Gilded Age Dbq

Politically, economically and socially the Gilded Age was truly a “Gilded Age”. Noteverything added to the “Gilded” effect of the time period. The “robber barons”, two major de-pressions and the labor unions (though not originally a bad thing) did add to the age. The Gilded Age saw the rise of Andrew Carnegie, John

Both Progressive Era reformers and the federal government sought to bring about reform at the national level. Examples of such reforms they wanted to make include: trust-busting, consumer safety, restrictions on child labour, civil rights, and women’s suffrage. Overall, the Progressive Era reformers and the federal government were effective in their efforts from 1900 to 1920, however there were some limitations. During the Gilded Age, and prior, the quality of America was unsatisfactory.

Could the rich control on how inequality affect the American economy? While, many Americans are facing unemployment; the rich are getting wealthier. The management of successful companies are taking avenge of the working class to apply less labor to achieve high profit for themselves. In Up Against Wal-Mart, Karen Olsson explores on how Wal-Mart are being unfair to their employees. The upper management are under paying and asking their employees to work extra hours with not paying them for those hours.

However, Moore suggest that Capitalism has not always been a crisis, which he reiterates the story of his life and further explains that his dad received a substantial pension and benefits. Moore spoke proudly of growing up in an economic bang that have expanded the industrialization. There were high taxes on the rich, which created lucrative jobs for the average person and also investments in education and infrastructure. The power of the union and high taxes on the wealthy created a balance in the system.

The impact it had on the gilded age was the number of jobs it provided to the fresh-in immigrants. Vanderbilt knew that he could hire immigrants and they would work for not that much money and with these new railroads america will be shrunk for easier expansion of the immigrants.

population and economy grew very promptly and many wealthy people lived very fancy lives. The Gilded Age happened about 60-30 years before the Great Depression, however some people think that the Gilded Age is the cause of the Great Depression. The rights of the few in this situation happens to be the rich people because there is only a select few that are financially able to live their lives without any stress or worrying about money. On the other hand the power of the majority is the normal people of the world that are not as wealthy and do not make nearly the same amount as the rich people. The tension between the upper class and the lower class is caused by the pure fact of jealousy and not being nearly close financially.

The concept of a dual economic system in democratic countries, especially the United States of America, often is misunderstood and unseen because many Americans associate this country with the core of capitalist ideology. However, the inclusion of socialistic elements outweighs those of the capitalistic elements in our nation. In the past fifty years, industry and business, in general, have been one of the greatest targets of the U.S. Government, including the IRS. The proof that we are very “progressively” socialist is given that we have the highest tax rate of among all other democratic nations in the world ranging between 35% to 38%. The idea that these private companies’ wealth and assets belong to the government and its people is evermore eminent with the mainstream American populous.

Modern day America is an economic superpower. However, one and a half centuries ago, this was not the case. In the late 1800’s there was a large boom in terms of population and industrialization in the United States. From this stemmed many new technological innovations, innovations which could be applied to the creation of alluring products for the masses. This led to the rise of a prominent American consumer culture, which was a driving force in the great economic growth of the Gilded Age.

It was called gilded Age for the same reason that it was only lined with gold. The age, in reality, was corrupt. Emma Goldman rightly unleashed the lack of freedom as she stated that the democracy that her people are subjected to is only enslavement in new forms. The workers are slaves who are exploited and so are the military men fighting wars for their country (qtd. Zinn, 372)

Karl Marx developed his theories about socialism in the 1800’s. Although Marx’ had written so much about capitalism so long ago he foresaw the increasing gap between the rich and poor. Even in the United States the worlds richest country, the capitalist system continually exploits the working class which causes the gap to become greater and greater which causes an increase in social inequality. Marx is seen as one of the three founders of the social sciences along with Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. His contributions to sociology include the framework of dialectical materialism and separation between social classes of people or a conflict perspective.

As industry exponentially grew after the Civil War, the need for labor and materials to power newly-created manufacturing giants caused new social classes to form: the rich corporation owners and the poor laborers. Unfathomably rich Robber Barons, or plutocratic American Capitalists, dominated the economy and industry and profited from the slave-like work of millions of poor laborers during this time period. Moreover, the poor working class and the rich further divided by distribution of wealth. Therefore, exploitation of capitalism widened the gap between the rich and poor classes of America, and both newly-formed classes developed reasons for the change.

In 1900, New York became the second largest city in the world. This was the result of monopolies capitalizing in America. Industries were booming; however, the common people were suffering greatly. The men behind these monopolies, incorrectly known by many as captains of industry, are more accurately known as robber barons. While this remains true, the business men of the Gilded Age were captains of industry to an extent.

Although many citizens viewed capitalists as “Captains of Industry,” they can also, just as easily, be seen as “Robber Barons.” Even though railroads were beneficial to society, they were not without corruption, as shown by the Credit Mobilier scandal. This was a railroad company that paid itself huge sums of money for small railroad construction. In fact, it received twenty-three million dollars in profit. Moreover, the railroad industry could be seen as completely insincere and dishonest because of its monopoles.

However it does have so great major parts. To start off, America’s economic equality gap is huge, which is constantly a disturbing factor. On misconception often made about economic inequality is that “the poor are poor because the rich are rich”; this would be a false statement. The rich often own profitable business creating big enterprises. On the other hand, the poor have to go thorough circumstance, which makes their life at the economical stage it is now.

In this paper, I will discuss how the book, The Trouble With Billionaires highlights the sociological concepts of social class, work and social mobility. These major concepts are all tied together by the hijacking of the world’s economic system at the hands of the super-rich which has resulted in worsening social programs due to tax cuts that help the lucky few and subject the rest of the population to economic stagnation. Of all the issues brought up in The Trouble With Billionaires, the most persistent throughout the book is the issue of class, and more specifically social stratification. The class textbook defines social stratification as, “an institutionalized system of social inequality.