{"id":25533,"date":"2023-03-18T12:06:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T19:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=25533"},"modified":"2023-03-18T12:06:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T19:06:13","slug":"capitalisms-conclusion-part-ii-robber-barons-musk-and-bezos-bring-back-the-gilded-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/03\/18\/capitalisms-conclusion-part-ii-robber-barons-musk-and-bezos-bring-back-the-gilded-age\/","title":{"rendered":"CAPITALISM’S CONCLUSION, PART II: ROBBER BARONS MUSK AND BEZOS BRING BACK THE GILDED AGE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

THU, 3\/16\/2023 – BY\u00a0CARL GIBSON<\/a> (Occupy.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Capitalism\u2019s Conclusion is an exclusive Occupy.com series analyzing capitalism in its end stage, and the conditions that led to its inevitable decline. (Click here<\/a> to read Part I.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On its surface, tech billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s plan to build a town in Texas for workers employed at his companies sounds relatively harmless. According to Architectural Digest (citing the Wall Street Journal), Musk has as many as 6,000 acres<\/a> near the town of Bastrop, Texas in which SpaceX and Boring Company employees could live and work. The town would be called \u201cSnailbrook,\u201d in reference to the Boring Company\u2019s mascot:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incorporating his own town would allow Musk to make some of his own regulations and dodge the slowdown effects of bureaucracy\u2026 Another benefit of the project would be providing employees with lower-than-market-rate housing. Snailbrook, although not yet an incorporated township, reportedly already has some modular homes, plus a public pool, gym, and outdoor sports area. An advertisement for Boring Co. employees last year touted two- to three-bedroom homes for rent starting at $800 a month, while the median rent in the area is about $2,200 a month, according to the Journal\u2019s report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to note that what Musk is planning is simply a company town. And while the tech industry of today is different than the railroad industry of the onset of the industrial revolution, billionaires like Elon Musk and Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos are no different than the robber barons of the early 20th century, like the Vanderbilt family and the Rockefellers. And luckily, the solutions to stop today\u2019s robber barons from halting the century of progress workers have made are the same as those of yesteryear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ELON MUSK REINVENTS THE COMPANY TOWN<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Company towns are not new, and were a staple of the late 19th century and early 20th century \u201cGilded Age\u201d defined by historic wealth inequality and working class revolt. The PBS documentary Slavery By Another Name<\/a> describes how company towns \u2013 in which a single company owns all of the homes and businesses on an often remote plot of acreage \u2013 were particularly oppressive to workers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some situations, company towns developed out of a paternalistic effort to create a utopian worker\u2019s village. Churches, schools, libraries, and other amenities were constructed in order to encourage healthy communities and productive workers. Saloons or other places or services believed to be negative influences were prohibited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other cases, the company\u2019s motivations were less ideal. The remoteness and lack of transportation prevented workers from leaving for other jobs or to buy from other, independent merchants. In some cases, companies paid employees with a scrip that was only good at company stores. Without external competition, housing costs and groceries in company towns could become exorbitant, and the workers built up large debts that they were required to pay off before leaving. Company towns often housed laborers in fenced-in or guarded areas, with the excuse that they were \u201cprotecting\u201d laborers from unscrupulous traveling salesmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pullman, Chicago is perhaps the most notorious example of a company town. In the late 1800s, workers in the company town of Pullman (named for the railroad executive that built it) went on strike due to the strict conditions<\/a> the Pullman Palace Car Company imposed on workers and residents. This included everything from banning workers from owning homes (all homes were rental only), banning town meetings, and even restricting what kinds of plays could be performed at the local theater and what books could be checked out from the library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Panic of 1893, Pullman laid off hundreds of workers, and reduced wages while refusing to lower rents and utility costs for workers in the company town. These conditions led to the Pullman Strike<\/a> between May and July of 1894. In the short term, this led to a massive strike of more than 100,000 railroad workers who refused to hitch Pullman cars, an injunction issued by anti-union judges, federal troops deployed to break up the strike, and the arrest of American Railway Union president Eugene V. Debs. However, in the long term, the Pullman Strike made Americans more sympathetic to organized labor causes, and led to unions and workers securing more victories in the years to come. Company towns eventually became a thing of the past once workers acquired automobiles in the 1920s and workers no longer had to reside near their workplaces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It remains to be seen what will happen with Snailbrook \u2013 Elon Musk\u2019s company town \u2013 though for now it seems that the town will eventually be built. Should conditions there become untenable, workers hoping to unionize will face an uphill battle, as Musk\u2019s antipathy toward organized labor is well-documented. The tech CEO, who also owns Tesla, is currently in the middle of litigation<\/a> following Tesla workers filing complaints with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Workers argued to the NLRB that Musk\u2019s threat to withhold stock compensation<\/a> for Tesla employees who joined a union was an illegal intimidation tactic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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AMAZON WAREHOUSES: THE NEW TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORIES?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This March 25 will mark the 122nd anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire<\/a>, in which 146 Triangle Waist Company workers \u2013 most of whom were young Italian and Jewish immigrant girls \u2013 died due to unsafe working conditions. The exterior doors and stairwells of the Asch Building in Lower Manhattan were locked at the time of the fire, which was customary at that time in order to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and\/or stealing company property. Because the workers had no way to escape the fire, many jumped to their deaths from factory windows between the 8th and 10th floors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite working six days a week for roughly 52 hours, the workers were paid between $7 and $12 per week<\/a>, according to an article in the summer 2011 edition of New York Archives. In 2023 dollars, this would amount to roughly $213 and $366 per week, or $4 to $7 per hour. Despite the catastrophic death toll, the factory owners were acquitted of first and second-degree manslaughter charges<\/a>. The only form of accountability for the two owners came in the form of a wrongful death judgment to the tune of $75 per victim ($2,289 in inflation-adjusted dollars, for a total of $334,194). They were more than made whole for their slight financial loss, as their insurance company paid them roughly $400 per victim (approx. $12,211 in today\u2019s dollars, or more than $1.7 million in total). Two years after the fire, one of the owners was found guilty of keeping the doors locked during working hours, and was fined the maximum penalty of just $20<\/a> (roughly $610 today).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Jeff Bezos has yet to have a Triangle Shirtwaist Fire-type incident at any Amazon warehouses, workers at his warehouses have nonetheless experienced an inordinate amount of deaths in recent years:<\/p>\n\n\n\n