The U.S Economy during the 2nd Industrial Revolution
What was the U.S economic system during the 2nd Industrial revolution?
Free Enterprise/ Capitalism Free Enterprise/ Capitalism: Individuals or groups have the right to own property or business with limited government interference.
The system of free enterprise revolves around the concept of laissez-faire.
Laissez-faire the principle that the government should not interfere in the market place.
Essential Terms
Stocks a percentage of a company which can be bought, sold, or traded.
Merger the unification of 2 existing companies into one company.
Monopoly one company controls an entire industry.
John Carnegie
Which industry did Carnegie dominate during the 2nd industrial revolution?
The steel industry.
What where the business strategies employ by Carnegie that enabled him to dominate 90% of the steel industry?
Vertical integration the process of purchasing companies of your supply chain.
In vertical integration, businesses are trying to control everything it takes to make their products.
Horizontal Integration the process of eliminating the competition by purchasing all of the competitors within the industry.
Horizontal integration permits a single company to monopolies the market.
Social Darwinism During the 2nd Industrial revolution
What is the origin of social Darwinism?
Social Darwinism proceeded out of Charles Darwin theory of biological evolution.
Darwin advocates two essential factors in regards to biological evolution.
First some individual species flourish and pass their traits along to the next generation, while others do not.
Second a process of “natural selection” weeded out less suited individuals and enable the best adapted to survive.
Survival of the fittest
What is social Darwinism?
The application of Darwinism to human society.
Social Darwinism revolves around two principles:
First strong people will prosper.
Second weak people will fail.
3 Negative Results of Laissez-faire during the Second Industrial Revolution
First without government regulations, companies abused their workers.
Examples low wages, bad working conditions, no sick days
Second companies who were able to monopolies the market abused people who purchased their products.
Third a huge gap between the quantity of rich and poor people.