Midterm 3/Final Flashcards
What is meant by saying the wealth in 1870 was the same as having wealth in 1770?
Wealth was a display of the amount of things one had, not the commodities one enjoyed.
Author and main idea of “Slouching toward Utopia”
J. Bradford de Long
Before 1870 major inventions did not lead to any changes in the world order or lead to any waves of invention. After 1870 the “second Industrial Revolution” led to a series of inventions and societal reformations that shaped America into the beacon of innovation and opportunity. People moved from around the world to be in America and enjoy the economy of corporations that raised the standard of living greatly.
Author and main idea of “The Laws of England”
Sir William Blackstone
When men and women marry, they must be willing to contract, able to contract, and actually contract under the proper forms and solemnities required by law. When they marry they become a single unit duly responsible for debts, responsibilities, etc. A man is charged with disciplining his wife since he is also responsible for her behavior. Anciently, harsh discipline was used but modern times are against this.
Author and main idea of “Divisions of Household Labor”
The concise encyclopedia of sociology
After the industrial revolution, spheres of work developed. Households used to generally be self-sufficient but now the men typically seek work in urban factories (productive or paid labor) while women work at home doing housework (unproductive or unpaid labor). When kids are born, men will typically be less involved in housework while women increase their housework load to take care of the extra family members
What was the new definition of wealth from the second industrial revolution?
It is not how MUCH stuff you have (like before), it is WHAT you have
In what 5 ways did the second industrial revolution change the nation and world? What author/reading says this?
Economic growth
A shift in what people did for work
A demographic shift as a result of massive immigration
Urbanization and appearance of the metropolis
The emergence of the large corporation
Brad De Long “Slouching toward Utopia”
What were the general roles of men and women in their homes pre-second industrial revolution?
Men harvested raw materials, women refined them for use. It was a very co-dependent relationship
When women were no longer refining the materials their husbands brought home, what did they refine?
Their homes and the family morals
What was the biggest concern of a large influx of immigrants between 1890 and 1910?
Difference of values
Religion
Hygiene
Loyalty to Pope and not the constitution
What were the two big concerns of urbanization and growth in cities during the early 1900’s?
The traditional “Town Hall” meeting for democracy didn’t work for millions of people in a city.
Hygiene in a city had not been developed. Pandemic were common place
What national impact did large corporations lead to?
A huge focus on education
Author and main idea of “Two Kinds of Liberty”
Isaiah Berlin/Grant Madsen
Negative liberty is the notion that freedom comes from NOT having to do something, aka freedom from coercion. It is negative because it negates what others (like the government) can do to me.
Positive liberty argues that we increase freedom by increasing abilities. This means that coercion can increase freedom in the long run (such as coercing children in the US to attend school until they’re 18).
What is the “harm principle” talked about by Berlin?
Negative liberty argues that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
What are the two criticisms of negative liberty discussed by Berlin?
Heroin: If freedom is leaving one to make their own decisions, soon we see they make bad decisions. Even when a person gives themself to harm or addiction, negative liberty says we cannot interfere because all people are sovereign for their own beings. Even if everyone else knows heroin is wrong or harmful for them, it is their choice to pursue happiness.
The divided self: Because we are sovereign over ourselves, we can choose to follow our worst instincts. This would eventually make us a slave to them. Also if we become addicted to something, we deliver our sovereignty to the addiction (or worst instincts) rather than ourselves, losing the freedom we originally had.
What are the two criticisms of positive liberty discussed by Berlin?
Human Nature: Positive liberty has to assume some human ideal as a basis to determine what coercion increases freedom and what doesn’t.
Who, exactly, is in charge?: Because some ideal is needed to base judgments of freedom on, someone has to decide what this ideal is. Usually this power that decides the ideal is the state.
What are the two root qualities of liberty as defined by Berlin?
- Must be capable of doing something
- Cannot meet interference from other people to do it
How does the positive liberty as described by Berlin differ from the definition of liberty described by others like Adam Smith or John Locke (negative liberty)?
Positive liberty tends to reject the passion-based freedom and institutional design that informs capitalism and our constitution
Author and main idea of “A fierce discontent”
Michael McGerr
The Second Industrial Revolution changed life dramatically and provoked the importance and division of classes. He describes the upper 10, the middle class, and the working class. The middle class (Victorians/Progressives), and especially the women, are living urban lives amidst lots and lots of hardships that are somewhat exacerbated by large amounts of immigrants. The Victorians realized they were alienated from the upper 10 and the lower working class. Progressives didn’t like all the spending of the upper 10 or the loose morals of the time.
What was the context of the progressive movement?
So much transformation and a change in the way of life thanks to the second industrial revolution
Corporations had a huge impact on education because they were looking for…
middle management
How did the middle class describe the upper 10 of the early second industrial revolution?
Showed no discipline
Too rich and powerful
Too prideful
Gambled
High divorce/low morality
Too fancy with their stuff
How did the middle describe the working class of the early second industrial revolution?
Women worked
Children also worked instead of school
With their meager wages, still focused on consumption
No focus on thrift
Too catholic
To dirty/unrefined
Partied too much, especially in saloons
Too loose with morals
Danced too close to each other
What is the summary of the threat the middle class felt?
Threat to the family, too individualistic
Progressivism is essentially what?
The threats the middle class felt from the upper and lower class to their way of life/values.
Were progressives embracing positive or negative liberty?
Positive liberty through reworking domesticity, restrain pleasure, anti-individualism, association, state power
What specific group of the middle class truly represented the values the Victorians pushed for? Why?
Women. Through the second industrial revolution, women were no longer refining raw materials, they refined morals and souls and saw themselves as more virtuous
What is first wave feminism?
Women saw themselves as more virtuous and dignified than their male counterparts in the early second industrial revolution
What notion did women reject that contributed to the rise of the progressive era?
The double-standard
What is the 16th amendment?
Granted congress power to tax income
What is the 17th amendment?
Provided for the direct election of U.S. senators
What is the 18th amendment?
Prohibited making, selling, or transporting alcohol
What is the 19th amendment?
Women’s suffrage
How did women get their voices heard without votes?
Women represented the american virtue, so they compelled the reform of all kinds of social institutions to promote positive liberty.
Author and main idea of “Responding to Market Weakness”
Fox and Pope
Clarify the primary ways markets “fail.” Consider the role and effectiveness of the government. See why markets as the primary model for all social institutions may have some drawbacks
What kind of liberty did the middle-class progressive women value?
Positive liberty
What era was the only time in American history when a group wholeheartedly embraced positive liberty and was successful in their reforms?
The progressive era
Negative liberty is “you’re not the boss of me”
Positive liberty is “______”
“It’s for your own good”
What are some ways that progressive women changed city/municipal laws for their own benefit focused on positive liberty?
Creating jobs for themselves (City manager, commissioners, etc)
Creating structure in the local society
Keeping the streets/cities clean so that all white people (even the lower class) would be made equal (middle class)
What are some ways that progressive women changed state laws for their own benefit focused on positive liberty?
Created a bunch of laws around voting and office-holding so that it would be easier for middle-class men to get into office
Jim Crow laws to focus on structure in the society
What are some ways that progressive women changed federal laws for their own benefit focused on positive liberty?
Mothers are now consumers who buy their food (instead of making it from raw goods) so they pass a bunch of laws regulating food
What are the 16-19th amendments?
Progressive income tax
Direct election of senators (instead of election by state legislature)
Prohibition
Women’s suffrage
What is the 21st amendment?
End of prohibition
What does EMPIRE stand for? What does it mean
Externalities
Monopoly
Public Goods
Imperfect Information
Recession/Depression
Economic Inequalities
Market weaknesses that the progressives want to fix
Why did government get much more involved in the economy after the second industrial revolution?
The economy was no longer centered on the home but was way bigger and broader. There were unforeseen problems they had to overcome.
What are externalities? What does the government do in response to externalities?
A third party not directly involved in an economic transaction receives benefits or costs from the transaction. Can be positive or negative
Positive: government subsidizes
Negative: government taxes
What is a monopoly?
When one group or firm captures enough of the market control or manipulation prices + there is a lack of competition in the market.
What are public goods?
A good or service that, if consumed by one individual, does not diminish the amount of that good or service that is available to others. People cannot be stopped from accessing the good. (Military is a big one, a light house is a simple example).
What is the free rider problem?
Someone who benefits from a good they did not pay for and do not contribute to. A market failure
What is imperfect imformation? What are some groups that fixed this
A market weakness in which the market prices of goods or services do not reflect their true cost or value due to the lack of complete or correct information. Groups like the FDA
What is recession?
When resources are left unused even though full employment of those resources would benefit society
What is Economic inequality? How does the government intervene
Unequal redistribution of income and wealth as a result of the market having no moral compass. The government intervenes with safety net programs like social security, medicare, and other social programs
How is Hirschmans analysis of commerce challenged by the realities of the progressive era?
Hirschman said that greed (self-interest) was the way for markets to progress because greed would be pitted against greed. But because there was a boom of so much greed all once, this led to a recession.
What is capital L Liberalism?
Originated as the name for those who embraced Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Who is Richard Hofstadter?
Taught for a long time at Columbia university, won 2 Pulitzer Prizes. Early defender of Liberalism
Who is Franklin D. Roosevelt?
President during great depression and WWII. He’s the reason we have the amendment of 2 term presidents. Somewhat responsible for the usage of terms liberalism and Liberalism
Author and main idea of “The Age of Reform”
Richard Hofstadter
Woodrow Wilson engaged in WWI with the goal of putting the world into a progressive era similar to the one that the U.S. was experiencing and thriving in. Wilson framed the war in such liberal ideas that when the war was lost, progressivism broke apart.
How did progressives feel about democracy? Why?
They had a somewhat ambiguous feeling.
They wanted to empower the working class so the upper 10 would be checked. They may not have agreed with everything about the working class (like their dirty dances lol) but they sympathized with the working class’s plight
But they also didn’t really trust elected politicians to make good decisions. So they invented something called the Administrative State (or law) which says they want people in power that know what they’re doing. This is what made groups like the FDA
Author and main idea of “Annual Message to Congress”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
He introduces positive liberty as attached to the big L Liberals. Also used the term liberals for the first time.
Why did progressives (aka middle class women) form a bunch of agencies to ensure the quality of products and foods in the market?
Women became consumers (not refiners like before the second industrial revolution). These organizations create rules that ensure the quality of products
Why is the administrative state (or administrative law) different from what was previously in place?
They are administrative bodies that regulate just about everything. These are led by people with expertise and experience who are NOT voted into power, but still can create “laws” that have to be followed. Regulation and expertise is now embraced
What happened to the government branches as a result of the progressive movement to create administrative states?
They tilted power towards the president as well as towards the federal government.
What was happening in Europe during the progressive era?
WWI wind up
Who was president during WWI? How did he frame the war?
Woodrow Wilson, a dedicated progressive. He tried to stay out of the war but didn’t succeed
Lofty, highly-moral tones. In the war, but not of the war. He wanted to demonstrate absolute self-mastery
What were Woodrow’s goals about fighting in WWi?
- Stamp out aristocratic governments around the world and replace them with democratic republics (democracies don’t fight each other)
- Break apart European empires in the interest of free trade
- Create a League of Nation that would act as a regulatory body for the world (progressive thing)
Use the american power to reshape the world for lasting peace from war
What was Wilson’s idea for the peace treaty after the war? How did it turn out?
He wants to reform the world order so that war would not happen. He was met with measured, clever, calculated opposition to his idea. There were too many issues that could not be controlled. He ultimately failed and that is what led to the second war
According to Hofstadter, what effect did the war have on progressivism?
It “broke” it. By pinning the war to the progressive values and language as well as moral idealism, when the war ended in a hollow victory progressivism shattered.
Who was the president elected to fix the depression? What was the name of his plan?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The New Deal
What was the differences between progressives and new dealers?
Progressives were all about moral-standards
New dealers were all about healing the economy
What did Roosevelt call his new deal movement?
Liberalism
What are the four freedoms and where are they from?
- Speech and expression
- Worship God in your own way
- Freedom from want (government will provide for a minimum existence, which led to entitlements that are privileges but sometimes believed to be rights )
- Freedom from fear (especially for the marginalized)
The end of Roosevelt’s inaugural address
Author and main idea of “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
MLK jr
What did progressives generally think of segragation?
They supported it
What is the great migration?
The decades after the civil war that where african americans moved from the south to the north
While the north didn’t have legal segregation, what did the north have?
Racism which led to de facto segregation
Why did WWII jumpstart the effort to make good on the promises of the 14th amendment?
Because the military was also segregated, they needed to have black military leaders. This gave a lot of young black men leadership skills and the organizational skills needed to form a civil rights movement
What is civil disobedience or nonviolent direct action?
The method of protest taught by MLK
When Prof Madsen’s friend’s son was caught smoking weed, what did he say to his parents?
“There is no injustice in the violation of an injust law”
MLK four basic steps to nonviolent direct actions?
- Collect the facts to determine whether injustices exist (Is it just according to God?)
- Negotiation (Generality: unequal application of the law. Majority not compelled but minority compelled)
- Self-purification (
- Direct action
MLK believed a law should be tested to be just, what is that test?
- Is it in line with God’s law
- Generality (see below)
Just laws: a majority compels a minority to follow a law, and the majority also follows that law
Unjust law: a majority compels a minority to follow a law, but the majority does not follow that law - If there is injustice, you have a right to rebel (this relates to direct action)
Why does MLK say there is a need for negotiation?
In order for a change to happen there needs to be a discussion between the groups that are involved. This might also negate the need for action if a consensus is reached
How does MLK say to do the self-purification of civil disobedience?
Goal: draw a contrast between justice and law
The more pure the activists, the harder the oppressors find it to justify their oppression
How does MLK say to do the direct action in opposition to a clearly immoral law? How did Christ do this?
Goal: Create a clear moral distinction between the Rule of Law and the actual law
“One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty”
You should violate the law, accept its consequences, and in the process of punishment a third party (not the oppressor or the oppressed) will see the absurdity of the law. This will compel the oppressor to change
Christ broke the absurd laws (like healing on the Sabbath) and accepted the consequences without protest. This largely discredited the law because they even imprisoned the best of us
In pragmatic terms, what is the goal of MLK’s civil right protests?
Put into doubt the laws of the land so that they would again be cast into inquiry
What did MLK’s movement come to be called (not civil rights movement)?
Racial liberalism
Does the civil rights act in positive or negative liberty?
Negative in terms of expression and equality
fHow did Howard Smith accidentally make a huge step for feminism?
He amended the civil rights act to include no discrimination on sex thinking that this would broaden the scope of the act so much that nobody would want to vote on it. The opposite happened
Randall Collins would add that when racist attitudes get challenged…
They often respond with an ironic and sad form of righteous anger
Author and main idea of “The Substance of Style”
Virginia Postrel
Discussion of consumerism. When we buy something we buy it’s function and what it represents to us
According to Postrel, what paradigm shift happened among the corporations after WWI?
The war led to highly efficient production lines. The fear of the corporations was that people would still consume only when needed, meaning that eventually they would stop buying. Their goal was to shift the american citizen’s to purchase by desire rather than by need.
