Robber Barons Vs Transcendentalists

The Role of the Government Robber Barons and Transcendentalists were two prominent groups of people in the United States during the time period post Civil War. Transcendentalists are people who believe in the philosophy that our knowledge of reality comes from an analysis of our own thought processes, rather than from scientific evidence. People who make profit through corrupt or questionable means are considered Robber Barons. In the article Resistance to Civil Government, the author Henry David Thoreau wrote, “That government is best which governs least” (Thoreau). Both Transcendentalists and Robber Barons would agree with this quote. According to the beliefs of the Robber Barons and Transcendentalists, an ideal government would be one that

Robber Barons believed in a laissez-faire government. Robber Barons at this time were the wealthy owners of large businesses, and big businesses wanted a laissez-faire government. If the economy was run in a hands off way, it wouldn’t be regulated. Big business owners would not want a regulated economy because it would prevent them from expanding and getting more money. “Among the great misconceptions of the free economy is the widely-held belief that laissez-faire embodies a natural tendency toward monopoly concentration” (Reed). As Lawrence W. Reed points out, the idea that laissez-faire leads to an automatic efficiency monopoly in which companies earn their share of the market because of how good of a job it does compared to other companies in the same industry is false. Robber Barons such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, and John Rockefeller would have wanted a laissez-faire government because it creates a coercive monopoly. In this type of monopoly, companies bribe the government to give them subsidies or grants of exclusive privilege to make a profit. For example, “Leland Stanford, a former governor and US Senator from California, used his political connections to have the state pass laws prohibiting competition for his Central Pacific Railroad, and he and his business partners profited from this monopoly scheme” (DiLorenzo). Because of the corrupt ways Robber Barons got their wealth, this type of government was perfect for them. The Robber Barons would agree with Thoreau’s quote, because a hands off government would govern very