Commanding Heights

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The role that the government played in chapter two, “The Curse of Bigness,” of Commanding Heights in relation to the rest of the world was to create regulations. The New Deal was what was created to establish the rules and regulations in the United States, in regards to the stock market. It also created jobs by using government programs such as TVA. The TVA program was initiated in order to create jobs, which they were hoping would help boost up the stock market. Luckily as they had planed it did in fact create more job availability which did in turn boost the stock market thus helping the entire economy, as it was trying to crawl out of the depression. By the late nineteenth century the United States was on its way to becoming an industrial nation. This is due to the creation of the interstate commerce commission (ICC). The ICC was the first major attempt by the government to control the economy. The economy at this time was based on the railroads across the country and the ICC was created to regulate the railroads. The ICC regulated rates as well as required just treatment of shippers and communities. The ICC became the model for future regulatory commissions. The government found regulation necessary only after the local newspapers bashed the country because of its industrial setting. The term “muckrakers” was use by President Theodore Roosevelt in order to insult the media that was bashing America’s image.
The majority of the government regulation was focused on one issue. The issue the government was worried the most about was bigness and monopolies. The monopolies appeared to have only one intention and that one intention was to extinguish the atomistic world of small, family-owned enterprises. The monopolies were referred to as “the red hot event.” What the muckrakers were saying by this is that the number one focus at this time of the economy was definitely the monopolies. President Roosevelt felt that not all monopolies were bad. He separated the monopolies into “good trust and bad trust.” He felt that monopolies should be scrutinized under the publics’ eye.

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