Robber Barons Essay

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States of America was still young and had little experience with controlling business. There were no government regulations or laws of business put in place yet, so businessmen found ways to keep all of the company money to themselves and profit from the exploitation of unskilled laborers. They created monopolies that controlled entire industries. Thus, business leaders soon dominated not only the US, but the whole world, as well. Unchecked power at the turn of the century had led to a corrupt capitalist system with huge industrial monarchs that left entire generations of immigrants broken and drained of individuality and spirit.
Business leaders were very greedy and valued profit more than anything. Even safety wasn’t barely considered while the robber barons plotted ways to get rich and control the world. For example, the notorious Credit Mobilier construction company was hired by Congress in 1872 to help build the Union Pacific Railroad. The company had coaxed from Congress much more
To get by, however, they had to pay workers very poorly. The manual laborers that were essential to the prosperity of the business were forced to get by on a couple dollars a day. To get more workers, Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford motor company, proposed $5 wages to his employees, nearly twice the average wage at the time. Ford could not let this happen without compensating for the money loss, so he took away the workers’ privacy and rights to talk in large groups. He even would fire them on the spot for no reason. Also, most factory workers had to work 10-12 hour shifts on top of being paid very little so that they could hardly sustain themselves and their families. This exploitation of millions of blue-collar laborers was cruel and extremely greedy of all the power-hungry business leaders and company