The Jungle 11

The Jungle
      In the business world corporations want to have as much power as they can. The best way to make sure you have the most power is by controlling the markets. The way to control the market is through integration. During the late 19th century and early 20th century this is how companies turned themselves into monopolies using the two types of integration, vertical and horizontal. Vertical Integration is when a “company attempted to control the entire production and distribution process for its products , from extracting raw materials, to creating the product to transporting the finished product to retailers” (Gillon, 707).Andrew Carnegie used vertical integration to dominate the steel factory. Horizontal immigration is when companies tried to limit competition by taking over firms engaged in similar activities. The railroads and John Rockefeller were two famous entrepreneurs to use this practice. The main argument why government did not step into reform was they believed in Darwinism and only the strongest companies would survive.
Eventually when integration was successful in all the major business areas and it lead to monopolies the people who were not involved in big business decided that a change was in order. Intellectuals decided that Darwinism did not apply to society anymore and that people could change the society around them. Progressives and moderate socialists were concerned about the power and behavior of corporate America because the monopolies were running life for middle class and poor people. They knew these companies were not going change their ways and the only way to stop the abuse would be through government legislation.
The lower class was being abused by these corporations because they were the ones working the plants. On a daily basis people had to deal with unsafe conditions and terrible working hours. The deskilling of Labor deals with the abuse of the middle class. On Jurgis first day the manager takes him down to the...