Gould v. Lloyd

Are government regulations really needed in the late 1800’s to stabilize industrialization or is “control by the government…contrary to our institution..?” To better describe the long time feud between ideas, we will be using two documents titled “Testimony before the U.S. Senate, 1883” and “The Political Economy of Seventy-three Million Dollars, 1882,” to compare and contrast the two different view points of industrialization. The first document is about Jay Gould, as a very rich “self-made man” speaking to the U.S. Senate about the problem between the two ever growing social classes; the social classes being between the workforce and the employers.

Gould is faced with explaining the problem of the classes and has to respond to its solution. Gould’s response differs tremendously from the response of Henry Lloyd’s. In the second document, Lloyd tries to summarize Gould’s life in one short document. Lloyd takes a very negative approach to describing Gould and his theories because they go against his religious beliefs/duties. Because both Gould’s and Lloyd’s upbringings were very complementary to the others, their stances on the historical problem of industrialization is able to be compared and contrasted very easily to best break down both of their solutions to the problem.

The background to Gould and Lloyd played a large role on their stances in industrialization. Because of the large difference in background before the industrialization, their motives have differed from one and other in a complimentary manner. Gould came to America as an immigrant that had nothing. From hard work and perseverance, he was able to work his way up through the ranks. From his ability to work from nothing to something he is a supporter of Social Darwinism that allows companies to compete and let the “fittest company” excel. Another motive he had was to get as rich as possible as fast as possible. Gould gained the reputation of not caring about who he climbed over to get his money and success.

Lloyd on the other hand was a middle-class protestant that considered himself to be a Christian Socialist. Christian Socialist is not to the extent of a communist, but Lloyd for sure believed in taking care of all people. Gould’s viewed taking care of people as a moral duty from God. He is able to view the positives and negatives of industrializing and the different types of people that were created from it. He sees a lot of the people suffering from monopolies and horrible working conditions and views it as his objective to stop it. He mainly wants government to come in and regulate more and distribute money and power throughout. The different views on competition during the time of industrialization in the late 1800’s had brought both Gould and Lloyd to a different stand all together.

Big businesses began to get bigger and richer that consequently formed many ups and downs in industrialization. A few of the ups of the big businesses was that it brought on new technology that helped speed up productivity, initially give jobs to more people, products became cheaper, more efficient, people could buy more, convenience to supply, better transportation, access to new or products that are normally not accessible, housing becoming more accessible and affordable, clothes more abundant, medicine more available and for cheaper. Even though all these ups were helping many people, in time they caused a lot of misfortunes and unhappiness. Many strikes began to form from little job security, safety beginning to decline, children having to work at younger ages, distribution of wealth became very skewed, farmers became less abundant and were forced to become industrialized and live in cites.

Much of the work became much less personal and more for speed and productivity. Because of the changes, many small companies were forced to stop producing because they could not keep up and were forced into the factories. The industrialization was viewed as un-American because people were being dragged into cites that were not exactly what you would expect from America, the land of vast opportunity. Because of the large change in technology, it caused many of the jobs to be performed by unskilled workers. Since the jobs could be performed by anybody, the jobs became harder and the wages began to fall severely. The living condition became very poor and unemployment sky rocket. The two historical documents use both Gould’s and Lloyd’s ideas, from the two historical documents, to view their solution to the on going problem of industrialization.

Since the majority of the documents were spent explaining the differences between the industrial beliefs of Gould and Lloyd there is not as much in comparison. One main comparison is they both tried to manipulate the current industrial ways to fit their solution to the ongoing problem. While Lloyd was more of a liberal by trying to change the status quo, Gould was more of a conservative that wanted to keep the status quo of no government interference; moreover, they both tried to make the other persons way of industrializing look inefficient. Lloyd views Gould as the problem in industrialization by being so dishonest and practicing Laisse Faire and Social Darwinism, and Lloyd wants to get rid of people like Gould and have a little more government regulations. Lloyd asks what should we call people “who travel by night and under-ground to betray trust they have invited…traitors to all the ties of honor, justice, and mercy that make the American community possible…?”

Lloyd puts a few of Gould’s best traits together to describe him as a backstabber to make his own ideas of more government to be more appealing. Lloyd is considered a liberal because he was willing to speak up against people like Gould in the second document. On the other hand, Gould opposes Lloyds point of view by simply knowing that “…the freer you allow things to be the better. They regulate themselves.” Gould does not necessarily state that he wants much of a change to the industrialization; he mainly states he likes it how it is with “hands off” by the government. Gould more of which didn’t want anything to change because big businesses were getting bigger and he viewed them all as perfect opportunities to “gain the confidence of his simple prey by assuming a position of trust as director” and use them to become richer and more successful. Gould mainly wanting to keep the idea of Laisse Fair in indoctrination so people like him weren’t slowed down by rules and regulations. The two documents are also very well analyzed by the contrast between their industrial ways.

There are many contrasts between the two documents. One of the main differences is Lloyd believed more in government interference and regulations to make sure people aren’t doing the wrong thing and businesses aren’t becoming too strong, and Gould believed more in Laisse Faire and Social Darwinism and the ability for one to always better himself. Lloyd could see, being a middle-class protestant, the cause and affect of people like Gould on society. Gould would betray people and leave them in his past not caring about all of the consequences that his actions left on the average working force and their families. Lloyd describes Gould’s ways as “…every thread spun by its poisonous spinner around and around a trust…” Knowing that Gould received most of his money by being devious and a backstabber, Lloyd tries to express the immoral motives that Gould acts upon. Gould used “…no ordinary trap in which Wall Street and the whole country were caught on the darkest day of all our financial history-Black Friday, September 21, 1869…”

Causing much horrible mayhem, Lloyd used Gould to give good examples for more Federal Government to interfere more with companies and businesses. Otherwise Gould would keep stunting our economy and doing things like buying “his law in the courts where it was cheapest, and [selling] it in the Stock Exchange where it was dearest…” The difference between Gould and Lloyd was night and day. While Lloyd criticized people like Gould for being dishonest and for being careless to the people in exchange for success, Gould would down play his horrible actions buy considering himself a “self-made man.” Gould did not give sympathy to people that were not wealthy because he firmly believed every man is capable of becoming wealthy; it depends upon the man on how he decides to do it. Or as Gould states “…generally if men are temperate and industrious they are pretty sure of success…I could almost always go back behind the scenes and find a cause for such a person’s ‘misfortunes.'”

Gould also overlooks the large social problem that had formed at that time between the poor and the rich. From a Social Darwinism stand point, Gould does not want much government interference or rules to stop the “fittest” men or businesses to succeed. He also puts the social problem in the same category of Laisse Faire, government hands off, by stating “I think that if left alone they would mutually regulate their relations… These societies that are gotten up magnify these things and create evils which do not exist” The Laisse Faire attitude allows him to make such a large problem of social status be broken down to nothing more than a mere evil which is only existent because it is magnified by society. From this lackadaisical attitude, he can avoid making himself look like the bad guy in society and seem like government doesn’t need to step in. To rebut against Lloyd’s opinion of Gould, Gould would state “to my observation in the field that I have been in, nearly every one that occupies a prominent position has come up from the ranks, worked his own way along up…”

Gould and Lloyd’s background variance has put one in favor of Laisse Faire and the other in support of more government regulations to be the solution to the problem of industrialization. Being able to compare and compare the two historical documents, along with critical thinking, has allowed better comprehension of their opposing views. While hard work and dedication has brought Gould to be a “Social Darwinist” “Self-made man”, Lloyd’s middle class Christian Socialism ways have made him into a very moderate communist that supports the well being of all the social classes. Between the late 1800’s and now the question between Gould’s philosophy and Lloyd’s philosophy is still a huge question, so for then and now there will never be an exact right and a wrong.