4 - The Great Transformation - TODO EDIT
ucla | HIST 12B | 2023-10-10 12:24
Table of Contents
- US wealth inequality - Gilded Age 1890s
- State and the Law
- Class and Inequality
- Reinvention of Liberalism
- First Neoliberals
- New deal
US wealth inequality - Gilded Age 1890s
Gilded age
- wealth concentration from iron mining and railroads in the west
- industrial farms <- dispossession of small farmers, heap labor, irrigation, government water and land subsidies ⭐️ Government enabled wealth concentration through subsidies, fiscal policy, buyouts, funding
- 1807-1904, 4200 firms combined to 257 owned 40% of manufacturing
- finance capital - began to grow
- vertical integration - corporate ownership of all parts of the manufacturing process: raw materials -> production -> goods, marketing, etc.
- horizontal integration - corporate ownership of competing companies
State and the Law
- facilitates capital growth
- maintains currency - trade policies (tariffs), privatization of public land, infrastructure (railroad, roads, shipping lines, airfields), taxes
- paid using national debt
- supported by Republicans and the Supreme Court ⭐️ Republican party of the 19th/20th (Lincoln and later) was pro-BIG business - not exactly the same as today
- court stripped legislature o power to regulate business - argued laws like that violated due process of 14th amendment
- court asserted state reg violated 5th amendment
Class and Inequality
- cheap exploited labor became the main source of wealth
- immigrant labor - 25% of force by WW1
- approx 2 million child labor - no child labor laws by 20th cent.
- growth of poor working class, inequality -> modern racial regime w/ Jim Crow, reservations -> debate on nature o democracy, power, and role of govt ⭐️ workers believed large wealth disparities undermined democracy and promoted oligarchy -> unionization ⭐️ capitalists argued inequality was natural and evidence of progress -> social Darwinism, superior intelligence, ignorance of poor ⭐️ Discursive control - capitalists suggested poor were poor because they were ignorant and lazy -> suggesting they can be rih if they are hardworking and are NOT hindered by government and unionization -> influenced against trade unions that supported the workers limited evidence but the perception and story changed politics
Class War on Democracy
- capitalists wanted return of property requirement, restrict franchise, and immigrant opportunities -> fear of takeover
- South implemented grandfather clauses -> became a dictatorship under racist democrats to remove Black right to vote (3/5ths, then giving full 5/5ths but no voting -> more power)
- property reqs to vote
- ~12 states denied voting to ppl receiving public aid
Reinvention of Liberalism
- social democracy - movement through democratic/electoral means for a welfare state
- protects workers, curbs capitalist surplus through reforms and regulations
- progressivism - response to the crisis of class conflict, in eq, urbanization
- Frederick Taylor introduced scientiffic management of the factory
- increased child and women labor
Fordism
- Henry Ford - promoted the assembly line, creation of cheaper commodities, stimulated demand, deskill labor
- allow workers to buy and purchase on credit
- creates sweatshops, child labor, and lower workplace safety
- but also gives workers the power to stop manufacturing -> allows for unionization
First Neoliberals
- was a response to post-WW1 collapse, the end of the empire, and the direction of the 20th cent leading to the Great Depression
- argued against self-regulating markets -> needed large strong institutions at the global level to protect private capital rights past national legislation (WTO, IMF)
- militant globalists - set of institutional safeguards to prevent nation-states from transgressing commitments to world econ. order
4 ruptures - justification for need for neoliberalism
WW1 and the end of empire
- the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, Habsburg, and Ottoman empires
- new nations emerged in Europe -> shift in the colonial order
- french and Britain took over Ottoman territories as new colonies
- Russian revolution 1917
- 1918 socialist rebellion in Austria-Hungary and Germany violently suppressed by social democrats ⭐️ Versailles Treaty - forced Germany and Austria to pay reparations - then US raised tariffs to all-time highs preventing repayment -the collapse of the international economy - all caused by debt and search to repay debt
Great Depression
- the government does economic planning to resolve depression
Germany
- collapse of Weimar Republic opened door or dictatorial powers of Pres Hindenberg (1930)
- allowed Hitler to become chancellor and legally allow Nazi dictatorship
Soviets - TODO
- simiar uspenion of demoracy
Postwar settlement - Keynesianism
- dominant economist after WW2
- introduced heavy macroeconomic theory - unemployment, interest rates, and monetary policy instead of sector-based theory
- gave govt tools to manage periodic crises of capital
- stimulating economy
- govt intervention through deficit spending
- tax cuts for private investment
- main objective - full employment
New deal
what it did
- stabilize financial institutions
- emergency banking 1933 - to regulate banking and prevent issues
- Glass-Steagall Banking act 1933 - repealed by Clinton - separate commercial banks and investment banks
- FDIC - ensures commercial banking for ppl
- provide relief and create jobs
- direct relief - food, money, clothing
- civilian conservation corps - labor camp
- arrested and deported Mexican workers
- assist homeowners and farmer
- stopped foreclosure through refinance
- Federal Housing Administration - turned into racialized mortgages
- raised farm prices through subsidies and by limiting supply
- regulate econ and inc organized labor
- strengthened workers rights and collective bargaining -> viable unionization
- increased regulatory functions of govt to stabilize previously troubled parts of the economy
- created bai of modern welfare state through relief programs through Social Security
- Reorganized US economy along Keynesian lines: deficit spending, govt intervention in economy