Progress, Not Always a Good Thing

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One of the few things that Americans can agree on is progress, it moves us forward, fuels the economy, creates opportunity, and is always I good sign for the future. But not for everyone. There is a dark side to progress, one that is usually swept under the rug in the modern world, but in early America it was much harder to just ignore the exploited paying for the progress they would most likely not enjoy. As a concept progress brought people together in spirit, but in reality stratified the society so only a few could reap the rewards of others' sacrifice. Progress was intended to bring America greatness, but not everyone could agree on that, some thought the idea was to have land and be able to produce for yourself, while others saw business and industrialization as the future. It is the basic misperception in America that progress is always good and that it will help everyone, because there are always loser in the game of progress who don't get anything out of progress. If anything to have progress there must be something to exploit be it humans, nature, resources, or any combination of such, our nation was built as much on progress as it was exploitation. Before one can look at the consequences of progress it is important to understand the concept of progress. As a concept progress is the changing of an aspect of society that would move the people forward to better technology, economic prosperity, faster motion of good, people, and ideas in a shorter amount of time. One example of this concept in action is the use of the idea of progress to justify the building of the Erie Canal. Practical republicans believed that good for the nation depended on three things, individual opportunity, prosperity, and the growth of both rural ... ... middle of paper ... ...an all agree upon exploitation will always be a vital part of America. Bibliography Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: AN American Slave, Written by Himself. Pocket Books, New York, New York. 1845. Rothman, Adam. Slave Country: American Expansion and the Origins of the Deep South. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2005. Sheriff, Carol. The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862. Hill and Wang, Union Square West, New York. 1996. The Constitution of the United States. Article 1, Section 9. Article 1, Section 2. The Northwest Ordinance. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. "Bourgeois and Proletarians". 1888 in Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory edited by Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy, pp 21-28. Higher Education University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2008.

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