Issues of Capitalism in the United States

Student Name
Course
Instructor
Date
U.S. Labor & Work
The Civil War was a defining moment for the 19th Century America. Following the end of the Civil War, the American economy was in a transition state. What was an almost purely agricultural economy in the 1800s began to move to the first stages of the industrial revolution. This would make the U.S. one of the world’s leading industrial economies by 1900. However, the industrial revolution in the prewar years was mainly limited to the Northern region, leaving the South far much behind. For instance, in 1860, the South was predominantly agricultural, and dependably largely on the sale of staples to the world market, especially cotton. On the contrary, the North had a more advanced economy due to the shift towards a commercial and manufacturing economy. Before the Civil War, the economy of the South was primarily tied to the slave economy. After the Civil War, the economy of the South wakened. The Emancipation Proclamation threatened the very existence of the primary source of labor.
The passage of the Pacific Railway Act in 1862 was critical in transforming the South. The rail was meant to link the East and West. The construction of the first transcontinental railway created job opportunities for thousands of people in factories. More workers were needed to assist in the production of tracks and other tools meant for the construction of the railway. At the same time, more opportunities were available for the laborers laying the tracks across the terrain.
Douglas A. Blackmon’s “Slavery by Another Name:” reveals the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery, rather is just changed a name. The author indicates that things became worse before they became better under freedom for the slaves. The author indicates how much of the South was built by forced Black labor. While slavery was declared unconstitutional in 1863 and the South surrendered in 1865, many blacks had already been convicted. A majority of them had been convicted of insignificant crimes and given long sentences. These individuals were made available to the newly established factories. The steel industry, for instance, benefited from prison labor, as were the coal and iron mines that supplied raw materials to the mills.
Additionally, Gordon H. Chang’s “Ghosts of Gold Mountain” demonstrates that the expansion of the railway had adverse effects on the workers. A majority of the people working on the railway were immigrants from southern China who came to the U.S. to escape poverty. The immigrants spend years working at the Transcontinental Railroad. The working conditions of the immigrants were poor. They were forced to live in the margins of American life and late forgotten in American history despite their enormous contribution.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s “How Capitalism Saved America” indicates that the working conditions of the workers improved considerably in the advent of capitalism. While the working conditions in the factories may appear favorable in today’s standards, they were actually an improvement of the working conditions these laborers had been subjected to before (DiLorenzo 94). The business owners did not force people to w...