discussion of systemic factors influencing who is rich and who is poor very interesting. There have always been poor people and rich people, but with the industrial revolution this gap become much larger. It was also the first time people started to think about why people were poor, and perhaps instead of being a product of their own laziness, this division of wealth stemmed from the way society is structured. This topic is still very prevalent in our society today, so my question is if there is a way to raise the quality of life for and status of the poor without uprooting political and economic structures already in place, or if the way or society is designed means the rich will keep getting richer and the income gap will keep growing?

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