Scraping By Seth Rockman
History 1100 Scraping By Seth Rockman
Rockman does an excellent job of going against the grain in this book, arguing ideas and points that were not specifically stressed in earlier documentation of early America. Rockman covers and references a vast majority of information however a lot of his points seem to overly engulf the concepts of Capitalism in early Republic. Capitalism is a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government. So unlike other historians or authors who usually only talk about the prosperity of Capitalism, Rockman doesn’t: he argues that the deprived work hand in hand with the prosperity, and without the ‘unskilled workers’ capitalism would have not been as successful as he also argues that Capitalism relied on the exploitation of workers unable to fully obtain freedom in the market place, which ultimately were the ‘unskilled laborers’ who were labeled dirty and devalued. Rockman still agrees though that Capitalism “…made the United States arguably the most wealthy, free, and egalitarian society in the Western World.” (Rockman, 3). He just believes it was the deprived, the unskilled but necessary labors that made it happen. Rockman also argued how exploitation enforced by Capitalism unified the race, class, and gender triad in the form of slaves, women, and poor laborers. The exploitation of workers by Capitalism which is the ultimate reason for its success, would be in my opinion Rockmans main argument as there are numerous times in this book he proves this point. I believe so because throughout the whole book he constantly voices how the laborers had no minimal control over their own labor and ultimately were beaten down by the work market. Rockman depicts the work market as violent and aggressive as it did not make life easier for the laborers that it employed, if they were even lucky
Rockman does an excellent job of going against the grain in this book, arguing ideas and points that were not specifically stressed in earlier documentation of early America. Rockman covers and references a vast majority of information however a lot of his points seem to overly engulf the concepts of Capitalism in early Republic. Capitalism is a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government. So unlike other historians or authors who usually only talk about the prosperity of Capitalism, Rockman doesn’t: he argues that the deprived work hand in hand with the prosperity, and without the ‘unskilled workers’ capitalism would have not been as successful as he also argues that Capitalism relied on the exploitation of workers unable to fully obtain freedom in the market place, which ultimately were the ‘unskilled laborers’ who were labeled dirty and devalued. Rockman still agrees though that Capitalism “…made the United States arguably the most wealthy, free, and egalitarian society in the Western World.” (Rockman, 3). He just believes it was the deprived, the unskilled but necessary labors that made it happen. Rockman also argued how exploitation enforced by Capitalism unified the race, class, and gender triad in the form of slaves, women, and poor laborers. The exploitation of workers by Capitalism which is the ultimate reason for its success, would be in my opinion Rockmans main argument as there are numerous times in this book he proves this point. I believe so because throughout the whole book he constantly voices how the laborers had no minimal control over their own labor and ultimately were beaten down by the work market. Rockman depicts the work market as violent and aggressive as it did not make life easier for the laborers that it employed, if they were even lucky