Words: 631
What might I mean, “with rapid industrialization came rapid arbitration’? Describe some of the problems associated with the growth of large urban centers. As the business industry boomed and fewer people controlled them, many people changed their views on the role of the government in economic and social affairs. The majority of the people believed in laissez-fairer. People did not like the big gap between the rich and the poor in America. Most Americans disliked powerful governments and strict regulations of the economy.
The growth of huge industrial and financial organizations and the increasing complexity of economic relations scared people but at the same time they were greedy for more goods and services. Powerful businesses were looked at as a threat to society. If one company rules the entire trade it could raise its prices because it has no competition. It was the monopolists influence that worried people the most. They did not want big businesses having more “say’ in the government. As the monopolists were continuously criticized, they rose to their own defense.
Rockefeller stated that he wanted to improve the process of refining oil so that it could be sold and made cheaper (Cranes 473). The iris political action because of big businesses was first dealt with by the State and only dealt with the railroads. It wasn’t until the Wabash, SST. Louis & Pacific Railroad v. Illinois case that the federal government intervened. State legislature could not regulate interstate economic activity. In 1887 the Interstate Commerce Act stated that the federal government could regulate railroad prices and practices.
Which means the government can intervene in national economic matters. In 1 890 congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act which allowed the government to take down big corporations. The Sherman Act was loosely worded which caused problems. In 1895 United States v. E. C Knight the American Sugar Refining Company owned 98% Of all sugar refining but was not restraining trade. Therefore it weakened the Sherman Act. 2. Explain how Darwinian theories could lead to advocacy of reform as well as advocacy of laissez-fairer as explained in chapter 19.
Describe the rise of the new social sciences and the reaction to Darwinist thought as well as the impact of evolutionary thought on law and history. Knowledge of Darwin increased the already strong interest in studying the development of institutions and their Interactions with one another. Social scientists were impressed with the progress in the physical and biological sciences. There was a revolution in economics in the sass’s. The institutionalism school of economics members made detailed, immediate investigations of labor unions, sweatshops, factories and mines.
Sociology also went through a revolution in the sass’s. Beforehand the idea of government interference in society was rejected. English social Darwinist, Spencer, influenced and suited Darning’s ideas to mean that society could only be changed by evolution. Holmes published The Common Law which rejected the ideas that judges should limit themselves to the mechanical explication of statues and that law consisted Only of what was written in the law books (Cranes 515).
A wondrous thing about The Common Law is its ability to adapt to new commercial and civic conditions as they come up in the course of the worlds progress (W. H. L 684). Throughout Holmes career he stressed the right of the people. Like the society they regulated, laws should evolve as times and conditions change. Holmes ideas did not affect judicial practice really until the 20th Century. Historians in graduate schools however were more interested in studying the origins and evolution of political institutions.
The theory of evolution altered contemporary views of science, history, and social relations. It produced significant changes in American thinking about religious and philosophical questions.