Historical Development of Capitalism in the United States and Its Affects on the American Family


Book Description

This book takes a giant step out of conventional thinking, and proceeds to establish the inseparable connection that exists between the American Family and capitalism. Too often, answers to the critical questions of American family decay are sought separately from the interdependent history it shares with the economic system in which it takes place. By choosing to end our search for cause within the effect of American family decay, and by using this new freedom of inquiry, we can return to a time in our history when the American family was free of the great troubles it is undergoing today. By doing so, it is possible to discover at what point the fabric of the American family began to unravel. Once we see when the problem began and what caused it, this makes it possible to take individual and collective action to change and reproduce the American family anew, exclusive of violence and war.




HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN THE UNITED STATES AND ITS AFFECTS ON THE AMERICAN FAMILY: 1920 TO 1960


Book Description

Since the 18th Century, Americans have engaged in the pursuit of happiness through the consumption of material things. It is written in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution that Americans have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Interestingly, the pursuit has resulted in suicide for more white males 65 years old and over than any other age group. Louisiana is the second most unhealthiest state in America, and 40 million Americans live without any health insurance. These signs of unhappiness have continued to evolve over time. By 1950, Americans produced $43.7 billion worth of manufactured goods, and by 1958, $141 billion. The average annual salary for males was $2,831 in 1958; $1,559 for females. During this time, the American household was classified as husband-wife. In 1920, 86.0 percent were husband-wife; by 1960, this percent declined to 70.0 percent. Divorce accelerated by 1960. During the 1950s, the husband-wife household was already rapidly giving way to a new form-"Single-Parent." If this pursuit of happiness through object consumption is working, then, the reverse would be true. To grasp the social decay occurring in American society today, it is essential to understand the 1920 to 1960 period.




Capitalism in America


Book Description

From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economist writer and historian, the full, epic story of America's evolution from a small patchwork of threadbare colonies to the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation the world has ever seen. Shortlisted for the 2018 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award From even the start of his fabled career, Alan Greenspan was duly famous for his deep understanding of even the most arcane corners of the American economy, and his restless curiosity to know even more. To the extent possible, he has made a science of understanding how the US economy works almost as a living organism--how it grows and changes, surges and stalls. He has made a particular study of the question of productivity growth, at the heart of which is the riddle of innovation. Where does innovation come from, and how does it spread through a society? And why do some eras see the fruits of innovation spread more democratically, and others, including our own, see the opposite? In Capitalism in America, Greenspan distills a lifetime of grappling with these questions into a thrilling and profound master reckoning with the decisive drivers of the US economy over the course of its history. In partnership with the celebrated Economist journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge, he unfolds a tale involving vast landscapes, titanic figures, triumphant breakthroughs, enlightenment ideals as well as terrible moral failings. Every crucial debate is here--from the role of slavery in the antebellum Southern economy to the real impact of FDR's New Deal to America's violent mood swings in its openness to global trade and its impact. But to read Capitalism in America is above all to be stirred deeply by the extraordinary productive energies unleashed by millions of ordinary Americans that have driven this country to unprecedented heights of power and prosperity. At heart, the authors argue, America's genius has been its unique tolerance for the effects of creative destruction, the ceaseless churn of the old giving way to the new, driven by new people and new ideas. Often messy and painful, creative destruction has also lifted almost all Americans to standards of living unimaginable to even the wealthiest citizens of the world a few generations past. A sense of justice and human decency demands that those who bear the brunt of the pain of change be protected, but America has always accepted more pain for more gain, and its vaunted rise cannot otherwise be understood, or its challenges faced, without recognizing this legacy. For now, in our time, productivity growth has stalled again, stirring up the populist furies. There's no better moment to apply the lessons of history to the most pressing question we face, that of whether the United States will preserve its preeminence, or see its leadership pass to other, inevitably less democratic powers.




Highest Stage Of The Development Of Capitalism In The United States And Its Effects On The American Family, Volume III, Book I, 1960 To 1980


Book Description

For 10,000 years before any European immigrants arrived on the North American Continent, Native American Indians engaged in a communal lifestyle. From 1600 to 1791, American Colonists established a thriving home production economy, and having ownership of their tools, or means of production, they produced everything they needed to survive. They were self-reliant, and the American Colonists sold their excess goods to merchants, who resold them for a profit. By 1791, the merchants were able to start the first textile factories as a result, which brought an abrupt end to the home production economy, and the beginning of American Capitalism. Former independent colonists were now forced into the textile factory, and the first wage contract appeared in America. The wage contract also set in motion a contradiction between the capitalist owners of the means of production and the new American Working Class. The wage contract allowed the owners of working class labor, and the instruments of production, to evolve into an American Ruling Class, and the producers of all commodities and wealth became the American Working Class People wage-workers class. Because of their divergent interests, the two classes formed a class contradiction, and the latter became known as the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite and the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers. This development occurred mainly in the northern factory economy, while in the South, uncompensated African Slave Labor was dominant, which was owned by an American Slaveholding Class. By 1860, the contradiction between the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite owner of the wage labor system came into a head-on contradiction with uncompensated African Slave Labor, and a bloody Civil War was fought to determine which type of means of production would prevail and dominate during the 20th Century? The South was defeated, and the wage contract system became nationalized. Therefore, throughout the twentieth Century, including the beginning of the new Millennium, the capitalist American Ruling Class Opposite expropriated the labor’s product of the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers, which resulted in this class accumulation of multiple-billions of dollars of Surplus-Value, and simultaneously this loss translated into the American Working Class Opposite (People) wage-workers’ increasing alienation, estrangement, loss self-identity, self-expression, and freedom.




The Memoir of Joseph Pierce Braud, Md: His Life Journey on the Gravel Road and Beyond


Book Description

This memoir highlights a compelling story of tragedy and triumph during the Jim Crow and separate but equal era in the Deep South. The book traces the evolution of Joseph Pierce Braud, from his humble birthplace in A-Bend in Ascension Parish to his graduation from Howard University Medical School in 1958 and thereafter. Braud overcame the death of his father and helped support the family by scrapping rice and potatoes and shining shoes on Carrollton Street in New Orleans. During the 1930s and 1940s, his family received only $18 per month for seven siblings. Before earning his medical degree from Howard University Medical School in 1958, Braud helped his siblings obtain a college education. Subsequently, he opened his medical practice in New Orleans and held a staff position at Flint-Goodridge Hospital of Dillard University. From Brookstown with its 300 residents, Dr. Braud paved the way for six members of his Braud Family Group to become Medical Doctors, including (14) BS degrees, (4) Masters Degrees, (1) Juris Doctorate, (1) Doctor of Philosophy, and (1) nurse. Find out how Braud beat the odds to earn his education and pave the way for other Blacks to enter the medical field.




The Sugar King of California


Book Description

Claus Spreckels (1828–1908) emigrated from his homeland of Germany to the United States with only seventy-five cents in his pocket, built a sugar empire, and became one of the richest Americans in history alongside John D. Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates. Migrating to San Francisco after the gold rush, Spreckels built the largest sugar beet factory of its kind in the United States. His sugar beet production in the Salinas Valley changed the focus of valley agriculture from dry to irrigated crops, resulting in the vast modern agricultural-industrial economy in today’s “Salad Bowl of the World.” When Spreckels gave America its first sugar cube, he became the “Sugar King.” The indomitable Spreckels was a colorful and complicated character on both sides of the Pacific. A kingpin in the development of the Hawai‘i-California sugarcane industry, he wielded a clenched fist over Hawai‘i’s economy for nearly two decades after occupying a position of unrivaled power and political influence with the Hawaiian monarchy, while also advancing major technology developments on the islands. The Sugar King’s legacy continued as the Spreckels family developed large portions of California, building and breaking monopolies in agriculture, shipping, railroading, finance, real estate, horse breeding, utilities, streetcars, and water infrastructure, and building entire towns and cities from infrastructure to superstructure. In The Sugar King of California Sandra E. Bonura tells the rags-to-riches story of Spreckels’s role in the developments of the sugarcane industry in the American West and across the Pacific, triumphing in a milieu rife with cronyism and corruption and ultimately transforming California’s industry and labor. Harshly criticized by his enemies for ruthless business tactics but loved by his employees, he was unapologetic in his quest for wealth, asserting “Spreckels’s success is California’s success.” But there’s always a cost for single-minded determination; the legendary family quarrels even included a murder charge. Spreckels’s biography is one of business triumph and tragedy, a portrait of a family torn apart by money, jealousy, and ego.




Historical Development Of Capitalism In The United States And Its Affects On The American Family: From Colonial Times To 1920


Book Description

This book takes a giant step out of conventional thinking, and proceeds to establish the inseparable connection that exists between the American Family and capitalism. Too often, answers to the critical questions of American family decay are sought separately from the interdependent history it shares with the economic system in which it takes place. By choosing to end our search for cause within the effect of American family decay, and by using this new freedom of inquiry, we can return to a time in our history when the American family was free of the great troubles it is undergoing today. By doing so, it is possible to discover at what point the fabric of the American family began to unravel. Once we see when the problem began and what caused it, this makes it possible to take individual and collective action to change and reproduce the American family anew, exclusive of violence and war.




Capitalism and Slavery


Book Description

Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies. In a new introduction, Colin Palmer assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.




The Cambridge History of Capitalism


Book Description

The first volume of The Cambridge History of Capitalism provides a comprehensive account of the evolution of capitalism from its earliest beginnings. Starting with its distant origins in ancient Babylon, successive chapters trace progression up to the 'Promised Land' of capitalism in America. Adopting a wide geographical coverage and comparative perspective, the international team of authors discuss the contributions of Greek, Roman, and Asian civilizations to the development of capitalism, as well as the Chinese, Indian and Arab empires. They determine what features of modern capitalism were present at each time and place, and why the various precursors of capitalism did not survive. Looking at the eventual success of medieval Europe and the examples of city-states in northern Italy and the Low Countries, the authors address how British mercantilism led to European imitations and American successes, and ultimately, how capitalism became global.




Bankers and Empire


Book Description

From the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great Depression, Wall Street embarked on a stunning, unprecedented, and often bloody period of international expansion in the Caribbean. A host of financial entities sought to control banking, trade, and finance in the region. In the process, they not only trampled local sovereignty, grappled with domestic banking regulation, and backed US imperialism—but they also set the model for bad behavior by banks, visible still today. In Bankers and Empire, Peter James Hudson tells the provocative story of this period, taking a close look at both the institutions and individuals who defined this era of American capitalism in the West Indies. Whether in Wall Street minstrel shows or in dubious practices across the Caribbean, the behavior of the banks was deeply conditioned by bankers’ racial views and prejudices. Drawing deeply on a broad range of sources, Hudson reveals that the banks’ experimental practices and projects in the Caribbean often led to embarrassing failure, and, eventually, literal erasure from the archives.