Capitalistic Government Of US
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created
equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness --
That to secure
these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just Powers
from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of
Government becomes
destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People
to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its
Foundation on such Principles,
and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to
them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness." (Thomas
Jefferson, Declaration of
Independence) When Thomas Jefferson wrote these
words, he wrote them with the
intent of establishing a new government that
would not give anyone favoritism
over others. After 224 years, this idea is
still believed in by the citizens of
America, but not practiced by their
government. As the years passed, the values
of America have slowly altered to
materialism. The people trusted our government
to make the best decisions for
the entire country, but some decisions seem to
favor the wealthiest citizens
rather than all of the citizens. Not to say that
the government is completely
corrupt, but their priorities seem to have a
monetary value, and they must
pay for it some how. As a country with a
capitalist government, one that has
the main focus of making profit through free
markets, money has an
unfortunately big influence on policies that are made by
the government.
According to the public, which was based on middle-class adults
in the US,
business editors and college students, the general consensus came out
to be
that they believed that "capitalism must be altered before any
significant
improvements in human welfare can be realized." This can be
seen throughout
history in the positions taken by the government about free
markets,
unionization, and . The United States of America's government
is
hyper-capitalistic, because the markets are freer than in any other
country. We
consume more and are more dependent on working. The markets in
the US have not
always been so free. In the beginning we had small markets
that people did not
depend so much on because of the fact that they were all
farmers and
sharecroppers. The existence of slavery was in very recent in
history back then.
America was not considered a capitalistic country, but
instead a feudal one
because everyone traded and didn't expect monetary
compensation for their
products. When the goal of production (around the end
of the 19th century)
changed from being used for exchange to profit, the US
began to become
capitalistic. To establish a definition of capitalism, I
shall establish it as
when goods are produced to be sold; the revenues made
are then used to be what
you need with intent to make a profit in the end.
Our capitalistic ways are
effective in the US government because it small
enough to allow the businesses
to make their own decisions. As the US became
industrialized, the need to
mass-produce came into effect, and the boom in
the labor market began. The
problem with this is that the freedom of the
markets allowed the businesses to
move around as they liked; only when they
were knowingly signing a contract were
they forced to make a commitment.
Markets dispersed power that kept the
government from being able to say
anything to the businesses that were making
the most money in the market. The
government decided to not involve itself when
it came to the market, even
though they knew that the bigger companies were
overtaking the smaller ones.
The wealthiest owners had the power in the markets
and this allowed them to
have more say as to what goes on in the free market.
The government could
intervene in this situation, but they do not because it
would be too risky
for them to put restrictions on the companies that right now
have the power
in the business world. The free market of America is one that
claims that
everyone is free to gain power, but what happens when business
owners decide
to be a monopoly? Competition is good, but there are competitors
that are so
powerful that they are willing to crush any smaller competition.
The
government's role in this situation can be seen as unfavorable for the
smaller
businesses and favorable to the wealthier businesses. The government
chose to
minimally involve itself in this situation under the pretext that
the citizens
of this great country did not wish to have the government to get
involved. They
knew that monopolies were being created by the big businesses
but that fact did
not get them to involve themselves. Their lack of
involvement in situations such
as these where the wealthy are conquering the
poor shows that they are siding
with the wealthy business owners by not
fighting against them. This is not to
say that they government never involved
itself in such instances, but they
nevertheless do little for the smaller
businesses with their policies. The
Sherman Act of 1890 prohibited
"conspiracies in restraint of trade"
and other monopolistic practices, but
these acts were too outdated for our
economy. Therefore, congress established
the Federal Reserve System as a
reaction to the power that the financial
monopolies had in America. It was
"headed by a board with 'fair
representation of financial, agricultural,
industrial, and commercial
interests, and the geographical divisions of the
country." All these laws and
systems have not done much to keep the economy
from monopolizing, however.
"In the 20th century, the working class became
the most important
antimonopoly force. Many labor organizations and the
political parties based
on the working class, while supporting traditional
antimonopoly demands,
increasingly focused on labor's claims against
monopoly." In the 1970s, due
to the lack of antitrust and antimonopoly
laws, IBM won a lawsuit that was
put against them by smaller business owners.
Instead of getting punished
for being so powerful in the market, it expanded,
increased its profit, and
the price of its stock more than doubled. As Victor
Perlo put it: "IBM
clearly emerged as the number-one supermonopoly of world
capitalism." Workers
formed antimonopoly parties and even created unions to
protect them from the
monopolies that created unfavorable conditions and wages
for them. The
unionization of the United States seemed to be a great idea by
factory
workers, but instead managed to give them less power than they had hoped
for.
"Factory workers had their greatest influence and were able to extract
their
most substantial concession from the government during the early years of
the
Great Depression before they were organized into unions." The reason
for this
loss of power is very simple. Before the workers were organized, they
had
millions of individual voices that caused much disruption in the
economy.
Strikes were forever taking place where politicians were forced
to listen to
them. Politicians were forced to comply with what the workers
demanded and this
ended in a fake victory for the workers The government
granted the workers the
right to organize, which would seem to be a victory,
but in reality this right
to organize just caused the workers to lose their
political power. Since the
workers found that the government was supporting
the unions, the membership
rates have increased tremendously. Even though it
seemed like a good idea to
join the unions, the members soon found that this
caused them to lose the
thunder that their disorganization had over the
government and politicians. This
is so, because after they organized into
unions, they did not strike as much as
they did while they were disorganized.
The strikes were economically stirring to
the government because in this
country of free markets, one of our main purposes
is to make profit and that
is accomplished through production. In "The
Industrial Workers' Movement"
the author makes the point that "If
workers withhold their labor, production
is halted and profits dwindle, and
employers are pressured into making
concessions." Without the strikes, the
owners and employers are not forced to
make concessions anymore, therefore
letting them become weak in the eyes of
the government and business. The
degradation of work under capitalism has
rendered the working class decreasingly
capable of independent action. They
had constant pressure to produce as much as
they could so that the company
could sell it at the lowest price possible. To
make it possible, however, the
workers' wages had to be kept low and the hours
long. They were exploited and
even though they managed to raise their wages a
little, other concessions
were not granted because management did not see the
union as threatening.
They actually helped the companies by keeping the workers
in good conduct.
The discipline that the unions managed to achieve in the
factories was one
victory for them with the management of the factories, because
the managers
could not complain about the production rate. This however kept
the
businesses from taking the workers as seriously as before because they do
not
pose such a threat anymore with strikes. Also, the government put their
foot
down when it came to when the unions actually did strike. The
Taft-Hartley Act
of 1947 took away many of the rights that were granted to
the unions by the
Wagner Act of 1935. "It gave the employers the right to
enjoin labor from
striking, established a 60-day cooling-off period during
which strikes were
forbidden, outlawed mass picketing, denied unions the
right to contribute to
political campaigns, and abolished closed shops. Most
importantly, however, the
law required all union officers to take oaths that
they were not members of the
Communist Party." This oath was mandatory
for recognition by the National
Labor Relations Board of the union. This
shows how the government went to
extremes to keep unions in line, and to not
interfere with the businesses'
production and the revenue that the businesses
will bring in for the government.
The governments of each state are so
money hungry that they even fight over who
will have the next corporation
building or factory in their state. Governments
are dependent of the
businesses for economic purposes. One thing that is
favorable about their
lust for the corporate move into their state is that it
will create jobs for
their citizens. There are, however, many side effects from
this. For example,
in the situation when Frito-Lay was looking for a new
location for their
plant, they went into Evansville, Arkansas with the intent of
building a new
factory that would produce their popular chips. Arkansas'
government wanted
to have them set camp there, so they offered them a $10
million dollar
incentive package plus they would cover all the costs to build
the new plant.
Frito-Lay got a "140-acre plant site, a rail spur, road
improvements, a
construction grant, tax credits for new employees and a 20%
discount on sewer
bills for the next 15 years." What did the people of
Evansville get, may
you ask? They got a "no" to a request for a new
water system. They received
water pollution, and more traffic congestion. First
of all, there are not
that many jobs that are created for these plants.
Secondly, it puts the
citizens of the city in danger. The citizens of the city
have the deadly E.
coli pollutant in their well water. Because of the plant that
the government
begged to come to its city, the citizens are not able to drink
the water from
their water systems. The government was willing to spend more
than $111
million on a company that would basically destroy its area, but it is
not
willing to spend $750,000 for the citizens to be able to drink their
water.
The government is too profit involved. The phrase "Money makes the
world go
around" is very true in this case. The citizens would not be giving
them
any money in return for the clean water, but the company would be
creating jobs
and revenues for that state. The jobs that the companies would
be creating for
the state are not the greatest jobs ever. In the case of
Nebraska Beef Ltd., an
Omaha beef-packing company, the jobs it created
involved sweatshop conditions.
The workers were not given more than one
bathroom break, they had one break 7
and a half hours before they ended work,
and that is only if they worked ten
hours. If they worked nine hours in one
day they got no break. The state of
Nebraska gave the corporation
approximately $31.5million and even with that much
money, it was not able to
fully train its workers and provided them with
low-paying jobs. The state did
not even think about putting work laws on the
plants; it made no demands as
to what it wanted in return for providing so much
to the company. One can say
that it did create a program called Nebraska Quality
Jobs Board, but
apparently it didn't help out in this situation. What is a
quality job for
Nebraska? Because of their bad choice in corporation to bring
into its state,
the citizens refuse to work for the corporation. Citizens from
other states
are the ones that are working in the plants, which pretty much
defeats the
purpose of bringing the corporations to the state. All it did was
create more
problems for the state such as traffic and pollution for the
citizens of the
state. One question that I have to ask myself is, if the
situation is this
bad here, how is it over in the other capitalist countries? In
Cohen and
Rogers On Democracy, they say that "while capitalist democracy
cedes workers
certain rights and liberties, including suffrage, it does not
eliminate the
subordination of the interests of workers to the interests of
capitalists
remains a necessary though insufficient condition for the
satisfaction of the
interests of workers, and the welfare of workers is thus
dependent on the
welfare of capitalists." In Western Europe this idea would
not be completely
true. The unions in Western Europe, first of all, are stronger
than the ones
here in the United States. Europe was industrialized before they
became
democratic. Therefore, they had to get together in order to get anything
done
within the government in their favor. The workers do have an interest in
the
capitalist, but not to the extent where they would do whatever the
capitalist
tells them to. The Western European governments involved their poor
workers
more than the US when it came to policies because of historical legacies
and
because of the constructed institutions. One thing that failed in America
did
manage to work in Europe, and that is the labor parties. The workers had
to
create their own parties. In the United States, the politicians crushed
the
labor parties, but in Europe they remain strong. One thing that is
important to
remember is that governments that are very favorable towards the
poor do so
because the poor are able to overcome the resource constraint. In
Europe this is
true but what is also true is that there is great solidarity
in Europe, which
made the workers so strong. Along with this the Industrial
Revolution that
happened in the last half of the 18th Century greatly helped
the labor workers.
"The Industrial Revolution was the first step in modern
economic growth and
development. " The workers in Europe are big in number
and the Revolution
brought on new work conditions to the workers. Labor
Parties established better
wages and hours for the workers. The labor parties
were huge in number and
couldn't be put down by the government as easily as
the United States put down
its unions. In the United States, we have always
believed that all men are
created equal. Americans, however, know that even
though we were created equal,
we are not treated equally. The rich are the
V.I.P to the government. They are
taken care of well, and pampered with money
and privileges that the other hard
working Americans deserve more than them.
We are in the age of profits, and if
the government does not see any monetary
value in something, they will not
bother with it, even if it is its own
people.
Bibliography
Peterson, Robert A.,Gerald Albaum, and George
Kozmetsky.Modern American
Capitalism. New York: Quorum Books, 1990.
Perlo, Victor. Superprofits and
Crises: Modern U.S. Capitalism. New York:
International Publishers, 1988.
Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward,
Chapter 3 from Poor People's Movements:
Why they Succeed, How they
Fail,(Vintage, 1977), pp96-180. Lembcke, Jerry.
Capitalist Development
and Class Capacities: Marxist Theory and Union
Organization. New
York:Greenwood Press, 1988. Joel Roers and Joshua Cohen, On
Democracy,
(Penguin, 1983), Chapter Six, "Democracy", pp146-183.
"Industrial Revolution"
Encarta Encyclopedia