11: Robber Barons and Rebels
Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:16 pm
I'll say first that I might not have done the chapter justice. It was rather long and contained such a multitude of examples, without much contextualizing, that I grew a little weary. That will sound callous toward the millions who are described as suffering so severely just to achieve a minimum of comfort, safety, and dignity. Zinn's view is that the dark side of American finance and industry is its main face, not a mere blemish on a triumphal march to productivity the likes of which the world had never before known. He doesn't crow about the wealth generated, as most histories would, because that wealth accrued to a relatively small slice of the population. I can imagine him thinking that for perhaps a majority of Americans (certainly a majority if slaves are included), life, liberty, and happiness were denied. Jefferson would have been appalled at the hypocrisy, but then Jefferson committed his own hypocrisy in penning those immortal words. This thought may touch on what Zinn as well as many others have found it hard to accept about American society, that it has fallen so far short of its stated ideals but has somehow managed to cohere, instead of disintegrating or erupting into violence--with that one huge exception in 1861 when the country had to pay the price for compromises made 75 years earlier.
From his account, I tend to accept that only by strenuous and at times war-like efforts were American workers able to force the corporations to grant them living wages and humane working conditions, and often they failed to get much. These horrible conditions induced what we would find it hard to believe today: a radicalized working class embracing socialism and communism. My wife talks about her socialist grandmother who came of age on the Colorado plains in the 1880s. Populism was then a much bigger thing than today, for all the talk about it. Zinn ends the chapter with the candidacy of the populist William Jennings Bryant, he of "Inherit the Wind" fame. Bryant lost to Mckinley (and then lost twice more), but the fact that populism achieved prominence electorally is more negative than positive for Zinn, as he feels that diverting social movements into voting weakens and co-opts them. This is not the first time he has said as much in the book.
So, is there a valid "other side" to the story? Is the story more commonly taught really bereft of truth? Again I would be more in favor of balance, while still recognizing the value of a good polemic such as Zinn has written.
A point of interest was Horatio Alger stories. I was misinformed about these, thinking that Alger was a character in rags-to-riches stories. Looking Alger up, I found that he was the author of over 100 books aimed mainly at young boys. He had a dark past, having been hounded out of the Unitarian Church when, as a pastor, he was accused of molesting two boys. Zinn says that such inspiring stories of poor boys growing up to be rich were "mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control." At this point I say to Zinn, "There you go again." While it's true that few of the impoverished became barons of wealth, did these very popular stories contribute to males succeeding in rising economically? Very probably they did. The suggestion that elites had somehow planted such tales to brainwash the young is faintly ridiculous. Horatio Alger was trying to make a living and taking advantage of the zeitgeist.
From his account, I tend to accept that only by strenuous and at times war-like efforts were American workers able to force the corporations to grant them living wages and humane working conditions, and often they failed to get much. These horrible conditions induced what we would find it hard to believe today: a radicalized working class embracing socialism and communism. My wife talks about her socialist grandmother who came of age on the Colorado plains in the 1880s. Populism was then a much bigger thing than today, for all the talk about it. Zinn ends the chapter with the candidacy of the populist William Jennings Bryant, he of "Inherit the Wind" fame. Bryant lost to Mckinley (and then lost twice more), but the fact that populism achieved prominence electorally is more negative than positive for Zinn, as he feels that diverting social movements into voting weakens and co-opts them. This is not the first time he has said as much in the book.
So, is there a valid "other side" to the story? Is the story more commonly taught really bereft of truth? Again I would be more in favor of balance, while still recognizing the value of a good polemic such as Zinn has written.
A point of interest was Horatio Alger stories. I was misinformed about these, thinking that Alger was a character in rags-to-riches stories. Looking Alger up, I found that he was the author of over 100 books aimed mainly at young boys. He had a dark past, having been hounded out of the Unitarian Church when, as a pastor, he was accused of molesting two boys. Zinn says that such inspiring stories of poor boys growing up to be rich were "mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control." At this point I say to Zinn, "There you go again." While it's true that few of the impoverished became barons of wealth, did these very popular stories contribute to males succeeding in rising economically? Very probably they did. The suggestion that elites had somehow planted such tales to brainwash the young is faintly ridiculous. Horatio Alger was trying to make a living and taking advantage of the zeitgeist.