|
|
The History of Management |
|
History of Management
|
Capitalism
in America America
for the mercantilist Europeans began as an economic enterprise
for the benefit of the home country. The Spanish attempted
colonization in Florida and the Carolinas, but firmly established
itself early in areas to the West of the Mississippi and south
through South America. The Dutch West India Company pursued fur
trade along the Hudson River, now New York. The Swedes set up
companies to similarly exploit fur trade in Delaware. While the
English Virginia Company, and its subsidiaries the London (James
River, Virginia) and Plymouth (New England) companies, espoused
religious purposes, the strongest motivation was economic in the
Virginias. As the
early English colonies were not financially successful, the
Virginia Company held on by granting settlers stock and land.
In 1624 Virginia colony’s charter was revoked and in
1627 the colony at Plymouth bought out the English investors,
leaving the colonies pretty much to their own designs.
The Massachusetts Bay Company, however, continued to
function as a business concern, with the governor acting as the
executive, and freedman, as the stockholders until the growing
number of new settlers made this authoritarian type of government
unworkable. The
early colonial enterprise rested largely on the triangular trade
routes: rum to
Africa from New York and Philadelphia, people from Africa to
Cuba, and molasses and coin from Cuba to New York/Philadelphia;
and, sugar and molasses to England from Cuba, manufactured goods
from England to New York/Philadelphia, and grains and meat from
New York/Philadelphia to Cuba. It was England’s management of
this trade through taxation on exports and imports that would
lead to rebellion in the colonies. Taxes and other mercantilist
policies by England that intruded on American economic interests
are the most cited reasons for rebellion in the Declaration of
Independence. The
Constitution of the United States (ratified in 1790) established
a limited national government more amenable to laissez faire
economy then mercantilism, although the early government
continued to follow protectionist trade policies. Domestically
the central government established a common market by the power
of regulating interstate commerce, ensured the private property
of patents and copyrights, prohibited states from interfering
with contractual obligations, and had the power to make a uniform
bankruptcy law, control national defense, and tax.
The Fifth Amendment’s “takings clause“ explicitly
protected private property and precluded the national government
from seizing property without “due process”.
What all this meant for national business development,
however, would be worked out in subsequent, often sectional
clashes to the present. This conflict was presaged in early
contrasting views of Jefferson and Hamilton. Hamilton argued for
a strong national government and a national bank at the center of
economic policy. As Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton’s “Report
on Manufactures” to Congress laid out a plan for land, labor,
and the use of foreign capital to advance industrialization – a
view seen as favoring Northern interests. Jefferson, on the other
hand, philosophically envisioned America as a farmer’s republic
and would have preferred to "let our work-shops remain in
Europe," a view favoring Southern plantation society as well
as frontier farmers. However, as first administrator of the
American Patent System, Thomas Jefferson personally examined all
applications and before his death commented "The issue of
patents for new discoveries has given a spring to invention
beyond my conception." Although
England prohibited the export of its industrial technology and
the immigration of skilled labor, Samuel Slater, an engineer at
Arkwright’s water frame factory, illegally stole to America and
established the first factory in 1790 at Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
The “Rhode Island system” adopted the English practice of
employing whole families, and thus depended upon child labor. In
1791 Alexander Hamilton employed waterpower for textile factories
at Patterson, New Jersey. Eli
Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1794 made Southern
production of cotton more profitable and gave impetus to the
systematic development of textile manufacturing in the North.
Francis Cabot Lowell and Paul Moody brought together the machines
needed for spinning and for weaving into one factory at Waltham,
Massachusetts in 1814. The “Waltham system” established the
practice of employee young women laborers, who were boarded and
educated in the moral advantages of factory work. Textiles
established America’s entry into the Industrial Revolution.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Next Page |
 |