| steven787 said: That's my point, if you weigh all the good and bad, then Lincoln is far from the worst. You must also include the impact the president had on the country after his reign. Lincoln had far more positive impact on the progression towards voluntary national unity, minority equality, and industrialization than he probably thought he would have. Cleveland had much more negative long term impact. By using the military to enforce the judicial injunction, he caused a back lash that would lead to more government involvement in business and industry; even though that is not what he intended. If he had not done that, industrialist would have been more eager to pay fair wages and provide appropriate benefits that the market (the labor market) demanded. This would have been better for everyone than having government first restricting the power of the worker, then backtracking and overcompensating. It's not a free market if the government is shooting and arresting demonstrators and strikers. That would be corporatism and leading to fascism; of course, it's not Fascism when we do it. A free market system would demand that the government not get involved, and the business owners would then increase wages to get the workers they needed. |
No, it is a free market economy when government enforces the protection of private property. The strikers were dismantling trains and violating the private property rights of the Pullman company. I am uncertain as to why you continually refer to Cleveland as a corporatist. He was the furthest thing from a corporatist. He was friend of neither labor nor business. He refused to intervene and create public work projects in a vain attempt to end the recession. He was not a corporatist but a proponent of laissez-faire economic policies.
The decrease in wages was to be expected. There was a recession and demand for Pullman's train cars decreased precipitously. I do not have the "numbers," so I cannot ascertain if the reduction in wages was concurrent with the recession, but it does make sense in theory that wages decrease as the demand for labor decreases.
