The People's Party: Social Reform

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Setting the scene of a country whose social and political institutions are rapidly deteriorating, the platform of the People’s Party calls for vast social reform. The People’s Party claims that the government’s corruption, the people’s demoralization, and the degradation of the media are all the result of the rich and powerful taking control of the nation’s institutions and using them for their own gain. The transition from the usage of gold and silver to paper currencies, lorded as a “vast conspiracy against mankind” (p. 75), along with institutions such as the Pinkerton system are used to illustrate the height of corruption found within the government. The solution to this problem, the People’s Party postulates, is to return powers of the …show more content…

Furthermore, the industries deemed necessary for life in the modern era, such as the railroads; banks; telephone and telegraph systems; and the land provided through land grants, should be owned and operated by the government to ensure that they are used towards the ends of protecting and uplifting the people. Furthermore, the People’s party suggests the implementation of a graduated tax system to alleviate the burden placed on those with a lower income and the establishment of labor unions to empower the people within the private sector. The People’s Party argues that if these reforms are implemented, “oppression, injustice, and poverty, shall cease to exist in this land” (p. …show more content…

Though the common man still faced many oppressive realities, his net gain compared to his colonial counterpart was positive. However, I feel that by providing examples such as the Pinkerton System, though they have lost their context through the passage of time, the People’s Party effectively demonstrate the need for the government to provide protections for the common man to correct the issues they were facing, though to a much lesser extent than they proposed. I believe that we are seeing the beginning of a similar conversation today analogs to the one discussed in these essays with the movement from a society dominated by industry to one where more jobs are becoming computerized and replaceable with artificial intelligence. People are starting to become uneasy with the fact that a few companies, such as Google; Facebook; and Amazon, have become a dominant influence in so many American’s lives. They are collecting terabytes of data daily and have the potential to influence the national conversation, while all levels of government have been receptive to their desires. I think that the general population is tending to side with, though perhaps not to the same extreme as, the People’s Party, over-romanticizing the past and fighting against what Sumner would call an unstoppable force of social

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