Uninvolved, Involved, and Distracted: The State
Changes in the focus of state policy and resources
Major global changes will elicit policy changes which will eventually lead to the transition from one stage to the next
The role of the state is to foster a positive socio-economic environment for the expansion of the economy
The Uninvolved State
Refers to early industrial times:
Specifically, from mid-1800-1930s
Focus of state power and action:
Fostering the well-being of the emergent business class
Eliminate any restrains on trade
Preserve social order
Protect national boundaries
Overview:
The Uninvolved State
Protection of property
Military intervention
Infrastructure
Business regulation
Regulation of employment relations
Repression of workers
Poor relief
A. Protection of Property
Protect and conserve the right of private property
Military intervention
- Supporting American property interests overseas through military involvement
Philippines 1899. China 1911, 1912, 1924 and 1926. Nicaragua 1912. Haiti 1915. Santo Domingo 1916. Mexico 1916. Also Hawaii +the Am. West
Russia 1917. Stop spread of communism
Protection of Property (Cont…)
Infrastructure
Building railroads, highways, and waterways-- government grants, financing the police
Business regulation
Control of unrestricted growth and competition of large corporations: anti-trust act (1890)
- Insufficient to prevent big business expansion
B. Employment Relations
Repression of workers
Challenges to status quo: industrial workers of the world, sympathy strikes, close shops
Government troops brutality
Courts are openly and consistently antilabor
Setting rules for political participation
Cleaning up urban machine politics
Political power with the more nationally organized and elite dominated party politics
Employment Relations: (Cont..)
Poor relief
Ideology: The poor are victims of their own godlessness or slothfulness. Stigmatized
Poor relief only for the "deserving poor"
Widows, disabled, the sick and the aged
Aid to the poor was not a federal concern: community and state levels
Also, union pension funds
First Turning Point:
The Great Depression
For capital
Banks and major business had failed
Danger of a major war in europe
For labor
- 1/3 of the work force was unemployed
- Migrations in search of a job
- Looting of department and other stores, rent strikes
The Great Depression:
Political Alternatives
Populism
Father coughlin for guaranteed wages and the nationalization of industry
The townsendites of California: old age pensions
Huey long: share the wealth movement
The democratic party
F.D. Roosevelt (1932) and the new deal
The New Deal
A redefinition of how Americans and their government conceived the government’s role
Early stage: social security, work relief, and unemployment insurance
Second stage: The welfare-warfare state
A redefinition of citizenship: citizen wage