When he died in 1848, John Jacob Astor was America’s richest man, leaving a fortune of $20 million that had been earned mainly from real estate and fur trading. Despite his riches, Astor’s business was mainly a one-man show. He employed only a handful of workers, most of them clerks. This was typical of his time, when the farmer, the craftsman, the small partnership and the independent merchant ruled the economy. Only 50 years later, almost everything had changed. Giant industrial enterprises — making steel, producing oil, refining sugar and much more — had come to dominate.
The rise of big business is one of the seminal events in American history, and if you want to think about it intelligently, you consult historian Alfred D. Chandler Jr., its pre-eminent chronicler. At 88, Chandler has retired from the Harvard Business School but is still churning out books and articles. It is an apt moment to revisit his ideas because the present upheavals in business are second only to those of a century ago.
Until Chandler, the emergence of big business was all about titans. The Rockefellers, Carnegies and Fords were either “robber barons” whose greed and ruthlessness allowed them to smother competitors and establish monopolistic empires. Or they were “captains of industry” whose genius and ambition laid the industrial foundations for modern prosperity. But when Chandler meticulously examined business records, he uncovered a more subtle story. New technologies (the railroad, telegraph and steam power) favored the creation of massive businesses that needed — and, in turn, gave rise to — superstructures of professional managers: engineers, accountants and supervisors.
Daily Archives: October 25, 2006
Tammy Baldwin on Earmarks
I received an email recently from Tammy Baldwin regarding my post on the excesses of congressional earmarks – using our checkbooks:
Dear Mr. Zellmer,
Thank you for contacting me regarding earmark reform. It is good
to hear from you, and I apologize for the delay in my response.Like you, I am concerned about unnecessary government spending.
In recent years, government spending has increased dramatically,
creating unprecedented national debt. Continued, large-scale
deficit spending is unquestionably poor public policy. Many have
suggested that one of the ways to cut spending is to reform the
practice of “earmarks”, which are appropriation amendments that
fund specific projects. In the current climate of excessive
spending, reforming this amendment process will not go far
enough. The government is spending billions of dollars a day on
the Iraq War while simultaneously lowering tax revenue by cutting
taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals. This shifts the
burden onto the middle and lower-income earners who are unable
to support such extensive spending.At the current rate, the United States is adding one trillion dollars
to our national debt every eighteen months. According to the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if the President’s current tax
and spending polices are continued over the next ten years, the
yearly deficit will increase to $439 billion as soon as 2014. The
national debt will skyrocket to $14.5 trillion, almost double today’s
level. Clearly, this course of fiscal irresponsibility cannot be
sustained. I believe Congress must return to fiscal discipline, such
as in the late 1990s when we turned annual federal deficits into
surpluses. Rest assured that I will keep your views in mind
regarding earmark reform as the debate over fiscal responsibility
and the federal budget continues.Again, thank you for sharing your views. Your opinion matters to
me. If I can be of service to you in any other way, please do not
hesitate to let me know. As a result of the anthrax incidents, all
mail sent to Congress is first irradiated. This process causes
significant delays. To ensure the fastest response, I encourage all
constituents who have access to the internet to contact me through
my website at http://tammybaldwin.house.gov.Sincerely,
Tammy Baldwin
Member of Congress
I appreciate the email. Baldwin gets points (or her office) for emailing responses whereas our Senators continue to send dead tree responses to electronic inquiries. Tammy’s House & Campaign websites. Her opponent in this falls race is Dave Magnum.
Fall
