Big Business and Labor Quiz

The business ideologies of Laissez Faire and Social Darwinism had a terrible effect on workers' conditions. Both of these theories were used widely by business moguls; it was not, logically, the poor who thought they were poor because they were not in god's favor. As ruthless businessmen like John D. Rockefeller clawed to the top, the workers under them were easily forgotten. The businessmen in charge of companies were so concerned with making enough money to buy out their competition and survive in the jungle of the business world that they viewed their workers as pawns whose rights were not a major concern. In order to survive, as per the theory of Social Darwinism (which stated that Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory was applicable not only to nature but to the business world as well), companies often lowered their laborers' pay while upping the price of their product. This raised their profits exponentially, and because the workers' conditions did not register with them, the businessmen could do this without guilt. Laissez Faire only encouraged this guilt-free treatment of the laborers; that theory stated that "whatever happened, happened" and the free market should not be interfered with. This meant that business moguls saw the poor treatment of workers as something that could not be helped. Workers were suddenly forced to look out for themselves, since many of their overseers followed a twisted version of Social Darwinism. This version stated that the poor were simply lazy and could not be helped, seeing as they were not in god's favor. This forced the workers to take matters into their own hands, and soon labor unions like the American Railway Union (for both skilled and unskilled workers) and the Wobblies (a much more welcoming group) began cropping up all over America. The Social Darwinism and Laissez Faire ideologies were certainly not formed for the benefit of the average laborers, but eventually they forced the workers to take a stand for themselves - an important step forward in workers' rights.