Entrepreneurial Adventure: The Development of Economics in The United States
“Capitalism came in the first ships.” -Carl N. Degler Barit Brown United States
History Saturday, March 18, 2000 4,753 words The United States was a nation of
development. It was a nation of growth and of innovation. From the signing of
the Declaration of Independence, to the end of World War II and so forth,
complex dilemmas called for complex solutions and complex solutions called for
innovation.
While, many aspects of American Culture were built and perfected throughout
the developmental years, none was more influential or powerful than the forming
of the American Economic System. The history of economics in the United States
can, most appropriately, be divided into two main sub-sections of development:
technology and thought.
Where between the introductions of the Constitution in 1787 up until
around 1880, the only way for the ever-expanding nation to keep on top of it’s
growth was to develop the most sophisticated network of communication and
transportation, tying the nation together and maintaining the closeness that no
other country had ever had before. The prosperous nation of freedom and liberty
was fueled by growth—socially, geographically, and most importantly,
technologically.
The period of time between the introduction of the Constitution (1787) and
the last period of Reconstruction (1877) was one of the most innovative and
influential periods in American history. As the country developed during these
times, its economic system was molded and formed to the supposed best that it
could be. Built on imitations and variances of existing nations economies, it
became what was to be the cornerstone for modern day international capitalist
economy.
What made the United States the primary benefactor was its people’s “almost
universal ambition to get forward”, thus creating the need for the technological
innovations and sociological revolutions which became the building blocks of
modern day economics (Taylor, 4). With new technologies being found everywhere,
the merchant classes attempted to mold an entirely new, productive economic
system—albeit good or bad—which The United States still rests upon today.
Without these technological innovations, the country could never have
developed in the way that it did—provided that other countries did not develop
these technologies first, but in which case The United States would not have
retained the influential power that it holds today. The task of redefining
economics would prove to be an extremely difficult one—sometimes requiring
technologies or tactics that had yet to be discovered.
The year 1815 marked the highpoint of merchant-capitalism and signified
the start of a period where large-scale communication and transportation
innovations first made their appearance (Taylor, 6). During this time the United
States’ economy was primarily agricultural and, because of the tack of
transportation, the Atlantic coast merchants directed virtually all of U.S.
commerce, composing nearly 85% of the population and therefore creating a
merchant-capitalist economy (Taylor, 6). With such extreme division of
manufacturing, as related to geographic location, only a revolutionary
development in both transportation and communication would make any form of
industrial expansion feasible.
