Laissez Faire 19th Century

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During the late 19th century, there was a sharp rise in the number of profit-seeking corporations and there was an influx in the amount of laborers in the United States. Many of these laborers, whose main goal was to work and provide for their families, were treated harshly with poor working conditions and with low wages. They sought to change the system that was ruining their lives by utilizing various techniques including joining various unions and striking against the greedy corporations. Although the labors put in their best efforts to change the way the system works, they ultimately failed because of the strong implementation of powerful and deceitful tactics by the Capitalists. There was a massive struggle between labor and capital in…show more content…
Laissez faire was an ideology that basically allowed businesses do whatever they pleased and the government would allow corporations to take their own course without any form of intervention (Bailey 502). This ideology allowed profit-seeking corporations to maximize their revenues because there was no regulation by government. The business did exceptionally well because of the support of government. During this time period, the railroad was a crucial transportation necessity because it encouraged most of the movement out west and it allowed people to become involved in the market-system from anywhere in the United States (Bailey 512). To build these railroads, the government hired subsidiaries such as the Union Pacific Railroad Company and paid them with land grants which deflected the need to raise taxes to pay for the expenditures (Bailey 514). From then on, it created a special bond between corporations and government which ultimately paved the way for the defeat of labor in the struggle between capital and labor. From the very beginning, it was the strategy of business leaders to get the government on their side so that they could profit from cheap labor and poor-working conditions. However, at one point state legislators sought to take power from these nasty corporations but, the federal government intervened and said that corporations had protection under the 14th Amendment (Bailey 524). They said that corporations can be interpreted as a person and that corporations cannot be deprived of their property without due process of law (Bailey 524). Some of the other tactics that businesses used and developed was the bribery of high government elected officials (Bailey 490). The bribed officials would be puppets for the greedy corporations. Many people in government were bribable because they got their jobs because of patronage (Bailey 492). This allowed for a
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