Popular Sovereignty

While this blog remains a work-in-progress, the time has come to review key details of the project.  We began with an analysis of Winthrop’s vision of a utilitarian class structure that laid out the terms of absolute social inter-dependency and cooperation between higher and lower orders of human class structure, without which, Project America would have failed.  Winthrop maintained that a symbiotic relationship was imperative to the success of colonization, and that in order for the Project to achieve success it would require a moral commitment from the elite class of wealth-holders to support the lower order of labor, when necessary, otherwise all colonists would perish as they experienced the harsh realities of a New World that held no regard for class structure.  Rich or poor, if the original colonists hadn't established a collective culture that supported each other, all would die.

We examined the immense economic growth that emerged from the Industrial Revolution, as well as William Graham Sumner’s call for a social contract that mirrored Winthrop’s philosophy which was established over two hundred years prior to the Gilded Age.  However, as economic prosperity became concentrated in the hands of a few select industrial titans, the resultant economic inequality created discontentment within the ranks of a perpetually impoverished army of factory workers.  When the immense gap of wealth inequality occurred the social contract was callously abandoned by wealthy industrialists at the expense of the laborer.  And as Sumner claimed, language had failed to provide an accurate definition for what it meant to be poor.  However, he was able to establish the definition of a pauper; someone who is willing to provide labor, but is unable to generate sufficient income to cover expenses of basic survival.  This is substantiated by his claim that there were plenty of laborers willing to work, but that industrialists had become substantially concerned over maintaining their wealth.  This greed caused huge fluctuations of the labor market, which industrialists leveraged to produce wage erosion to increase their wealth.  The reciprocity of the social contract became one-sided.  On one hand, workers were willing to provide labor, but the wealthy were unwilling to share in their economic prosperity.  The degradation of economic conditions for the wage-earner moved a group of people to come to their rescue, which became the progressive movement. 

Visionaries such as Jane Adams recognized that gainful employment could create “a great sense of moral and physical health” for the impoverished unemployed factory worker, and so she inculcated a sense of moral obligation to the rising class of educated young idealists who were looking for a cause.  Adams encouraged them to provide social welfare relief by forming Settlement Houses which became a social welfare safety net for the impoverished.  Settlement Houses provided not only humanitarian economic relief they also became learning centers that instructionally provided the lower class with the tools needed to improve their conditions of existence.  Through a grass roots effort the average laborer learned how they too could affect change, by becoming active in the political process.  Seeds of change had been sewn, however, wealthy industrialists retained influence over politicians through large financial contributions to keep the self-interested politicians in power.  This action perpetuated the cycle of poverty, which was reinforced through the Spenserian philosophy of Social Darwinism. 

Social Darwinism permeated American culture and perpetuated an ideology that dictated that the key to economic success was through hard work.  For several reasons, Social Darwinists believed they were stewards for the poor.  Their convictions were based on Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which suggested that in nature only the strongest could survive, and because the wealthy achieved financial success through their self-perceived capacity for economic adaptation, they subscribed to the notion that lower economic classes were inferior and were expendable.  American society and the business world became conditioned to believe that economically disadvantaged individuals would eventually die off because of their inability to achieve economic success, and that because economically inferior people were expendable Social Darwinists believed they were undeserving of any form of economic aid.  However, their logic was severely flawed.  If lower orders of wage-earners were inferior and subject to extinction, then who would remain to work the factories that produced products the wealthy so desperately coveted?  Thankfully, progressives did not buy into the bastardization of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, and they continued to operate under their philosophy of humanitarianism.

Toward the end of the 19^th century, rapid industrialization and technological advances brought a sense of hope that all classes could benefit from a capitalist economic model.  This ideology was perpetuated by the popularity of Horatio Alger’s “rag to riches” stories which reinforced the American work ethic, which provided mythical-making tales of bright young men who achieved economic success through diligent hard work.  However, as the American economic model shifted from agrarianism to free-market capitalism, cities became inundated with pilgrims in search of Alger’s mythology, only to discover the purpose for their migration was to provide labor for huge factories that churned out products for an expanding globalized market.  Proof that Alger’s stories were myth became evident with the rise of urban slums which overflowed with crowded tenement buildings.  Additionally, the migratory work force saw their dreams come to a crashing halt when over-production and financial speculation from Wall Street caused a global depression in 1873.  The depression created mass layoffs as consumers became unable to continue the pace of consumption the industrialists had believed would be never-ending.  Factories closed as the economy experienced wage erosion and deflation.  The middle class was deeply affected when merchants could no longer remain in business.  Social Darwinists who believed the free-market would self-correct disallowed social welfare safety nets to develop.  However, this time laborers, with the help of European immigrants who brought socialist ideology into the mix, used labor unions as their lifeline during the economic crisis.  Cuts in wages were met with work stoppages that ultimately became violent then industrialist refused to provide a share of the pie, and when the great railroad strike formed an alliance of solidarity between all sectors of industry.  The railroad unions banded together with factory workers and disenchanted farmers who faced economic uncertainty.  Protests and strikes formed which nearly brought the railroads to the brink of bankruptcy.  Stubborn industrialists petitioned the federal government for intervention, but before receiving a response from the Hayes administration railroad companies hired their own army of mercenaries to brutally bring labor to its knees.  Seeing the necessity to retain social order, President Hayes dispatched federal troops to quell the uprising.  This resulted in the death of United States citizens by the hands of their government.  After the strike was disassembled by force, punishment was doled out to union leaders who were jailed, and striking workers were blacklisted from obtaining work.  The government had played its hand and sided with business interests.  To prevent further uprisings, the federal government authorized the armories to be built in major cities, and created a new form of law enforcement, a national guard which could be rapidly deployed should labor decide to challenge industrialists again. 

The depression eventually ended, and factories once again became productive.  However, this time capitalists realized they would have to form concessions to appease the workforce in order to retain social order.  Finally, economic mobility became accessible for various classes.  As technological advances such as electricity allowed industry to now produce goods around the clock, and as industrialists satisfied the myth that a strong work ethic could create opportunity for wealth, demands from the social contract created a new dilemma.  While economic reward could be actualized through hard work, industrialists demanded an increase of production from labor.  Once again, Social Darwinism reared its ugly head when a competitive workforce became ingrained with the ideology that a productive worker would receive economic reward, but under-productive workers were increasingly viewed as morally defective in character and mind.  The perception that impoverished people were inherently bad became a reality.  Another consequence resultant of the shift from agrarianism to open-market capitalism was an urban environment that functioned around the clock, which created a culture that perpetuated a mechanization of the mind.  This lead to a phenomenon called neurasthenia, which had become an epidemic as it infested the minds of “brain-workers,” middle-class workers who feared violent labor unrest could potentially bring an end to social order.  The concern of an apocalyptic future, combined with socially constructed concept of time is what fueled American anxiety.  Additionally, journalists and authors of realist literature tapped into the growing anxiety, and as they dug into its root cause, one writer in particular, Upton Sinclair, explored the rise in factory produced foodstuffs.  His bestselling novel, The Jungle, presented a dramatized story that documented the plight of immigrant workers who were forced to process rotten meat.  Technological advances in chemistry allowed industrialists to enhance the spoiled meat with dangerous chemicals so consumers could not detect the meat they consumed was contaminated and decayed.  Industrialists attempted to discredit journalists and Sinclair’s novel,  However, Sinclair published a rebuttal in which he professed to have spent seven weeks in Chicago’s stockyards, and interviewed countless factory workers, doctors, lawyers, union leaders, and politicians, and maintained that while the characters in his novel were imaginary, the conditions of meatpacking factories were not.  They were indeed factual.  A horrified public petitioned the federal government to investigate the matter, which prompted the U.S. Department of Agriculture to confirmed Sinclair’s assertion, as well as look into the questionable purity and efficacy of over-the-counter medications, some of which were toxic and dangerous for human consumption.  The investigation eventually led to the creation of the governmental agency that would eventually become known as the Food and Drug Administration.  Under Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive presidency public opinion finally convinced government to align with the best interests of the American public over the interests of profit-hungry industrialists.  The dawn of the 20^th century also offered hope that the days of absolute power of industrial oligarchs were numbered and coming to an end.  

While history has proven this victory was short-lived, as the country and the world would receive further abuse from industrialists who subscribe to Social Darwinism, it was, nevertheless a victory for the American public and provides proof that once mobilized, the electorate, through popular sovereignty, remains in control our republican form of democratic government, and ultimately our destiny.  However, American citizens must be reminded that in order to retain control of popular sovereignty they must participate in the political process, which requires voting in elections.  We the people have the power to hire, as well as fire, our elected officials.

There will be more to come....