Decentralization, Kakistocracy, and the Corporatization of the United States

We have all been warned that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it*. Yet, in the United States we have a recurring economic cycle with periods of depression/recession and prosperity about every 20 years. The history of the Industrial Revolution and the corporatization of America are relevant today because we are on the verge of something that has the potential to break this cycle. Decentralization may be the answer to escaping the boom and bust rollercoaster economy. Some topics I will cover in future posts are industrialization in the United States, westward expansion and Manifest Destiny, capital and labor struggles, warfare and violence, and other related topics. As I learn more about the steemit platform, I will incorporate comparisons of historic examples to today. I begin here with a brief introduction to the history of industrialization in Europe and the United States.

The pace of innovation and adoption of technological advances increased dramatically in Europe after the invention of the waterwheel for power around A.D. 1000. The Industrial Revolution came about with the subsequent mechanization of manual processes. Rapid advances in technology, communication systems, transportation systems, and banking began in Europe in the late 1700s, and spread worldwide. New labor-saving machines were used in logging, grain milling, blacksmithing, spinning, and textile manufacturing. Innovation was driven by the desire of the manufacturers to increase the volume of their production and reduce the costs of labor, thus increasing their profits. This led to the organization of these labor-saving machines into the modern system we know as the factory (Gordon and Malone 1994:253,297-339).

The American experience in industrialization was quite similar, largely because the British industrial systems were deliberately duplicated. The decades between the Civil War and the end of World War I saw rapid technological changes in the U.S that facilitated the mass production of consumer goods. Trachtenberg (2007:ix) describes this "Gilded Age" as being "post-entrepreneurial," a turning point in American history in which the economy shifted in emphasis from production to consumption. The shift in forms of capitalism was from largely self-employed merchants and farmers to corporate interests run by professional businessmen. The pursuit of innovation and mechanization in America fueled a technological feedback loop of sorts. Unlike Britain, America faced a lack of skilled labor. The more mechanized the process became, the more unskilled "machine minders" replaced craftspeople and artisans (Trachtenberg 2007). The capitalist market economy also spread during this period, and by the early twentieth century, the United States had become a global leader in the industrial production of consumer goods (Gutman 1973). Industrialization and the subsequent incorporation of America brought about sweeping cultural changes and transformed workplaces.

Future posts will explore these sweeping cultural changes, such as the role of industrialization in the shift from rural to urban communities, and how deskilling of the workers and unsafe workplaces were factors in the labor movement.

Photo by Fancycrave from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-and-white-fabric-factory-hand-355135/

Bibliography

Gutman, Herbert G.
1973 Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815-1919. The American Historical Review 78(3):531-588.

Gordon, Robert Boyd and Patrick M Malone
1997 The Texture of Industry: An Archaeological View of the Industrialization of North America. Oxford University Press, New York.

Trachtenberg, Alan
2007 The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age. 25th Anniversary ed. Hill and Wang, New York.

*This quote is attributed to George Santayana, philosopher. Original text reads "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." http://bigthink.com/the-proverbial-skeptic/those-who-do-not-learn-history-doomed-to-repeat-it-really