Class Division in America

Class Division in America

Pundits on Fox News have accused liberal Democrats of creating class division because of their efforts to rescind the tax breaks for the rich that the Bush Administration initiated. There has been class division in America since this land was first settled. In the Colonial Period we had the rich landowners at the top of the ladder and the indentured servants at the bottom. In the Post Revolutionary Era we had the landowners and shipping magnates in the North, and the plantation owners in the South at the top. At the bottom were indenture servants in the North and slaves in the South. The Civil War was fought, in part, to free the slaves but there were also economic reasons for the war part of which was to foster needs of the growing manufacturing interests in the North. Prior to the signing of the Constitution several classes didn’t even have the right to vote. Class division continues through out American history, but there was always the opportunity for most Americans to achieve some upward movement.

In Colonial America, many wealthy settlers were attracted to the country by the gift on enormous land grants. They were the top of the class structure. Right below them were the wealthy merchants. There were small family farmers who made up most of the middle class. The middle class also had some artisans, ship builders and merchants. The lower class was made up mostly of indentured servants who earned their passage to the new land by agreeing to work with no pay for a certain number of years. There were also some free laborers and farm workers in the lower class.

During the American Revolutionary War period there were protests and riots in Northern cities against the unfair draft practices. Most young men from the upper class were not drafted. Those that were drafted could pay someone from the lower class to serve in their place. Mutinies in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey by service men over lack of pay and insufferable conditions broke out in January 1781, and discontent remained strong at the war's end.

After America defeated Britain and began working on the Constitution, there were four groups who had no voting rights. African slaves could not vote. Indentured servants could not vote. Those men who did not own property could not vote. Women could not vote. Many of these people had help America to win its freedom, but doing so did not earn them the right to vote. Except for women, those who could not vote belonged to the lower class. By The early 1850’s most states had repelled property ownership as a requirement for voting. African American men received the right to vote in 1870 (The 15th Amendment). Women received the right to vote in 1920 (The 19th Amendment). Though all Americans had the legal right to vote by 1920 there were many obstacles placed in the way of voters from the lower classes, especially African American voters.

During the Civil War period, in the South the plantation owners were still at the top of the class ladder and the slaves were still at the bottom. It was getting increasing difficult for small farmers to hold their own and many had to give up their land to the plantation owners in order to survive. In the North Real wages dropped drastically. In a six-year period they dropped by nearly 75 percent from what they were in 1860. While the factory owners were making enormous profits through war profiteering. There was a wave of strikes to maintain living standards. A number of states passed anti strike legislation. And troops were used to break the strikes.

Though out the 1870s and 1880s, a wave of farmer unrest known as populism swept the South, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. Populists protested the ever-diminishing prices of agricultural products. This problem was compounded by the deflationary policies followed by the federal government after the Civil War. The populists were also upset by corporate monopolies that controlled grain elevators and set train freight rates.

Rapid industrialization made some factory owners extremely wealthy at the expense of a class of wage earners, often young women and immigrants, who worked for starvation wages. The Pullman railroad strike of 1884 in Chicago shut down railroad transportation until the federal government was called in to break the strike. On May 4,1886, police and protesters clashed violently in the Haymarket. The workers were striking for an eight-hour day.

As the industrial revolution continued, there came the Robber Barons and Captains of Industry that Matthew Josephson wrote about. With the help of the federal government they built the transcontinental railroad and help themselves to thousands of acres of land on both sides of the tracks. Immigrants who laid the tracks were paid starvation wages and the land of poor farmers was confiscated. As the mining industries grew, so did the company store which held the workers in constant debt.

During the first and second world wars, the working class in most cases made strides towards a living wage and more possibilities for upward mobility. The war effort allowed many workers to enter higher paying jobs. Roosevelt’s New Deal and free college for returning vets allowed many in the lower classes to get the education that would allow them to climb the social ladder.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Johnson’s Great Society legislation helped many African Americans and lower working class whites to have access to voting and to a better life. Though the very rich at the top of the social ladder were able to maintain their positions, there was greater movement into the middle and upper middle class.

The Bush Administration set back the efforts to equalize society a bit when they cut taxes for the rich. Many of these very rich pay little taxes as it is because of tax loopholes and off shore bank accounts. They hardly are in need of tax cuts when the country is at war. One observer has stated that top 1 percent of the population owns 40 percent of the wealth and monopolizes 20 percent of the income of the country. We all have seen that top executives are averaging 475 times more pay than the workers at the bottom of the ladder.

There has been class division in America though out or history. And for the most part the government has supported those at the top. However there has been room for upward mobility, some times more some times less. Upward mobility usually comes through education. And though very few can make it to the very top, today a hard working American can move up several levels in his lifetime. This is much more difficult for minorities and those of the very bottom, but it is possible.