Group Think Sheet 1870-1930 (discuss & find pages)

What is a capitalist
5 ways material life changes
2 Examples each of Vertical & Horizontal Integration and each main purpose.
Example of Invention as subordinate to Commerce
How is Horatio Alger a "morality tale"?
What's watered stock? Identify/understand two other Gould tactics.
In what way were Robber-Barons 'consolidators' and at what opportunity cost?
Any parallel between pix pp 157 & 160?
Who was Spencer and how was he not Darwinian?
What is conspicuous consumption & current example?
How did Carnegie regard inequality? How did he regard his own wealth in 1868 vs. 1875? What
did he think was a fitting epitaph (for him)? His def. of success?
What was the original purpose of 1855 Table of Organization & how did it leverage power. Any
contemporary parallels?
True or False? In 1910 the best way to rise to corporate power was by starting your own
company? In 2008?
Find definition of Economies of Scale.
Explain competition for market share: Use P P' flowchart, [H-177, 201, 203] charts & [H-182]
"rivers of output." In what way is this a zero-sum game?
Bessemer needed to invent what in order to invent what and how did he do it?
Why is mechanization essential to capitalism? (Use steel as example)
List 15 usages (products) of steel emerging during Age of Steel?
Give three industrial examples of the Mega-Era?
What is the invisible hand? What is a visible hand (three macro examples)?
Why the Leap Overseas and how is it connected to Dollar Diplomacy?
Carnegie observed that it cost less to keep machines running than to shut down factories. How
does this rational business decision bite the economy?
[H] calls MNCs social organizations. What does he mean?
Identify three advantages of incorporation.
Is it fair for corporations to be legal persons?
Who Owns America? Who controls America? Is America a Class Society?
What is the relationship of savings to investment?

"The Gilded Age was a period of extreme business uncertainty" [H-194] Explain
Panic & Pain. Work by day/Worry by Night. Boom/Bust. All describe what?
How long is a business cycle? Do we still have them?
How are trusts, mergers, cartels all rational market outcomes? Their purpose?
What Blowback do these inspire?
Cite two reasons why government regulation over enterprise is an imperfect solution? [H 20810, 213 fn]
How does the Sherman Act represent both victory & defeat for regs [H 208-10]?
See price-structuring ex. [H-206]. Give contemporary example.
"Why is economic progress accompanied by poverty?"[H 204 ,214]
Name a contemporary Muckraker. What industries need muckraking today?
1913: What values do a progressive income tax reflect? What necessity does a central bank
(the Fed) fulfill?
From Robber Barons to Bureaucratic Oligopolistic Corporate America: 1870-1930
[H] Chaps 7/8/9 UNDERSTAND THESE :
Acceleration Depth & Breadth/Rhythm & Pace of capitalist Industrialization
Mass Production: Electricity, Machines, Steel, Cities, RRs, Chemicals, Oil, Gas, Patents
Mass Consumption Society & Material life: Routine work & consumer life)
Chap 10 SLD LABOR
SDD: From Robber Barons to Bureaucratic Oligopolistic Corporate America:
1870-1930 [H] Chaps 7/8/9
Acceleration Depth & Breadth/Rhythm & Pace of Capitalist Industrialization
Mass Production:
Electricity, Machines, Steel, Cities, RRs, Chemicals, Oil, Gas, Patents
Chap 11 SLD Mass Consumption Society & Material life: Routine work & 'It's a Consuming
Life"!
Chap 12 DEPRESSION
H steps back from material & economic life to explain capitalism as a social process of
accumulation. (Explain) [H 263, 284]
What does business cycle have to do with Depression?
Explain Keynes: Market run by animal spirits
Find 2008-09 parallels to pp 267-273. Find differences.

Is it possible for one individual to hold 65 chairmanships, 85 directorships, & 7 presidencies of

corporations? Why would they?
Explain domino effect of poor banking practices [H 274] What is the multiplier effect? [H 279]
Explain these factors of Great Depression: agriculture, post-WWI global market, income gap
(rising productivity effect on profits vs. wages).
What is Keynes' central thesis? What is his solution to depression?
What was the Taft Hartley Act 1947 and what does it have to do with anti-communism? Is it a
Union-friendly or Union-unfriendly Act?
Who benefits from an 80 day cooling off period before a strike?
What is a right to work state?
What is a Closed Shop (Louisiana etc. )?
Are labor unions for or against them? Why?
What is a secondary boycott? Who benefits from this prohibition?