Friday, December 6, 2013

Alright, we've had our fun, now let's get back to business


The Progressive Era is regarded by many as a temporary social, economic, and political experiment.  The Middle Class, and eventually governments themselves saw it as their responsibility to fix the problems brought about by massive industrialization and urbanization.  This reading portrays some of the agendas of postwar America as continually forward thinking, and that “welfare capitalism” was seen as the avenue for businesses to support continued economic prosperity. The image of capitalists as the new source of progress was both convincing and appealing, as their “free will” seemed enough to propel them to employ many, pay good wages, keep costs low, and thus encourage spending.  While this may have worked temporarily, it provided no protection to employees during the next inevitable economic slump.  It also made it appear that the new enemies of progress were not the corrupt practices of business but rather the continued vice and inability to assimilate among the poorest immigrant classes and ethnic minorities.  Perhaps this is why a candidate like Hoover was considered ‘normal’—not because he actually fit any previous standard, but he represented the old-stock Protestant American, and thus the best protector against the dangers of a “big-city” driven government. 

Sounds convincing, right?  In many ways it does, but to me, the paradox still seems unsettling.  Why were Americans so quick to blame outsiders yet again for the limits to the American dream?  Do you think Americans were duped by welfare capitalism, or was there some merit to this way of thinking?  And finally, do you think these thoughts still occur today, when immigration reform is a recurring (and seemingly unsolvable) problem?

16 comments:

  1. I think that the main reason why so many Americans were so quick to blame outsiders was because the “outsiders” were seen as the minorities. It is apart of human nature to blame other people for your own mistakes and I think that Americans were duped by welfare capitalism. This gave the Americans a good reason to blame the minorities because the immigrants were taking their jobs, houses, food, land, etc. that should belong to that Americans so that the can fulfill the American dream. However the immigrants that came to the country were the ones who took all of the jobs that no one wanted and worked hard, boosting the economy and bringing success to factories. I think that immigration is a reoccurring problem that cannot be solved because every country has the same problem.

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  2. Everyone is always so quick to blame people for there mistakes. Never willing to take the blame. Americans were very quick to blaming minorities because they believed they were taking away there American dream. Like Meghan said they took jobs, houses, food, and land. So Americans believed that the immigrants were taking there dream away from being successful when in reality there just trying to do the same thing. The immigrants were working for much lower pay because back home they got payed even lower and some times not even payed. So coming to America was a big change and helped many people but hurt many Americans.

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  3. After World War I, Americans became extremely united and decimated the Progressive Era's system of alliance among divergent interest group. Therefore, imigrants, who were considered "outsiders" became the ones to blame since they were minorities. Plus, the New Era philosophy added up to a picture of harmonious partnership between government and business on behalf of progress. Plus, Wartime conditions had created an immense demand for the output of the nation's farm and factories, and therefore the state of economy was great, which encouraged the people of the nation to spend. However, Americans were not duped by welfare captialism because the contention in terms of Welfare Capitalism, american businessmen had learned to look upon public service, rather than private profit.

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  4. It is natural for people to automatically blame someone else before thinking whether the problem comes from ourselves. This was why Americans so quickly judged the immigrants as the people who limited American Dream, which I think is exactly the opposite. The immigrants are or will be part of the American society who are part of the contributors of American dream. Also I agree with Jason that Welfare Capitalism did not duped Americans. It did actually make businessmen look upon public service rather than private profit.

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  5. I agree with Meghan when she says that the americans blamed the outsiders because the outsiders were the minorities. Americans wanted to blame other people for their mistakes and didnt want to admit to doing anything wrong because it would show weakness. The minorities were easy to blame because they were basically taking over the country by taking the americans jobs and land. I do think that these thoughts about immigrants still occur today. I think this because people from other countries often come into america and work illegally and soon become legal citizens and buy houses and cars and can eventually take over larger parts of the country by bringing their families here and migrating all over the country.

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  6. I agree with Meghan on that we liked to blame the outsiders because they were the minorites, and due to how people looked at eachother back then, it was much easier for them to blame the minorities just because of the fact that they were minorities. The minorities, like tina said, were the immigrants, and due to the fact that they were taking jobs in america people didnt take to kindly to that idea, and so they wanted to blame them for the xurrent problems because they were new to america , and the problem was also new. I also agree with tina on how the minorities can and will eventually take over most of the US, theres many studies that very sooner or later the majority of the country will be of the spanish culture. and that eventually, white people will be the minoritie.

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  7. As Megan said, people often like to blame others for their mistakes and screw ups. People didn't want to acknowledge the limitations of the American dream and so they blamed the immigrants and the minorities. And they used a lot of nonsense in their accusations. Immigrants were taking all the jobs and the houses. They were eating up all the food. And they were taking up space. If we looked more into this, immigrants were occupying all the more undesirable jobs, and for extremely low wages as well. You can't be upset for people for taking jobs that you never wanted. And I do think this still happens today. It's not a 1920's thing, but a human thing. We are always so eager to blame outsiders for our own problems.

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  8. Anybody is quick to blame everyone else, duh. At this time the mass immigration had such obvious effects because the population hadn't spread yet. More and more people just kept going to the sample places making it increasingly difficult. If immigrants were more inclined to move to more rural areas or develop more rural areas there wouldn't be this problem. Although this makes sense, at this time, the county wasn't able to create a small town economy in the middle of nowhere like today. So even though there was so much available land there was nothing for the immigrants out there. With the immigration issues of today, there is much that can be done but isn't because of the mass scrutiny reforming these laws would cause. The government of then and today doesn't want to put another huge controversial thing on it's plate.

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  9. As everyone said, people will always blame someone else, preferably a minority for their problems and wrong-doings. After the war, when the US was a strong unity, they were very closed to people from other countries coming onto their country. The immigrants that were coming into the country looking for the american dream, were the cause of the raising economy, cheap labor and efficient factories. As this boosted the economy, many people disliked the immigrants because they were getting hired for jobs that americans weren't because of the small amount of money they were asking for. In their home countries they would earn close to no money if any at all, so business owners could get away with paying them much less none than they would an american doing the same job. The immigrants were outsiders and there was less of them than americans which made it very easy to put the blame on them. I think that immigration is not a problem if regulated. As Paxi said, the studies conducted predicting the spanish culture taking over the united states is looming in the near future. If the immigration was properly regulated (which, due to the presence of this problem, it was obviously not) this wouldn't be an issue.

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  10. It is always been so easy to blame other people. In this case Americans, blamed the people that were not from their country, nation because it was just easier to give reasons why they were blaming them. Americans were very pissed because they were taking away their dreams. For example: the fact that they were obtaining jobs because firms could pay them little as they were not willing to receive that much money, while some Americans did not have jobs. Also, they were taking their food, and land as Meghan and Chandler said. That was hard to accept for Americans so they just blamed them for everything.

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  11. we live in a society that gives money to a bank which gives money to a "federal reserve" that loans our government money with interest creating a vicious cycle of debt. and then wonder why our economy suffers forcing us to find a scapegoat. it must be the illegal immigrants taking my money instead of the in debated corrupt government i live in.

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  12. Minorities were always to blame all throughout history, all the way back to the black plague (which was blamed on the Jews) and beyond. Now that we're more civilized, definite lines between countries are drawn, effective transportation is more accessible, and paper processed are made, we have immigrants.
    Immigrants are minorities, but in abundance, and rapidly growing in size. Since they are growing and continuing to come, they are seen as a threat. Human instincts kick in, and we realize that if they continue to populate America, they will become the new dominant race. It's a combination of common sense and instincts that American's felt that immigrants held down the American dream.
    The American sees an immigrant, and sees a moocher. They think that their family got here first and they worked hard to establish themselves, and it's not fair that these immigrants just show up, and get a job that could be going to a hard-working American. Today, there are moochers. There are many people that don't care about being American-- they may even HATE America, but they have an American job, to get American money, for their family back in their country, or to save up so they can go back and be rich. It has gotten to be such a "problem" (it's different depending on your perspective) that American culture is starting to change for the immigrants.
    BUT, there are plenty more people that WANT to be Americans who MAKE an effort to be here, learn about our culture, and become one of us. American individuals have a very us vs. them mentality when it comes to immigrants. Immigrants are not given the benefit of the doubt, because they aren't trusted or liked. Americans are competing with them for things that they believe belong to themselves in the first place (especially people in the progressive period, who just went through a bloody civil war for America's rights and the economy).
    The problem is, America was created on the idea of freedom, and it's thought of as a "melting pot". We have people with all sorts of ethnicities and origins here. Immigration won't stop, whether we like it or not. And unless somebody creates a clean, non-rights infringing, organized system to sort the bad eggs who don't care America (and are just taking advantage of our systems instead of participating and helping our community), from the new American generation, people will continue to have bad thoughts about immigrants. It will continue that way for years on end as it is right now.

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    Replies
    1. *paper processes have been
      *Americans
      *who don't care about America

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  13. I feel like immigrants have always been a problems in America. One of the reason that Americans were blaming the immigrants might be their xenophobia, which developed from world war. People were more looking forward to a homogenous folk community. They see immigrants as invaders instead of labor forces. For the government, they view the immigrants group as a working force; but for the people, they view these immigrants as intruders, who take their jobs, food and housing.

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  14. Like everyone else said in their comments, it's not an unknown fact that we tend to blame outsiders for our problems, instead of owning up to them ourselves. Throughout history, people have used scapegoats. This time, the Americans blamed the immigrates because they believed that the immigrants were taking their jobs. They believed that the immigrates had no right to do this when they weren't even American. Even today, there are still some issues with immigration and jobs. Many immigrants, some illegal, come to American to find better paying jobs. However, some are still working for much cheaper than it would cost to hire an American worker because they get what they can get.

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  15. It is always easiest to vilify an outside group. And with the influx of immigrants at that time, it was only a matter of time before the Americans would blame them for their troubles. Especially considering the contemporary racist sentiments that were fueled by the pseudosciences of craniology and social darwinism.
    I do think that there is merit to welfare capitalism. The ideal is for companies to provide benefits for their employees of their own accord. The only problem is that these benefits are not permanent, so if the economy turns for the worse, or if the company gets greedy, the employees will lose those valuable benefits. So although it has merits. welfare capitalism duped the populace in the 20's because the Great Depression caused the loss of all of their welfare benefits.
    Immigration reform is still such a problem because of the ignorant Americans who use the infamous South Park quote, "they took 'err jobs," as their argument. Overall, the argument against immigration is bunk because every American not of Native American descent has immigrants as ancestors.

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