Zinn’s argument is that the government and rich corporations were working together to further their interests, at the the expense of the poor. By stratifying different racial, ethnic, and gender groups, and rewarding them differently, revolutions were able to be suppressed. Zinn says, “the black would be put back; the strikes of white workers would not be tolerated; the industrial and political elites of North and South would take hold of the country and organize the greatest march of economic growth...They would do it with the aid of, and at the expense of, black, white, chinese, European immigrant, and female labor, rewarding them differently by race, sex, etc… in such a way as to create separate levels of oppression- a skillful terracing …show more content…
He was able to sell steel for a large profit because Congress placed a tariff on foreign steel. This allowed Carnegie to raise his prices for steel to allow him to make a huge profit. J.P. Morgan then bought Carnegie’s very successful steel company, along with several other ones, and formed the US Steel Corporation. According to Zinn, Morgan and Carnegie were able to make such absurd profits “By making sure Congress passed tariffs keeping out foreign steel; by closing off competition and maintaining the price at $28 a ton; and by working 200,000 men twelve hours a day for wages that barely kept their families alive.”
The last piece of evidence that Zinn uses is the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This act was called “An Act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints” and was supposed to protect interstate and foreign commerce and dissolve monopolies. Corporations found loopholes to preserve their monopolies and use the Act instead to combat workers’ strikes and higher income tax rates.
The 14th Amendment was created to help protect the rights of blacks, but instead was twisted to benefit corporations. In 1886, 230 state laws that regulated corporations were abolished. Of all the Supreme Court cases about the Fourteenth Amendment from 1890 to 1910, 19 were about the rights of blacks, and 288 were about
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He also states, “Let us remember there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings.” This is obvious false propagation of the American Dream, blaming people who are unable to acheive it on their own actions rather than the economic situation in which they exist. Very few people become successful, it is irrational to believe that all of those people fail to succeed for the sole reason that they do not work hard enough. It is basic ignorance of the capitalistic systems upon which both the economy and society is
Working together, Carnegie and Vanderbilt had created an industrial machine so powerful, that nothing stood in its path. This is much similar to how Microsoft has monopolized the computer software industry by eliminating competition and using questionable means of obtaining their place on the hierarchy of corporations in the bus...
Despite the negative encounters of Andrew Carnegie’s Steel Company, the exploration and exchange of Carnegie Steel is that the steel was cheap. This had a positive impact on the United States because steel fed national growth, steel meant more jobs, national prestige, and a higher quality of life for
The 14th Amendment was made in 1868 to allow every person who was born in America or who had become an American citizen to have the same rights as any other citizen. Additionally, they were also a citizen of whatever state they lived in. No state in America was allowed to make laws that limit US citizens’ rights and protection, execute people, imprison people or take their property away without a legal process.
Whites never gave total freedom to African Americans. Blacks were forced to endure curfews, passes, and living on rented land, which put them in a similar situation as slaves. In 1866, the KKK started a wave of violence and abuse against negroes in the south, destroying their properties, assaulting and killing them in different ways, just because angry white people do not want the blacks to stand up and join in political or any kind of issues or freedom. The Fourteenth Amendment did surely constitute the biggest development of government force following the approval of the Constitution.
...dom and right to vote established by the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, blacks were still oppressed by strong black codes and Jim Crow laws. The federal government created strong legislation for blacks to be helped and educated, but it was ineffective due to strong opposition. Although blacks cried out to agencies, such as the Freemen's Bureau, declaring that they were "in a more unpleasant condition than our former" (Document E), their cries were often overshadowed by violence.
Now the question is how has it affected our present day lives. Over time, the fourteenth amendment has been used to cover almost all of the Bill of Rights. These rights are the standard for all US citizens and are protected by the Federal government. Selective Incorporation is thought to cover the first through eighth amendments, with the ninth and tenth being exclusively guaranteed by the Federal government. A present day example of this debate is that of the 2nd amendment. The right to bear arms is a critical issue when thinking of Selective incorporation.
Over the years Carnegie became tired of being in the steel business, so when J.P Morgan and his partners were interested in Carnegie’s Steel Company, Carnegie found that way would be a great way to get out of that world. Carnegie sold his company to them left them to $480,000,000, that was the second smart move for him. In 1901 Carnegie became the richest man alive, and he knew he had to give it away when he died.
Andrew Carnegie in September 1875 production cost was pretty high but his selling price was way higher, in January 1877 he lowered his production cost by a lot and the selling price went down as well but it was still fairly higher than what he was making the steel for,and in November 1977 Carnegie was able to lower his production costs even more as well as his selling price which was a bit more than what he spent making the steel. (Doc D). The main idea of this chart is to show that over the period of September to November Carnegie was able to drop his prices and costs significantly but that doesn't make him heroic. That just means he found new methods, material, or cut the cost of labor, this is just Carnegie being a good businessman. Steel production in the United States was very small compared the Great Britain in 1870, ten years later in 1880 the US’s production launched and was just right under Great Britain, another ten years later in 1890 the US finally passed GB in production but but by very much, ten years after that in 1900 Andrew Carnegie’s mills was making one-third of all the steel in the US making the steel production to skyrocket still in the lead at #1 with Germany and Luxembourg no where near and then in 3rd was Great Britain a little bit close to GL (Doc E). This chart is just to show the production of steel in the United States comparing with other countries over the span of 1870-1900 and to see how Carnegie’s mills effected the US production. This chart does not show Carnegie as a hero just how well his factory productions was going. Overall Andrew Carnegie was very good at being a businessman because he had a lot of financial success with lowering his production costs but that's not very heroic of him, it’s really only doing him good because he's saving
...ay from certain races, people, or women. This wouldn’t be quite as terrible, but the hypocrisy of promising rights to all, where everyone is created equal and then doing the exact opposite makes the matter worse. Women, natives, the poor, and black had to fight countless years just to be on the same level as their oppressors, with some taking much longer to gain anything close to equality. If there’s one thing that Howard Zinn’s shows us, is that America is not as great as portrayed and some of our great American heroes are quite monstrous and supports Mary Elizabeth Lease’s opinion that “this is nation of inconsistencies.”
In “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, the focal point of chapter 17 was an issue for decades and was not enforced after Civil Rights Acts were passed and that was the inequality amongst the blacks and whites through slavery and segregation. It also gave an insight to how African Americans felt through these times and how they began to express themselves through blues, jazz, and poems. Blues were known to have expressions of anger as opposed to jazz that was rebellious. The thoughts of African American poems were often masked, but had a very significant meaning. Through the event where “President Truman in late 1946 appointed a Committee on Civil Rights, which recommended that the civil rights section of the Department
... many other things! “The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute quality of the two raves before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinction based upon color, or to enforce social as distinguished from political quality, or a commingling of the two raves upon terns unsatisfactory to either.” This is a quote from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court thought that the two raves should be separate but equal. But even though the two races were separate, it was still not equal because there were much less public restrooms, restaurants, and other things for the blacks in America.
To understand Carnegie before he became a wealthy man, he grew up poor working for $1.20 a week (Document LV). At the age of 50 years, he took a risk by investing in a package delivery company. His gamble paid off and he gained money to start his company, Carnegie’s Steel Company. Eventually, his company grew and caused
Though the issue of slavery was solved, racism continues and Southerners that stayed after the war passed Black Codes which subverted the ideas of freedom including the actions of state legislatures (Hakim 19). Black Codes were a set of laws that discriminated blacks and limited their freedom (Jordan 388). Such restrictions included: “No negro shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within said parish...No public meetings or congregations of negroes shall be allowed within said parish after sunset…” (Louisiana Black Codes 1865). A solution to this was the 14th Amendment. It meant now all people born in America were citizens and it “Prohibited states from revoking one’s life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” This meant all states had to...
steel pipe tubing, Carnegie threatened to ruin him by invading his business if Morgan did not buy Carnegie out. E...
Carnegie saw how bad the wooden railroads were, so he proceeded to slowly replace them with iron ones. Carnegie's charm, perception, and hard work led to becoming one of the world's most famous men of the time, and led to the first corporation in the world with a market capitalization in excess of one billion when he sold his companies to John Morgan who called them United States Steel Corporation.