How did the economic development of the Gilded age affect American Freedom - Essay Example

How did the economic development of the Gilded Age affect American Freedom? By the time the Gilded Age during the latter decades of the 19th century heightened industrialization and development in American economy, changes in social dimensions of freedom with inequality, democracy, and system of justice (Foner) had to be drastically coped with. To Americans, the initial stages of achieving an industrial economy occurred to have established a revolutionary social order that only raised confusion especially among the working class, making them suspiciously ponder and react upon the possible outcomes of social development for the nation (Foner).

It entailed a notion that such approach to spontaneous progress determines allocation of power and social security. In this regard, reformists of the period were led to conceive that potential peril exists with the significant concern that as a response to it, people of the lower class may act in tumultuous aggression in exercising their democratic right over to suppress individual economic growth thinking that liberty of acquisition of rights to property (Foner), particularly with those who could afford, would only emphasize inequality among social divisions and thus create on appropriating amount of common interests.

Progression of economic development enabled Americans to adapt to the concept and application of ‘Social Darwinism’ in their everyday living since the competition to acquire relative or higher advantage in upgrading social and economic status in American society had apparently become essential. With the rapidly growing rate of capital formation, GDP, and wages (Gilded), this condition concretized the effect of social freedom and transformation across vast critical regions of societies in U.S. in which most citizens began expressing individual or collective views by putting up labor unions that served to oppose severely improper conditions, shift schedules, loads, and unjust wages at work.

Democracy was put in wide and intense practice of articulating protest with the desire to take part in the evolving process of industrial growth. In this endeavor, they sought to be assured as well of experiencing freedom from any form of injustice or oppression of employers who were predictably consumed by the principle of capitalism or profit-orientation for use in business that required irrational gravity of labor at the expense of either skilled or unskilled workers (Gilded). Since Social Darwinism in human society advocates natural selection without interference from the government, the ensuing crisis with inequality due to the fast rate of economic growth that was rather favorable to the financially capable who consequently had been able to gain more in wealth was radically questioned and rallied against by the group class who were either receiving substandard dues or whose personal advancement was impeded.

Concerns toward personal economy further resonated in politics that the Gilded Age or era of Reconstruction was also witnessed to characterize corruption by the state authorities and widespread operation of fraudulent activities in the U.S. government. Unsettled personal economic interests had inevitably allowed democratic freedom to scandalize certain officials suspected of such misdeed or crime against the nation yet there also emerged liberty to choose to take or defend the side that justified the ends of attaining to optimum goals for oneself by covering unrighteous means with tricky propaganda.

As American freedom in social and political aspects proceeded to its summit under natural course in the period of 1870s and 1880s, state regulations were equivalently necessitated to place equilibrium and make ends meet between labor and business demands by modifications with contracts (Foner). Finding a way with economy through this age of industrialization had truly set huge challenges on every sector that aimed at economic growth and fueled each American to respond to stimuli and changes thereof by the freedom to enhance individual confidence with industries where one can be given appropriate career direction and sense of independence at functioning based on compensation not intended to remain at a single level.

With the abrupt pace of economic development in the Gilded Age, it may be claimed that American people got so overwhelmed that they became inclined to act and think ideally with the freedom to achieve equal prosperity from the industrial economy. Works CitedFoner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History. Norton, W.W. & Company, 2007.“Gilded Age.” 4 Mar 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age. 7 Mar 2011.