Historians and sociologists characterize the second part of the nineteenth century according to significant changes in the social and economic life of workers in the USA. The end of the Civil War affected the lives of millions of African Americans who received the new social status. The development of the Industrial Revolution also influenced the lives of white workers significantly.
From this point, the capitalistic ideals with references to the remnants of the slavery system affected the life at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. In his work Slavery by Another Name, Douglas Blackmon states that the situations of leasing convicts for business and labor in the Southern states is the direct heritage of the slavery system which was not ended immediately after the Civil War.
Melvyn Dubofsky in his work Industrialism and the American Worker discusses the real effects of capitalism and industrialism on workers in the USA operating the convincing data. However, Thomas DiLorenzo’s article “How Capitalism Enriched the Working Class” supports the idea that capitalism was beneficial for the American workers, and its positive effects can be observed today.
Although DiLorenzo is inclined to focus on positive impacts of capitalism and Blackmon provides the realistic evidence to support his claim, Dubofsky’s argument on the role of industrialism in the life of the American worker is more convincing because the author discusses the problem from several perspectives basing on credible data.
The principles of capitalism shaped not only the aspects of the people’s economic life but also their social development. In his work, DiLorenzo states that capitalism improved the working and living conditions of employees in the USA significantly.
The author pays attention to the fact that all discussions on the workers’ exploitation by capitalists are only myths (DiLorenzo 93-94). From this perspective, DiLorenzo develops his argument to debunk all the myths and opinions about the terrible conditions of the American workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
DiLorenzo claims that the workers’ living conditions improved with the development of capitalism and usage of technological innovations. According to the author, machinery and aspects of industrialism contributed to the progress of mass production (DiLorenzo 95-96). Thus, the workers’ productivity increased, and many goods became cheaper and more available for workers.
Furthermore, the growth in production influenced the increase of wages. The rise of workers’ wages was rather steadily during a long period of time, till the start of World War I. Capitalists began to invest into machinery as the real source for intensifying the mass production. As a result, the workweek became shorter, but workers’ productivity increased significantly.
Moreover, child labor was not important and actively used anymore because the great amounts of work were made by machines (DiLorenzo). All the mentioned factors influenced the people’s everyday social life because the standard of living also increased.
Nevertheless, in his work, DiLorenzo focuses only on those factors which can be discussed as appropriate to support his positive vision of capitalism’s consequences for the lives of workers and low classes of Americans. In spite of the fact the author operates the statistics proposed by Cox and Alm as the evidence to support the claim in his work, a lot of arguments provided by DiLorenzo seem to be rather unconvincing.
The problem is in interpretation of capitalism’s effects on workers. DiLorenzo is inclined to examine the impacts of capitalism in their progress, concentrating on the role of capitalism for the current working and living conditions of workers (DiLorenzo).
However, the comparison of the employees’ working and living conditions typical for the first and second parts of the twentieth century cannot be discussed as the appropriate evidence to conclude about the real situation during the era of the Industrial Revolution. On the one hand, DiLorenzo’s discussion helps understand the process of how capitalism contributed to improving the quality of the workers’ life today.
On the other hand, the author is not persuasive in his statement that the workers received better-paying jobs and were fully employed in the early part of the twentieth century because of capitalism’s advantages.
Slavery and violence or abusive behaviors against African Americans did not end with the Civil War. Blackmon develops the discussion of the real situation in the Southern states after the Civil War, focusing on the aspects of the black labor. According to the author, many African Americans were imprisoned after the Civil War because of impossibility to start the new fair life without any properties (Blackmon).
As a result, businessmen began to use a lot of black prisoners at plants and factories as the cheap workforce in order to decrease the production costs. Blackmon states that the period can be discussed as the new stage in the history of slavery in the USA.
The black convicts were sold in a lot of states such Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, and the other ones. Capitalists forced them to work, and many African Americans experienced “animalistic treatment” (Blackmon 52). Blackmon uses a lot of statistical and historical data to support his argument and accentuate the significant aspect of segregation within the American society after the Civil War.
Despite the fact that Blackmon provides the credible evidence to support his ideas and discusses the problem of the black labor in the Southern states in detail, the author’s argument focuses only on one factor of the capitalistic development in the USA. Thus, capitalists used black prisoners as free or cheap workers who actually were treated as slaves.
The fact that ‘slavery’ at plants, plantations, and factories of the Southern states developed till the 1950s allows speaking about the negative consequences of capitalism for the employees’ quality of life and working conditions.
The working environment was rather unsafe, and workers did not receive the adequate wage for their work. However, Blackmon does not connect the mentioned issues of capitalism with the effects of industrialization (Blackmon). That is why, the impact of capitalism on workers’ life should be discussed from the larger perspective.
During the early years of the twentieth century capitalism and industrialization affected all the aspects of the American workers’ lives. In his work, Dubofsky pays attention to the positive tendencies in the economic development of the country as well as to the negative effects of the processes on workers’ everyday life.
Dubofsky states that the situation in the USA and the progress of capitalism was more beneficial for workers comparing with the situation in Europe. Thus, the USA was the real ‘land of plenty’ for many workers (Dubofsky 18-19).
The country of great opportunities provided many chances for workers to improve their quality of life. Thus, Dubofsky focuses on the statistics on the workers’ wages which increased steadily along with the improvement of living standards (Dubofsky).
The author refers to the charts and graphs with the data on the increase of annual earnings and productivity. Dubofsky states that industrialization contributed to making the workweek shorter and to providing workers with more leisure time. In reality, a lot of changes worked only on paper, and workers remained to have only few rights (Dubofsky).
The discussion of Dubofsky can be considered as convincing and credible because the author examines the role of capitalism and industrialization in workers’ life from many perspectives. Thus, the rates of wages increased, the workweek became shorter, and machinery improved the aspects of production.
However, workers’ annual earnings could not guarantee the improvement of the quality of life, poverty of workers was closely associated with the high rates of unemployment because of industrialization, and the working environments remained to be unsafe with references to usage of new machines (Dubofsky 24-25).
Thus, capitalists invested in industrialization and machinery instead of improving the working and living conditions of employees.
From this point, Dubofsky’s argument is convincing because the author pays attention to both positive and negative aspects of capitalism and the process of industrialization for the American workers.
Industrialization helped intensify the processes of production and make many goods cheaper along with increasing workers’ wages. Nevertheless, the living and workings conditions of employees were not satisfactory. Many people suffered from unemployment as a result of machinery and from exploitation as a result of using the old working patterns. Capitalism changed both the economic and social life in the USA.
Works Cited
Blackmon, Douglas. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II. USA: Doubleday, 2008. Print.
DiLorenzo, Thomas. How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, from Pilgrims to the Present. USA: Crown Forum, 2004. Print.
Dubofsky, Melvyn. Industrialism and the American Worker, 1865-1920. USA: Harlan Davidson, 1996. Print.