Farmers produced cash crops for a national market.
No longer considered a peasant but rather "a specialized farmer deeply enmeshed in the capitalist system."
The Emergence of Corporations
Early industrialization: built primarily through family businesses.
Relied heavily on muscle and water-power.
Corporations relied instead on steam power.
High tech engines required tremendous amounts of capital.
Corporations became incorporated.
Originally viewed as undemocratic. Unincorporated companies were local and were viewed as "more likely to enrich their communities."
A New System
As corporations became larger, a numbers language emerged.
Questions being asked about profits and percentage yielded.
"Accounting translated energy into intensiveness into profits: more energy, more sales."
1850: The Telegraph system implemented and the emergence of the New York Stock Exchange.
A Change in Manpower
Workers were now being challenged by other energies. "They became free agents in a marketplace that had increasing access to coal, gas, and oil."
The corporation was legally viewed as "an artificial being, invisible, intangible."
Factories adapted to an energy-intensive economy.
Example: In 1830, a factory in Pittsburgh produced 100 plows daily. Before the use of plows, a man could plow a maximum 2 acres per day. With a plow, production increased 5 times.
As more tools were produced it resulted in "prodigious increases of efficiency."
A Boom in Agriculture
In 100 years acreage under cultivation quadrupled.
20 bushels of wheat dropped from 61 hours in 1830 to 3 hours in 1896.
As production accelerated, farmers needed to invest in equipment.
Mechanical Thrashers: needed for maximum output. However, by investing in these technologies, the equipment was now worth more than the farm.
Food was now shipped nationally. Consequently, spoiled food reached the marketplace.
Led to the invention of the canning.
Canning originally processed by artisans at the rate of 200-400 per day. By 1865, machinery could produce 30,000 per day.
A creation of brand names and advertising.
Mass production changed the national diet.
Food no longer relied on "the seasonal rhythms of harvest."
Heated buildings required fewer calories for body heat, consumption in food decreased.
Other Forms of Energies
Corporations capitalized on single energy forms.
John D. Rockefeller controlled over 25 percent of the processing and distribution of oil.
Coal was increasingly being used to produce two forms of energy: gas and electricity.
Utilities developed the legal doctrine of the "natural monopoly." One water system, telephone, gas etc.
Energy monopoly was "naturalized" as a condition for doing business.
Companies began a program of industrial research to maintain dominance.
New industries were created: the typewriter, the sewing machine, the telephone and the electric light.
A Dilemma: Who's Going To Control These New Corporations?
Socialists viewed corporations "as a logical development in the history of capital that would lead to state-run monopolies."
Carnegie, Rockefeller, and other capitalists enjoyed tremendous profits and paid no income tax.
Progressives: favored government regulation and insisted on breaking up monopolies to increase competition.
Workers tried to organize unions.
Waves of immigrants arrived each year, undercut workers demanding higher wages.
American Federation of Labor organized only skilled workers.