Philadelphia's Workhouse of the World and The Economy

Disston Steel Works, Philadelphia, PA

The City of Philadelphia is a tale of two cities. In one tale, we find a city of large, mostly empty, corporate office buildings reaching out skyward to an uncertain, and very shaky, future while the second tale tells a story of  Philadelphia's greater past.

Sometimes, one has to look into the past to see a way into the future.

At one time, Philadelphia was known as the workhouse of the world for it was a city comprised of thousands of job opportunities to be found in shops, shipyards and manufacturing centers. Take a drive through Philadelphia and you will find the remnants of seamstress factories, hat shops, textile shops, tanners, metal workers, dye makers, print shops, ice makers, refrigerator factories, locomotive factories, foundries, brickmakers, shipyards, granaries and iron works. At one time, Philadelphia boasted a workforce numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

All of that, however, is gone. Where once there was employment, jobs in Philadelphia are now hard, if not impossible, to find.

1918 Seattle General Strike

Corporate Greed

What is to blame for all of this? The times change for sure. Not many people wear hats nor is there a great need for tanners. Greed and mismanagement, however, are also partly to blame. Both labor unions and corporations must equally share the blame for American industries moving overseas where labor and material can be easily exploited. Unions demand sometimes ridiculous wages and benefits. Why does a UAW (United Auto Worker) who is making $40 an hour be paid benefits? Why pay a US worker minimum wage when you can pay a Third World worker 10 cents an hour and increase your profit margin? Instead of working together to keep the business afloat, industry leaders and unions have fought each other to the point where they are both now endanger of becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs.

American industry leaders are no longer inventive. New ideas are put into action based now, on cost and profit margins, rather than on long term gain. Because of this, we have fallen behind our European and Asian competitors who are much more patient and forward looking than we are.

U.S. Capitol Building

The U.S. Government has also played a hand in destroying American industries. They have over-regulated our industries so much that they are no longer productive. The government needs to loosen the bonds some. We need to encourage our industries, not keep them in check. We need to become competitive with our foreign competition. We should reward creativity and job creation; not stifle it.

American laborers

We need to bring our industries back home to America where they belong. We need to create jobs for Americans; not to foreigners. Does this mean we should break up the monopoly dominated by corporations? Maybe so. Of course, by doing so we would also have to curtail the power of the labor union. Worker's salaries should be fair and competitive; an honest day's wage for an honest day's work. Capitalism should always be about competition and free markets; not about market dominance.

The Government's answer to our industrial woe is to offer bailouts to poorly managed companies and to give handouts to the American people. In other words, the only solution our leaders can find to this problem is to offer both corporate and personal welfare. Americans don't want government handouts as much as they want a job. It does a man (or woman) good to see the fruits of their labors and to reap the benefits of their own work by having a little spending money in their pocket.

Henry Ford and his Model-T

Our industrial system definitely needs an overhaul but we don't need the socialism being offered by the Democrats. During the reign of communism which prevailed over Eastern Europe I can't seem to recall any Warsaw Pact nation ranking in the top ten when it came to Gross National Product. No, we don't need socialism as much as we do a return to old-school style capitalism. We need a breakup of monopolies and more competition amongst ourselves. Competition will only create more jobs. We need free markets. Unions and corporations need to be put into check and be made to work together (which is something a hero of mine, Teddy Roosevelt, tried to do in the early 20th Century). 

America was a creative, industrious nation once and, with a little turning of the wrench, we can be again.