What has Changed Since Upton Sinclair?

Upton Sinclair, in his novels, portrayed an image that corporate monopolies were led by greedy men who used the masses unrelentlessly to make money. The Jungle illustrated inhumane living conditions in the meat-packing industry area in Chicago. The movie There Will be Blood, based on the novel Oil, is based on greedy oil mogols taking land from farmers. Has our country progressed from this time?

These novels, and others like them, pushed the populist movement in America at the turn of the 20th century. The populist movement is responsble for labor unions, anti-trust laws, economic regulations, and Keynsian economic theories. The populist movement in America helped to move America to a more socialist system from a laissez-faire economic system. The populists cried out that the common workers are underprivledged and needed the government and labor unions to intervene to make their living and working conditions better. After almost a century of government intervention and manipulation of the economy, are we better off as a country?

A century ago, there was a poor working class and underclass of Americans. Today, there is still poor underclass of Americans. The difference is that the underclass of today is a result of the economic planning and intervention of the government instead of corporations. Candidates now insist on government intervention to create jobs in places like Michigan where the automakers have moved out because the labor unions made it unprofitable for the corporations to remain. No longer do oil companies take land from individuals, it is the government claiming eminent domain for the vague purpose of "economic development."

Government spending has increased exponentially because John Maynard Keynes convinced a few politicians in the 1930's that the government can spend us into prosperity instead of allowing our corporations and business owners to create jobs. The growth of the government sector is one of the reasons we have an underclass of people. The corporations of America were operated by William Randolph Hearst, Rockefeller, and JP Morgan, men who sought money and power and created jobs and innovations in the process. Now, America is ruled by career politicians who also seek money and power but only work to stifle invotation and stop job creation by regulating the economy.

So, I ask you now, even after Upton Sinclair exposed corporate greed in America a century ago, are we better off as a nation? You must remember that "greedy" enterpreneuers drive the American economy, not greedy politicians that support government spending, but continue to prop up the underclass in an effort to assure themselves of votes. Upton Sinclair fought corporate monopolies in his day. I dare say that he would be just as angry with the government monopoly today as he was with the corporate monopolies of 1905.