Business Dynamics of the Progressive Era
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In his book Drift & Mastery, Walter Lippmann suggests certain business dynamics in the America of the Progressive era, and he writes his book form the position of a journalist, beginning with the then-current attitude of belief accorded those who made accusations against business, government, and other controlling interests in American life. He finds this situation somewhat incredible, and indeed what he says has resonance for our own age, given the dedication of many to conspiracy theories and to the belief that the "powers that be" are operating in their own interests and manipulating the rest of us to our detriment. Lippmann finds that the exposTs of the muckrakers found a wiling audience, and indeed he states that the most remarkable thing about the muckraking era was that "muckraking was what people wanted to heart" (Lippmann 24). He also finds that the muckrakers produced more heat than light in that they never identified the underlying forces at work, the reasons business and its image alike were changing, or the directions of those changes. Lippmann tries to answer some of these questions and finds that the people are trying to take control of a business system which was once the field of the entrepreneur and the creator but which is increasingly the field of the investment and banking experts (Lippmann 51). Lippmann points out both the stated view that the consumer is king and determines the course of industry and the fact that few consumers feel the power sai
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for the industrialized and urbanized regions of the North. Cochran cites a number of impediments to economic improvement including the size of the nation, the growth in population, and the localism and regionalism that affected some parts of the country and some ethnic groups as they joined the labor force. These "impediments," however, were also opportunities for economic growth, giving people more opportunities to find new places in which to thrive, new businesses to create, and new customers to cultivate. Change has often ignored some of the real problems that needed addressing, and here the growth of the nation was indeed a reason for the failure of the solutions proposed over time. Cochran says this clearly when he writes,
The traditional American approaches to social problems have emphasized individuals and what has appeared to be 'common sense' or simple answers (Cochran 103).
The progressivism represented by Lippmann derived certain elements of is program from the philosophy of pragmatism as elucidated by William James and John Dewey in the nineteenth century: 1) a commitment to social justice; and 2) a search for order and for the restoration of the social order. The goals of the Progressive movement involved
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1895
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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